China and the West

Margarete Roye ist Missionarin und Krankenschwester der Berliner Mission in Shiying.

Georg Schramm ist Missionar der Berliner Mission in Nan'sn.

Wilhelm Schwarm ist Missionar und Leiter der Schule der Berliner Mission in Xinhui (Guangdong).

Paul Otto Hugentobler ist Missionar in Qiqihar.

Eugen Imhof ist Rektor in Yonghetun-Lindian.

Gustav Schnetzler ist Missionar in Changfatun.

Franz Fröhling ist Missionar in Subutai.

Louis Andres studiert Chinesisch und ist Vikar in Changfatun.

Otto Hiltl studiert Chinesisch und ist Missionar in Chuantaozi.

Irene Hanson reist in Shandong und lehrt Christentum bis zur japanischen Besetzung

Russell, Bertrand. What is happening in China ? [ID D28427].
"In many ways the Chinese are the most civilised nation in the world, and it is infinitely shameful that we should make it our business to teach them lessons in barbarity." This is how Bertrand Russell sums up his conclusions on the present situation in China. He suggests a policy for the Labour Party which might bring great benefits both to China and this country. -
To understand what has been happening in China is difficult for the ordinary man, and impossible for officials who have had long experience of that country as it used to be. Probably no country except Russia has changed so much during the present century. The changes have been visible for a number of years to those who had a sympathetic knowledge of young China, but have only recently become obvious to men who, like almost all British officials and merchants, regarded young China with contempt. A few words of history are necessary to explain the situation.
The Powers take sides.
The Revolution of 1911 overthrew the Manchu Dynasty and established, nominally, a democratic Republic. This was mainly the work of Sun Yat-sen. But Yuan She-kai, the 'strong man' favoured by the British, controlled the Northern troops, and only agreed to support the Republicans on condition of being made the first President. He governed unconstitution¬ally, and tried, without success, to make himself Emperor. When he died, there was no longer any legal Government, and his Generals quarrelled, as they have continued to do down to the present day. Naturally the great Powers took sides (some¬what surreptitiously) in these disputes. Wu Pei-fu (at present more or less in eclipse) was the British favourite ; Chang Tso-lin, in Manchuria, is the henchman of Japan ; Feng Yu-hsiang, the Christian General, is the favourite of the Soviet Government and the military champion of Chinese nationalism. Of course, the actions of the Powers have made the ending of Chinese anarchy more difficult.
In Canton, which was controlled by Sun Yat-sen from 1920 till his death, there is a more Radical Government than in the North. This Government has been increasingly hated by Hongkong, partly because of its Labour sympathies, partly because the development of Canton as a port is capable of ruining Hongkong. At present the relations between Hongkong and Canton are only just short of war. The massacre last June at Shameen (the foreign quarter of Canton) was even more brutal and destructive than the Shanghai massacre, but obtained less publicity, because British propa¬ganda had a firmer hold over the sources of information.
It has come as a surprise to the British in China to find that it is more difficult than it used to be to suppress the demand for justice towards China. The Japanese appear to have been quicker to learn this lesson. During the war they were the worst oppressors of China, but since the Washington Confer¬ence they have shown themselves much more conciliatory. Although the trouble in Shanghai started with a labour dispute in a Japanese mill, during which a Chinese working man was brutally murdered, the work of suppression was mainly under¬taken by the British, who have come in for the largest share of odium in consequence. The American Government, in all its dealings with China, has behaved with enlightened self-interest and was the best friend of China until the rise of the Soviet Republic. Now Russia is the main external supporter of Chinese nationalism, in spite of the fact that this movement is genuinely nationalistic, not Bolshevik.
An Educational Awakening.
The causes of the increased resistance of China to foreign oppression are several, of which three are specially important. I put first the spread of modern education. For 2,000 years the Chinese have been governed by their most highly educated men ; now these men have imbibed Western knowledge without acquiring a respect for Western practice. The injustice of the old treaties (especially that of 1842, following the Opium War) is now obvious to every educated Chinese. Under these treaties, foreigners are not subject to Chinese laws or Chinese justice ; the Treaty Ports are practically sovereign States, where foreign merchants control almost all the external commerce of China, and allow the Chinese no voice in the Government; the Customs Tariff is fixed by treaty and the Customs Revenue is collected by foreigners, as is also the Salt Tax ; foreign war¬ships assemble at Shanghai, and foreign gun-boats anchor hundreds of miles up the Yangze, in the very heart of the country. No foreign loan can be concluded except through the Consortium, a group of privileged banks, British, French, American and Japanese. These conditions make the nominal independence of China a mockery, and naturally men who understand the sources of power and the way in which power is used for economic exploitation resent the enslavement of their country to foreign nations which they see no reason to respect.
The leaders in the nationalist movement of the past months have been the professors of the National University of Peking, where the education is modern, but where there is no European control. Students have had a profound influence by propa¬ganda among merchants, wage-earners, and even soldiers ; their influence has exceeded anything that Europeans could have foreseen, because, in China, learning is respected.
The second cause of the revolt of China against foreign domination was the war and the Treaty of Versailles. The Japanese conquered from the Germans the province of Shantung, which contains about thirty million inhabitants, and the birth-place of Confucius. When, in 1917. the Allies were engaged in inducing China to join in the war, the Americans held out hopes that Shantung would be restored to China at the Peace, while England, France and Tsarist Russia con¬cluded secret treaties with Japan, promising that Shantung should remain Japanese. When this came out, and was embodied in the Treaty of Versailles, because President Wilson considered Shantung less important than Fiume, it did not increase the respect of China for the morality of Europe. And the mere fact of the war made the Chinese feel that Western civilisation was not such a fine thing as its missionaries pretended.
