Europe and the East

Front matter

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Wisod a aA) beth “the

Preface

As originally planned, this work was to have been a study of the relations of Western powers with Eastern states and of Asiatic politics and development during a definite historical period, that is, from 1850 to 1910. The World War and its aftermath, including the awakening of the whole Orient and the beginning of new and important developments in Asia, _ has necessitated bringing the text up to date. In narrating events connected with the movements in the different sections of the great field covered here, an attempt has been made to tell, as far as possible, a complete story. But in some instances — particularly in the case of Persia and of China, where affairs are still in a state of transition — this could not be done. Nevertheless, in spite of drawbacks, it has been deemed worth while to relate the story of European expansion and intervention in Asia and the Pacific Ocean in one concise and readable volume, so that the entire movement may be seen in its proper perspective, and so that the main facts will be available to students of international politics and to intelligent readers who desire to understand present-day movements and conditions in the East.

The difficulties involved in handling the enormous mass of material relating to Asiatic political and commercial activities through a period of eighty years and in dealing properly with the multitudinous historical events of the present time and year have not been underestimated. The task of elimination has been greater than that of composition; and the liability to error in matters both of fact and of judgment has been higher than is usual in historical writing. Yet if the story has been accurately and justly told, if he who runs vi PREFACE may see and comprehend, and if some assistance has been given in enabling Occidentals to understand the East and in bringing the Occident and the Orient into closer association and codperation in the noble labor of creating the great elvilization of the future, this work will not have been in vain.

The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. Benjamin B. Wallace for reading the entire manuscript and for many valuable suggestions, to Professor E. T. Williams for a critical review of the chapters dealing with the Far East, and to his colleague, Professor Kenneth W. Colegrove, for assistance in the collection of material for the chapters on India and Japan.

Contents

PIVOREL COLLHCSOIN THE WAST Si. eo Se te ed

Opening of intercourse between the West and the East — Character of early relations — Legacy to modern states — Effect of the development of world trade and imperialism — Rise of world politics — Four spheres of international activity — Extent of European expansion in the East — Causes of the general breakdown of the movement — The problem of Asia — Failure of European states to grasp its true significance — Difficulties in the way — Some suggestions as to a successful solution of the problem — The new spirit of the East — Effect of the Russo- Japanese conflict and of the Great War — Present needs.

THE NEAR EAST

Chapter I World Politics In The East

Tue relations of Europe and Asia, although more or less continuous for several centuries, have assumed the proportions of a real and intimate intercourse only in recent times. The actual transformation of Asia, with its isolation, its superstition, its inertia, and its indifference to the life, the trade, and the politics of the outside world, into a continent of modern communities, dates from that day in January, eighty years ago, when the British frigates bombarded the Bogue forts, and opened a door in China to international trade. Since then, Asiatic states have become members of the family of nations, exchanged ambassadors with all their sister communities, and participated in the great political, economic, commercial, educational, and even religious movements of the times; while the little stream of trade which was borne by caravans and sailing vessels to the distant East has swelled into a tremendous current flowing continuously over land and sea. And the locomotive, the ocean greyhound, the telegraph, the telephone, and the wireless have brought Europe and Asia into such close touch that they have to-day more than a speaking acquaintance.

Meanwhile, the best — and alas! the worst — elements of European Christian civilization were being carried to the Orient, and an ill-advised attempt to Europeanize Asiatic peoples and countries was inaugurated. ‘This movement, however, outside of the private enterprise of Christian individuals and institutions, was far from being philanthropic and disinterested, even in its inception. From the days when Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, and their confréres crossed the deserts of Asia and ploughed the Indian and Pacific Oceans in search of adventure and profit, it had been largely a selfish and commercial affair. And, for upwards of three centuries, intercourse between the West and the East had been left to the uncontrolled initiative or caprice of the individual trader, or of commercial corporations such as the British and Dutch East India Companies. The traders were, in the main, well-intentioned; and the action and ambition of many an agent and leader were thoroughly honorable and disinterested. A few, such as Sir Stamford Raffles at Singapore, the Count of Lally- Tollendal in India, and Lord Napier at Canton, sacrificed their careers, ambitions, and even lives, to promote the interests of their home countries and to establish honorable relations with the natives of Eastern lands. But too often the trading companies and their representatives proved as soulless and as unscrupulous as some of our modern corporations; and the methods and means employed to promote their interests aroused the suspicion and enmity of Orientals. And the unthinking, brutal acts of halfdrunken European sailors and soldiers, when ashore or on duty in Eastern lands, and the deceitful, illegal proceedings of European merchants, who showed frequently a haughty disdain of all things Oriental and an open disrespect for those things held sacred by the natives of the East, created a hostility to Westerners in many quarters which has survived to the present day.