The third cause of the new attitude in China is the ferment produced by the spectacle of Russia—not so much by Bolshevik propaganda as by the knowledge that Russia had succeeded in throwing off the financial dominion of the West and was prepared to help other Asiatic nations to do likewise. This is a fact of immense importance throughout Asia, against which the British Foreign Office is powerless. It is not for their Communism, but for their championship of economic indepen¬dence, that the Bolsheviks are admired in China. And for this they deserve the admiration they receive.
The amount of Communism in China is infinitesimal, if Communism means the adoption of a certain economic doctrine. China is a country of peasants, handicraftsmen and merchants ; a country accustomed to an extraordinarily small amount of central government. In such a country Communism is technicaly and psychologically quite impossible. But the influence of the Bolsheviks throughout Asia is in no way due to their Com¬munist doctrine. It is due to the fact that they have taken the side of Asia as against Europe and that they have succeeded, at the cost of terrible suffering, in emancipating themselves from the financial domination of the West. The prestige of white men in Asia depended upon their acting in unison against men with any different pigmentation. The war and the Bolshevik revolution put an end to this co-operation which cannot possibly be revived until the relations between Russia and the West are radically changed. But although differences of economic doctrine underlie the conflict between Russia and the West, it is agreement in politics, not in economics, that leads to friendship between Russia and China. The hostility of the Soviet Government to Chang Tso-lin is really an example of this friendship, since Chang Tso-lin is a tool of the foreign oppressors of China.
The Weapon of the Boycott.
As a result of these causes, the educated minority in China, to whom the nation is accustomed to look for leadership, have adopted an attitude which is new in the history of the country. They are not anti-foreign, like the Boxers ; they recognise that China, like Japan, must learn from the West. But they desire that degree of national independence which is possessed by European nations. They see that, by different roads, Japan, Russia, and Turkey have emancipated themselves, and they wish China to do likewise. The method of resistance by force of arms is not feasible, partly because of the anarchy, partly because the Chinese are not a warlike people. This may change in time, but for the present the method of the boycott is the natural one to adopt. As against Hongkong, this method has been practised with extraordinary success ; the British in that city would have starved but for a loan of millions from the home Government. Canton has been entirely justified from the point of view of self-defence. Hongkong stirred up Fascist rebellions in Canton, an employee of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank being prominent among the Fascisti. The Europeans in Shameen, led by the British, brutally massacred a large number of Chinese engaged in a peaceful demonstration outside the limits of the Foreign Concession. Of what has been done in the way of secret intrigue, it is difficult to get reliable evidence ; but of the stream of propaganda against Canton, all the telegrams from Hongkong in our newspapers are indubitable proof.
The Chinese are now demanding tariff autonomy (virtually conceded), abolition of extra-territoriality, and a drastic modi¬fication of the régime in the Treaty Ports. Germans, Austrians, and Russians have lost their extra-territorial rights as a con¬sequence of the war ; thus in effect the nations concerned are Great Britain, America, France, and Japan. The interests of France are less than those of the other three. America has always taken up a liberal attitude towards China, and Japan has thought it prudent to do so since her set-back at the Washington Conference in 1921. Consequently the odium of defending the old injustices has fallen mainly upon the British Government. The matter has been most grossly mishandled from the point of view of British interests. The massacres at Shanghai and Shameen were bound to rouse fury throughout China, but if our Government had promptly and publicly acceded to the demand for punishment of the culprits, the indignation could not have extended to the British nation in general. As it is, our China trade (particularly in the South) has suffered because we preferred massacre to money. We brought on the boycott because we were not willing to forego the pleasure of firing upon unarmed crowds.
The Danger to Peace.
It is too late now for mild palliative measures. The Chinese are roused, and are quite capable of securing their objects by passive resistance, even supposing the anarchy continues. The situation is, of course, very dangerous from the standpoint of world peace. The recent dispute between the Soviet Govern¬ment and Chang Tso-lin about the Chinese Eastern Railway might have led to a clash between Russia and Japan if either Power had failed to show moderation. The Governor of Hongkong has stated that his Government is prepared to take drastic steps to put an end to the Canton boycott of Hongkong. This, if it means anything, means action which must be resented by the Soviet Government. If the British Government were not afraid of effective resistance on the part of British labour, we should before now have found ourselves involved in a war in China against the Chinese and Russians combined ; in such a conflict not a shred of right would have been on our side.
It is true, of course, that much of the European oppression in China is justified by treaties. These treaties, however, were concluded as the result of aggressive wars, and the Manchu Government, which signed them, was wholly ignorant of the modern world. To attempt to hold modern China to these old treaties is like demanding of a grown-up man that he shall be crippled for life by a contract made with a moneylender while he was a minor. In this case the Courts recognise the invalidity of the contract; but in international affairs there is no analogous mechanism. Nevertheless, China is now in a position to demand radical changes in the old treaties. The only question is whether we are to resist up to the last moment, and yield to nothing- but the threat of ruin, or whether we are to concede willingly and cheerfully what is obviously just. If we do the latter, the new regime can begin with friendly feeling on the part of China ; if the former, every other nation will be preferred to us. It is obvious to every sane man that justice and self- interest are on the same side ; but this is not the opinion of anybody in the Government or the Foreign Office.
A Policy for Labour.
The policy of the Labour Party should be clear in these circumstances. Tariff autonomy, demanded by the Chinese at the Tariff Conference now sitting, seems likely to be carried ; this is an important step. But this is a very different thing from autonomy in the collection of the customs. At present the Inspector-General of Customs (who has to be British) is appointed by the Chinese Government, and himself appoints all the other Customs officials and controls the funds. This system cannot easily be altered, as the Customs revenue is largely pledged to pay the interest on various loans. A closely similar situation exists as regards the Salt Tax. Again, there are difficulties as regards the Treaty Ports. Shanghai, in particular, is a European city of fabulous wealth, not in any degree subject to Chinese control ; it may be doubted whether there would be anything like so much wealth if autonomy were abrogated. So long as China has no stable Government, such arguments must be allowed a certain weight. It will therefore be necessary, for a time, to adopt measures designed to ease the transition, and such measures will have to be adopted by agreement among the Powers concerned. Take the case of the International Settlement in Shanghai, where the difficulties have been most acute. To begin with, the immense majority of its inhabitants are Chinese, but no Chinese has a vote for the Municipal Council. This is an injustice which should be remedied immediately. In the second place, all legal disputes, whether civil or criminal, between Chinese and foreigners are tried by foreigners, naturally with results which bear little relation to justice. If, here and now, it were decided that they should all be tried by Chinese, there would be equally little justice. The proper course would be to have both Chinese and foreign judges in all cases where both Chinese and foreigners are involved, until such time as the Chinese have a sufficient body of trained jurists to be able to do the work efficiently themselves. Another matter which might be conceded at once is respect for Chinese territorial waters : no war¬ships of foreign navies should approach the coasts of China, still less sail up the rivers, except at the invitation of the Chinese Government. At present foreigners can (and do) massacre Chinese with impunity, but if one foreigner is killed, the Chinese are made to pay an exorbitant indemnity and very likely forced to yield economic or political concessions. Another point should be concerned with loans; the Governments of the Powers should agree that henceforth they will not act as debt- collectors for their nationals. At present, the British taxpayer has to pay for the expense of enforcing payment due to such wealthy corporations as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank this is absurd as well as unjust. There is thus a great deal which could be done at once, and the British Government ought to take the lead in urging that it should be done ; the other Powers would almost certainly concur.
There are larger matters, however, which cannot be done in a day, though they will have to be done at the earliest possible moment. The chief are the abolition of extra-territoriality and the retrocession of the Treaty Ports. It is nearly certain that the Chinese will soon be in a position to exhort these conces¬sions by force, and it would be obviously wiser to initiate negotiations with a view to making them voluntarily. It is naked capitalism that stands in the way, and there can be no ultimate and complete cure except a socialistic control over economic adventure in distant countries. It is to be hoped that, when we next have a Labour Government in this country, it will take steps to ascertain what is happening in distant parts of the world. Of course, merchants and officials hang together, and so long as a Labour Government is content to rely upon official sources of information it will never know anything except what capitalists wish it to know. The late Government made the mistake of assuming intelligent loyalty in public servants towards policies whi.ch they neither liked nor understood. Those who take Socialism seriously will not expect to see it established by the work of its enemies.
Conclusion.
To sum up : China is at the moment still in the state of anarchy into which it fell after the death of Yuan Shi-kai, but there are signs that this anarchy will be ended as a result of the Nationalist movement, since soldiers are increasingly unwilling to fight for unpatriotic Generals. The potential strength of China is so great that a very small amount of enthusiasm and organisation would suffice to drive the foreigners into the sea. The amount of good done by foreigners in China is infinitesimal in comparison with the amount of harm, and so long as their special privileges are preserved, this will continue to be the case. The Chinese realise this, and are determined to extort justice. In their demand for justice they are vigorously sup¬ported by the Soviet Government, which has played so far an almost wholly beneficent part in China. Other foreign Govern¬ments would be acting both justly and wisely if they were to show the utmost readiness to make concessions. At the same time, the financial interests which have grown up under our protection and with the guarantee of our support, are so vast that, in a capitalist world, the British Government can hardly be expected to abandon them suddenly. We could do certain things at once : concede an equal voice in the Government of the Treaty Ports to the Chinese living in them ; abandon the practice of introducing warships into Chinese territorial waters without the consent of the Chinese Government ; recognise the Government of Canton and cease to intrigue against it or prevent it from acquiring its share of the Customs revenue ; grant tariff autonomy ; and associate Chinese with foreign jurists in all litigation between Chinese and foreigners. We ought also to express our willingness to cede the Treaty Ports and abandon extra-territoriality at an early date, by methods to be agreed upon between China and the Powers. And, above all, we ought to give up the practice of making Governments the debt-collectors for their nationals.
China is undergoing a most remarkable intellectual renais¬sance, which is disliked and despised by almost all the British in China. The result is already beginning to appear in the political sphere, and will become increasingly evident in the near future. In many ways the Chinese are the most civilised nation in the world, and it is infinitely shameful that we should make it our business to teach them lessons in barbarism.