Such a legacy was not a happy one for the European governments, when they began to take over the supervision and control of foreign intercourse in the East, along toward the middle of the nineteenth century. Nor were the circumstances attending this movement auspicious in other particulars. The Peking Government and the Chinese provincial officials opposed strenuously all attempts of the British to open official trade relations with China; and the so-called ““Opium War” resulted. In India, the administration of the British East India Company was nearly overthrown by the Sepoy Rebellion before the English Government took over the direction of affairs. And, in the Near East, when intervention by foreign powers in Turkish affairs was first proposed, a conflict of interests led Great Britain and France to take sides with the Ottoman Empire against Russia in that stupid conflict known as the Crimean War. _

Even after the European governments had assumed direct control of their own colonial activities, and of the forward movement in Africa and the East, little improvement was noticeable for many years in the conduct of relations between European and Asiatic states. For, with the growth of Western states in wealth and power, national ambition and avarice soon eclipsed all sense of justice and honor. An unscrupulous competition for commercial privileges, trade monopolies, markets, and economic concessions ensued, in which diplomatic intrigues, intimidation, bribery, and force were universally employed, on the basis that the end justifies the means. And all the European powers of the first class, and some other states, joined in a movement to preémpt for themselves important strategic places and-trade centers, to mark out certain districts as “‘spheres of influence,” and to seize territory, with the purpose of providing for their future commercial and industrial needs, and of promoting their expansion into world empires. Such activities marked the progress of Great Britain in India and its vicinity, of Russia in Turkestan and Manchuria, of Germany in Shantung, of France in Indo-China, and of Japan in Korea and Manchuria. And this stupendous race for world trade and national expansion gave rise to the infamous Imperialism, and later, to its saner and broader-minded relative — the New Internationalism; while, out of this whirlpool of international conflict and competition, there arose a world intercourse and a world politics, as we have them to-day.

The enlargement of intercourse between the West and the East took place in four great divisions of the East, although there has been of necessity some overlapping of activities here and there. These four regions may be concisely designated by the terms: Near East, Middle East, Far East, and Oceanica or the Pacific Islands. It is with the first three of these, in the main, that the present volume proposes to deal. By the Near East, we mean those portions of Europe and Asia which touch upon the five great waterways — the trunk-lines of traffic lying at the back door of Europe — namely: the eastern Mediterranean and the Dardanelles, the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, and the Persian Gulf. In this region, the Ottoman Empire in Asia has been the storm center, with the outlying districts of the Balkans, the Caucasus, Arabia, and Egypt playing important side réles and contributing considerably to the general trend of events. From the days of Napoleon, who wrote to the French Directory in 1797, “To destroy England, we must take possession of Egypt,” to the age of William ITI with his “‘Drang nach Osten,”’ there has been a constant struggle “‘to have and to hold” the route to the East and the trade of the Near East.

In the Middle East, India has held the center of the stage with its dependencies such as Baluchistan, Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Burma, the Shan, and Malay States. For the protection of the trade and the interests of this great state, the British have extended their influence into Oman, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Siam. ‘The so-called will of Peter the Great admonished the Russians to “‘bear in mind that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world, and that he who can exclusively control it is the dictator of Europe.” This entrancing vision has been an obsession of European statesmen for two centuries, and still leads some of them on like a deceitful will-o’-the-wisp.

The Far East has always had a peculiar fascination for Occidentals, who looked with longing toward its dream life of ease and luxury, and with envy upon its wealth of trade in the spices, teas, and silks, and upon its fabled, unlimited natural resources. There the competition of European states centered upon that marvelous but sluggish heart of Oriental life — the Chinese Empire — where ere long it came into conflict with the activities of the only organized and progressive Eastern state— Japan. But the influences at work permeated also the great districts of Siberia, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Indo-China, with incursions into Korea, Formosa, the Philippine Islands, and Oceanica.