Russell, Bertrand. The foreign wolf in the Chinese sheepfold : what will happen to him when the sheep learn their lesson ? Review of Gilbert, Rodney. What's wrong with China. London : J. Murray, 1926. [Extract].
The present reviewer can perhaps hardly be expected to be quite impartial towards Mr. Rodney Gilbert's book, in view of the author's attitude to those who are friendly to China, as exemplified in the statement :
'China's future has been much more seriously prejudiced by the ideas imported and peddled by such persons as Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Tagore and Karakhan, than by all opium, morphia, heroin, cocaine and hashish imported or produced in China during the past three centuries'.
Would anyone suppose from this passage that Tagore could scarcely get a hearing in China because his meetings were systematically interrupted by Karakhan's political allies ? The Communists stand for the Westernising of China, Tagore stand for the preservation of the traditional Orient ; either is an intelligible policy, but obviously they have nothing in common.
Not The Last Word
Even their resistance to the West is of two quite different kinds – in the one case cultural, in the other economic and military. Is the belief that Western Capitalism does not represent the last word in wisdom and virtue.
The author, though an American, disapproves violently of what he regards as the milksop sentimentalism of his country's policy in China, and wants the white nations (except Russia) for join in a military conquest, to be followed by 'good government' – i.e., encouragement of exploitation. He endeavours to prove by history that the Chinese have never prospered except under a foreign despotism. If he were Chinese, he could prove the same thesis about England…
Those Fatal Fogs
… So Mr. Gilbert might have written if he had been Chinese – not more inaccurately than he has in fact written. He is an outcome of the 'Nordic' propaganda in the United States, which has dominated recent immigration policy in that country. He holds that everything good is Teutonic, and everything Asiatic (including Christianity) is bad.
At the same time, he hates most in China the Chinese who have become Europeanised, and prefers those who are totally destitute of Western knowledge – presumably because they are easier to exploit. He makes no secret of his Nietzschean morality : -
"In China we are regarded with much the same feelings as a group of polite and sociable wolves would be in a flock of sheep. The sheep have no natural inclination to bite one another, so they can hard together in perfect confidence, but the wolf on his good behavior is always restraining his natural inclination to snap at a fellow or eat a lamb ; so, however well the wolves behave, the sheep are never at their ease when exchanging compliments with them."
Are we content to remain wolves ? Mr. Gilbert says yes : 'Because of our ancestry and our instincts we should be more inclined to admire the well-behaved wolf than the browsing sheep'. The thesis of his book is that the wolf should cease to be 'well-behaved'. At the present moment, the West, under British leadership, is taking his advice, and America, alarmed by the Bolshevik bogy, is more inclined than ever before to fall into line with European imperialism. The Chinese nationalists are being defeated by our henchman, Wu Pei-fu.
But the sheep are learning to imitate the wolves, and when they have driven Mr. Gilbert and his friends into the sea, they will presumably have earned his respect.

Dewey, John. We should deal with China as nation to nation [ID D28619].
In the recent number of the Survey dealing with Oriental problems in their connection with the United States, Mr. Lewis Gannett reports a conversation with General Chiang Kai-shek in Canton. According to Mr. Gannett, the Chinese leader said: 'Thinking men in China hate America more than they hate Japan . . . Japan talks to us in ultimatums; she says frankly she wants special privileges—extraterritoriality, tariff control—in China. We understand that and know how to meet it. The Americans come to us with smiling faces and friendly talk; but in the end your government acts just like the Japanese. And we, disarmed by your fair words, do not know how to meet such insincerity'.
I have no way of knowing how far such statements are representative of Chinese opinion. To some extent they are perhaps colored by local feeling at Canton, which resents the support given by the American government to the Peking government. But nevertheless it is significant that they are held by such a representative person as Chiang Kai-shek. Probably most Americans, including those sympathetic with China, will feel that the statements are unfair, and will incline to be irritated. I do not think they are fair either, but I quote them not to controvert them, but to indicate the great difficulty nations have in understanding each other. For I do not think that American opinion about China, and about the relations of the United States to China, are very fair either as a rule. Yet I do not think that on either side there is a desire to be anything but fair—leaving out the case of those who have something to gain by misrepresentations.
The conclusion I would draw is that official and governmental relations ought to be such that the misunderstandings and unfair statements which develop will do as little harm as is possible. I recognize the great truth in what is constantly said about the importance of nations' understanding one another, appreciating one another's Culture, etc. This is all true. But such understanding and appreciation is of very slow growth, and it will be a long, long time before it will develop to a point where it can be counted upon to regulate international relations. Persons of the same country, of the same culture and tradition, even persons of the same family, find great difficulty in properly understanding one another. We are not as yet sufficiently civilized or sufficiently scientific in our methods to understand one another. I do not believe that for a very long time the mass of Americans are going to see the Orientals as they see and feel themselves, nor do I know any reason why we should expect the mass of Orientals to judge us from the standpoint we take in estimating our own conduct.
It may seem harsh to say that we have to count, for a long time in the future, upon a large measure of misunderstanding between peoples. But I think a frank recognition of this fact would afford a measure of security and protection. It would lessen the amount of exasperation and irritation that grows up when a misunderstanding is revealed and patent. Above all, it would, as has been already suggested, indicate that the great thing is so to direct public policies that the inevitable misunderstandings will, when they arise, be shorn of power to result in practical harm.
It is because I believe that present American governmental policies in China tend to invest misunderstandings with power to work actual evil that I would see those policies changed. It is quite 'natural' that state departments and diplomats should follow traditional policies. One of these traditional policies is that western nations should unite and pursue a common policy in China instead of each nation conducting its diplomacy independently. It is easy to see how from a historical point of view the method grew up. The inertia of diplomacy, the desire to follow precedents, the feeling that it is risky to do anything new, all operate to induce the American state department to continue to act in concert with the foreign offices of other nations in dealing with China. But because I believe it increases international misunderstanding between China and the United States, because it clothes these misunderstandings with power to work practical evil, and because it prevents our state department from actively manifesting and executing what is at least the passive desire of most Americans, I am opposed to it. I think that we should at once deal with China as nation to nation, and leave other nations to pursue a similar independent course. A policy of complete non-intervention may not seem benevolent, but I do not believe that any nation at present is wise enough or good enough to act upon an assumption of altruism and benevolence toward other nations. Till conditions have changed, the great thing is to leave one another alone, and give each nation a chance to manage its own affairs, no matter how inadequate and incompetent the management may seem to us to be.
I think our present policy has also a tendency to prevent Chinese from facing frankly their own situation. As long as the unequal treaties exist, and as long as foreign nations encroach politically—or economically with political support—upon Chinese territory, the Chinese people will use this fact as an alibi. It will minimize its own responsibility for the bad condition of its own affairs and will throw all the blame upon foreigners. Only China can straighten out Chinese affairs. It seems to me that one reason they are not tackling the job with greater energy and persistence is because they can allege foreign policies, including that of the United States, as long as we engage in the diplomatic concert as an excuse. At present, in my opinion—and I recognize how readily opinion may be mistaken—thought and energy that should be directed by Chinese upon their own internal affairs are diverted largely to criticising and blaming foreigners. This is natural; we all love alibis and excuses. But the United States should, as far as it is concerned, abrogate all special privileges and onesided relations so that the attention of the Chinese may centre upon improving their own conditions.
Another reason which has great weight with me in making me believe that our government should change its policy is that when a certain result is seen to be sure to come about sooner or later in any case, it is the part of good-sense to anticipate that result, and see to it that it comes about earlier, and with the least possible disturbance and ill-will. In any case, the present onesided relations with China cannot continue indefinitely. I do not agree with those who think that they can be abrogated without some disturbance, and without some harm resulting to China itself. But with the growing development of national sentiment in China, these evils and disturbances are in my opinion slight in comparison with those which will take place if things are allowed to drift until China of her own initiative and without negotiation with other nations denounces the existing treaties and arrangements.