When one glances at the map of Asia, one is astonished at the extent and variety of the vast region into which European powers have carried their activities in recent times. And the story of these adventures, though at times unpleasant reading for Westerners, is as marvelous and romantic as a tale of medizval days. The success of the movement is unquestioned if one counts the results simply in dollars and cents. For the trade of Europe and the _ Americas has profited in countless ways. But, when viewed in all its aspects and manifold activities, one must admit that, thus far, this world-embracing enterprise has been a complete failure, in spite of so many individual efforts brilliant in themselves and of certain isolated successes here and there. At some points the movement has broken down completely. At others, cross-currents have set in, which impede seriously all developments; while in many places insuperable difficulties have arisen to block all progress indefinitely. The reason for this unfortunate and discouraging situation is now apparent. It is a threefold one, namely: a failure to understand the real problem at issue, and to appreciate the grave difficulties of the task; an unwillingness to assume the responsibilities necessary to ensure its successful solution; and a selfish nationalism preventing codperation among the states and forces involved in the work.

What then zs the problem of Asia? It is no longer a mere matter of trade. It is a question of international life affecting the existence and happiness of countless millions of people in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. In brief, the issue is: how to establish a just, honorable, and mutually beneficial relationship between the East on the one hand and Europe and the Americas on the other. Such a relationship must not subvert Oriental genius or institutions, -nor impede the development of civilization, nor bear a taint of that unscrupulous political force which would rule, or control, or Europeanize Asia for profit. It must secure not merely the successful introduction of the ‘European leaven” (to borrow an expression from Captain Mahan) into Asiatic civilizations, so that conditions in all Oriental countries will be improved and the proper development promoted, but it must establish a mutual exchange of ideas, principles, methods, and institutions, which shall foster unceasingly the welfare and prosperity of all concerned. This means that there must be an “open door,” both in the West and in the East, to all the best products of modern thought, education, government, commerce, religious and social ideals, inventive and creative genius, whether emanating from the Orient or from the Occident. And it is imperative that the national and international life and development of the future should be intellectual and spiritual, as well as scientific and material.

The tremendous task, however, of getting the West and East into tune, on the successful solution of which the future of the whole world depends, has only just begun. The political communities of the five great continents have been engaged, thus far, upon selfish schemes of national development, or expansion, with seldom a thought of things beyond the horizon of their own needs and ambitions. There has been little or no regard shown for the wishes or welfare of other states, or for those of foreign nationalities. It has been a race for the strong and “‘the devil take the hindmost”’; and no intelligent effort has been made, except by individuals here and there, to study scientifically and sympathetically the great problem of world intercourse. But the world moves on. ‘The era of commercial adventure and imperialistic drama has passed. A world war has aroused Europe and the Americas at last from their lethargy of self-content, shown them the danger of delay, and demonstrated beyond question the necessity for international confidence, codperation, and control to ensure the proper development of national and international life and intercourse.

The difficulties which have prevented thus far the solution of the problem of Asia are numerous and great, but they are not insuperable. The first to be overcome is a sort of racial antipathy which exists not only between Orientals and Occidentals, but also between nationalities all over the world. This had its origin in certain natural and fundamental differences in personal appearance, mentality, language, customs, religion, and point of view — all of which made for separation, seclusion, and suspicion. Everything foreign has been looked upon as something questionable and inferior; yet human beings are much the same in every land. “It depends upon who is speaking, who is queer,” Bishop Oldham once remarked. The old world is still strangely provincial, each section and each nation feeling that it is in some, if not in all, ways superior to all the rest. Inhabitants of Eastern countries have called Europeans “barbarians,” “‘infidels,” and “‘unclean wretches’’; and Westerners have returned the compliment by referring to Orientals as “heathen,” “fanatics,” and “poor benighted Hindoos,”’ while the Russians nicknamed the Japanese ““monkeys”’ before the Russo-Japanese War. Even in our own enlightened republic, there are used such derisive and ridiculous names as “Dagos,”’ “‘Polacks,” ““Chinks,” for the foreign-born residents, or “hyphenated citizens,” of this country. This is merely the result of ignorance and selfish prejudice born of a certain unthinking national pride and self-sufficiency shared by all peoples. But, fortunately, it is rapidly vanishing with the growth of knowledge, accompanied by increased facilities for travel and by the development of international intercourse.