Xu, Zhimo. Luosu yu you zhi jiao yu. [Russell and child education]. [ID D28404].
Xu Zhimo visited Bertrand Russell during his tour of Europe and stayed in Carn Vole, Porthcurno, Penzance, Cornwall for two days in July 1925.
Russell's house, a light grey square structure of three stories, is surrounded by a low wall. There is a verandah jutting out from the back of the house ; its two pillars are yellow in colour, serving in a way as a remembrance of China… They were going to set up a small structure which would resemble a Chinese pavilion. At the time, I wrote for them a Chinese inscription bearing – I can't remember with certainty – either the characters 'Listening to wind' or 'Facing the wind'. When Russell drove an old car to Penzance station to meet me that day, I almost couldn't recognize him. Every inch a countryman ! His straw hat had holes, and his jacket was torn. If he did wear a necktie that day, it would be like a straw dangling in front of his chest. His shoes, needless to say, were twins with Charley Chaplin's. He held a smoking pipe whose dark brown colour blended well with his skin. But how sharp, how intense and how bright his eyes were. The exterior of a rustic could not conceal the intelligence of a philosopher !
It was Sunday that day… He started with an epigram thus, 'Sunday is the only common tenet shared by both Christians and the trade unionists…' I asked why he and his wife had come to the tip of the south for a recluse's life. Russell said first he wanted to concentrate on writing and second, more importantly, he had to look after the moral education of their kids.
I spent two days there. Listening to Russell is like watching German firecrackers – all sorts of dazzling wonders cracking in the sky in a most amazing way, one group after another and clusters after clusters. You cannot help being amazed, astounded and delighted. But I am not going to recall his talks. The difficulty would be something like wishing to depict the silvery sparks in the sky.

Russell, Bertrand. The white peril in China : business as usual [ID D28423].
Never since 1900 has the position of foreigners in China been so critical as at the present moment. But in recalling the Boxer movement I am not suggesting a parallel ; quite the contrary. What is important for Europeans to realize is the profound gulf which separates the Chinese nationalists of the present day from the misguided reactionaries of twenty-six years ago. The Boxers represented the least civilized and least enlightened elements in their country ; they stood solely for the preservation of ancient tradition. On the other hand, the Kuo Min Tang, the modern nationalist party, consists of the most modern and Westernised people in China – people who have assimilated, not the slave morality which Europeans have tried to inculcate in the East, but the doctrines of freedom and self-respect which they have tried to keep for home consumption. No unprejudiced person can doubt that the Kuo Min Tang represents all that is best in China, both morally and intellectually ; that is why our Foreign Office is itching to destroy it.
One word about the situation. In Manchuria, Chang Tso-lin is seizing the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was built by Chinese labour and Tsarist capital, and is therefore claimed by the Soviet Government. Not very far to the north of Peking is the intact army of Feng, the northern champion of Chinese nationalism, who was driven from Peking by the combined forces of Chang Tso-lin, the protégé of Japan, and Wu Pei-fu, the champion of British interests in the Yangtze. On the Yangtze, at is most crucial point, the Cantonese nationalist army, marching from the south, has occupied the twin cities of Hankow and Hanyang – including Wu's great arsenal in the latter, but not the foreign concession in the former. Farther up the Yangtze, one of Wu's lieutenants has turned against us, seized some British ships and come into collision with British gunboats. In the neighbourhood of Hankow, the nationalists are said to be firing upon all foreign ships indiscriminately, including those of America ; whether this is fact or propaganda it is not yet possible to know. Wu Pei-fu, for the moment at least, is impotent ; Chang Tso-lin is held in check, both by Russia to the north and by Feng in the south. In these circumstances, it is doubtful whether Chinese armies can be found to fight our battles for us.
There is at this moment a serious possibility that China may be united under the joint leadership of Feng and the Cantonese. Public opinion enthusiastically supports them – not only that of the students, as our newspapers pretend, but also that of the 'solid middle class'. It is true that the 'students' . i.e., the men and women who have had a modern education, both old and young – are the most active and energetic of the champions of Chinese freedom, but they have won over almost all who are politically conscious among the Chinese. They even influence the soldiers in the mercenary armies, and make it difficult for Generals who are tools of the foreigner to rely upon their troops. That is in part the explanation of the successes of the Cantonese armies.
Hankow and Hanyang are practically one city, about the size of Glasgow, on the northern bank of the Yangtze. Together with Wuchang, opposite them on the southern bank, they constitute the centre of China, where the river, running from west to east, crosses the north-and-south route from Peking to Canton. This is the key position, industrially, commercially, and strategically. Hence our dismay at the success of the Cantonese.
The Cantonese are called 'Reds' in our propaganda Press. They are less 'Red' than Mr. MacDonald ; perhaps about as 'Red' as Mr. Lloyd George. But they are willing to accept help from Red Russia in the 'sort of war' that we have been waging against them from Hongkong, just as Chang Tso-lin, whom we regard as a pattern of virtue, has always accepted help from White Russia. The Cantonese wish to establish an orderly democratic government in China, and to restore Chinese independence, which we destroyed by the Opium War and its successors.
The extent to which China has been deprived of independence is not always realized. Let us illustrate it by an analogy. Suppose the Germans had won the war, and had compelled us to sign a treaty giving them the City of London, control of the railway from London to Harwich, the right to garrisons at Reading and Oxford as 'Treaty Ports', the exclusive admiration of the business quarters in Glasgow, Liverpool, Southampton, with a score of other ports, and the right to determine import duties, collect the customs, and hand over the proceeds only to such Governments as they approved of, and to decide all disputes between Germans and British by German Courts. This would represent fairly accurately the state of affairs which Europe and Japan have created in China. I think that even the present Cabinet and Foreign Office would be found among the patriots if that were the condition of England.
But sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. The Chinese are 'wicked' when they demand the abrogation of the unequal treaties. For a long time, in fact, ever since the present British Government came into power, our Foreign Office has wished to intervene in China, but has been restrained by fear of America. It is hoped, however, that America will be brought to consent to intervention by means of the propaganda which represents Chinese nationalists as Bolsheviks. In many respects Americans are liberal, but where the Reds are concerned they see red. It is therefore possible that they may be induced at least to tolerate our intervention. This will, of course, further embitter our relations with Russia, leading, not improbably, to open war with the Soviet Government.
Whatever may be the immediate outcome, it may be taken as certain that we shall be defeated in the end, with the loss of the whole of our political and commercial advantages in China. From the standpoint of British interests, opposition to Chinese nationalism is madness. It has already ruined Hongkong and seriously damaged our China trade elsewhere. And the more we persist, the more we shall lose.
If we were fighting for a great cause, the prospect of loss might be faced with heroism. But the exact opposite is the case : we are fighting against everything progressive, upright, and intelligent in China, in favour of everything ignorant, reactionary and corrupt. We are fighting to keep civilization under in a great nation, in order that it may be the easier to exploit. We are fighting for the right to shoot down young unarmed students when they protest against the killing of Chinese workers by Japanese capitalists in labour disputes. We are fighting to prolong anarchy and civil war among self-seeking militarists dependent upon foreign support. We are fighting to preserve everything that is bad and to prevent the growth of everything that is good. This, alas, is our position throughout Asia. This is the sacred cause which we pursue with a pig-headed obstinacy that must, before long, bring ruin and national disaster upon us. Both as a patriot and as an internationalist, I view the situation with feelings little short of despair.
What can be done about it ? The Labour Party might make an emphatic gesture to dissociate itself from reckless imperialism. It is painful to have to acknowledge that during the Labour Government the Colonial Office and the India Office were little better than at other times, though the Foreign Office was distinctly better until the permanent officials broke loose. The Labour Pary ought to declare emphatically that, in the present disturbed state of affairs, no British naval vessels should navigate the Yangtze or take part in hostile acts against Canton. It should declare that the time has come to revise the unequal treaties. It should emphatically express sympathy with the Kuo Min Tang, which is fighting the battle of Labour in China. And, last but not least, it should make it clear that it will not be a party to any hostilities against the U.S.S.R. which may grow out of the Chinese tangle.
Looking further ahead, the Labour Party should resolve that, when next Labour is in office, it shall not depend upon officials and capitalists for its information about such countries as Mexico and China.
So long as it remains in this dependence all its information will be biased, and it will be led to pursue a policy diametrically opposed to its professed objects. The attitude of the Labour Government towards Mexico (where Labour is in power) was such as to serve the oil interests, but was quite against the interests of humanity. So it will be again if we continue to depend upon reactionaries for our information.
The continuity of foreign policy, which, I regret to say, has received some support from nominal adherents of the Labour Party, is a Satanic principle, which no humane person can tolerate for a moment. Our foreign policy, from the days of Henry VIII to the present moment, has been abominable : it has had one uniform principle, that of causing dissensions among others, in order that they might weaken each other for our benefit. This is called the Balance of Power.
The Labour Party has, on paper, the most admirable principles in international affairs, but it allows itself to be deceived by not realizing the cunning and wickedness of the forces opposed to it, more particularly of those whose opposition is concealed and surreptitious. If our international ideals are to be effective, we shall have to be less gentle and trustful towards those whose ideals are different. I do not mean that we should persecute them ; I mean only that we should not leave them in key positions of influence and power. If I were Prime Minister, I should give a long holiday on full pay to many of our diplomatic service and of the higher permanent officials in the Foreign Office and the India Office. Until we do this, everything that we attempt will be sabotaged.
Meanwhile we have to face the cry of 'British lives in danger'. Will our mandarins never understand the cry of 'Chinese lives in danger' which went up after the Shanghai massacre, committed at a time when no British lives were in danger ? If the British in China are in danger, let us announce that we are prepared to withdraw them, and the danger will cease. So long as the British arrogate to themselves the right to shoot Chinese at sight they cannot expect that the Chinese will respect their right to life. 'This animal is wicked ; it defends itself when attacked'.

Wolfram Eberhard studiert Sinologie, Ethnologie und Philosophie an der Universität Berlin.

Werner Eichhorn promoviert in Philosophie an der Universität Göttingen.

Werner Eichhorn studiert chinesische Sprache und Kultur an der Universität Leipzig.

Eleanor von Erdberg Consten studiert Kunstgeschichte, Archäologie und Chinesisch an den Universitäten Bonn, Berlin und Wien.

Wilhelm Gundert ist Leiter des Japanisch-Deutschen Kulturinstituts in Tokyo.