No state has the right to judge others by its own standards. Nor can it longer hold itself aloof from the world with security, or assume a position of superiority or independence with impunity. Nor is it safe in presuming that its methods of life, of thought and of government, are the best for all peoples under all circumstances, or even for itself in ten, twenty, or fifty years from now. Some Occidentals who have lived longest among Orientals and know them best, claim that there exists a feeling of separateness —a wall of exclusion — between the two racial divisions, beyond which a Westerner never gets. There has been some truth in this assertion in the past; but it is safe to say that this barrier is now disappearing. The honest, efficient, and brotherly work of the agents of the Y.M.C.A. and the untiring, unselfish efforts of many a noble soul in the medical and educational institutions of the European and American missions in Eastern lands have opened in recent days a way to the hearts of Oriental peoples which the key of confidence will always open. But the removal of all the barriers of distrust and suspicion as rapidly as possible, and the establishment of universal confidence and respect based upon equality of treatment and on national integrity, are imperative — yes, absolutely essential — to the successful creation of world-wide codperation and intercourse.

A second difficulty has arisen from the lack of space in Asia and the existence of certain “backward nations,” combined with the complications growing out of the ill-advised attempt of some ambitious states to colonize, or control for the purposes of their own imperialistic expansion, certain territories in Asia. It is summed up in the problem of how to secure an efficient administration for backward peoples and adequate protection for the life and property of foreign subjects, without depriving Asiatic communities of their natural initiative, their national self-respect, and their independence. ‘The days of the great migrations, such as those of the Mongols under Jenghis Khan and Kublai Khan, are past. There is no longer any vacant place where any nation great or small can find a new home. Nor is the great continent of Asia and its extensive seaboard a legitimate field any more for foreign colonization and imperial expansion. For the conditions there are very different from those which existed in the Americas and in the greater part of Africa, when European colonists penetrated those continents, only partially populated by half-civilized Indian tribes and negro peoples. ‘The inhabitants of Eastern lands for the most part are intelligent beings with highly developed civilizations of their own; and the occupation of their territory would mean the enslavement of one nation by another. This has been true ever since the successors of Nurhaschu conquered China in the seventeenth century. That there is need for improvement in government, in methods of economic production and distribution, and in conservation both of property and of human life, no one can deny. But cannot this be said of every state in the family of nations? We must recognize the fact, however, that, while Oriental countries may need the assistance of Occidental states to reorganize on a modern basis and to develop their national institutions and life, such aid must come through the natural channels of friendly codperation, rather than through any scheme of imperial expansion or the imposition of foreign control over any Eastern people. And, wherever conditions are so complicated and unstable as to justify foreign interference such as is found in India, Korea and the Philippine Islands today, governmental control should be exercised only with the consent and in the interest of the community concerned. It should be understood, moreover, that the situation is only temporary and that an honest effort will be made to prepare the people to take over the administration of their own affairs as soon as conditions will permit.

A third obstacle to the establishment of cordial and cooperative relations between the East and the West has been —and still is—the intense commercial and economic rivalry existing between the great powers both in Europe and in Asia. In the western hemisphere, it has been a source of unending trouble and one of the leading causes of the Great War. In the eastern hemisphere, it has already taken on alarming proportions, for it was the chief factor in bringing: on the Russo-Japanese War and it has been one of the primal causes of the failure to solve the Chinese problem. It remains to-day the source of many difficulties and international quarrels that keep both the Near and the Far East in a constant state of unrest; and, unless something definite is done promptly to place the commercial relations of nations upon a just and sound basis, it will lead again inevitably to conflict. The natural desire of all governments to promote the economic and political life of their own people and to protect their own trade interests, is so powerful that it frequently obscures the view of well-intentioned statesmen, warps their judgment, and proves a serious impediment to the progress of the ship of state. It has become an axiom of modern political life, however, that the prosperity of the individual state is closely wrapped up in the welfare of the whole family of nations. . And there is no good reason why each and every member of this family should not make a serious effort to codperate with the others, and to dovetail its own interests and activities into those of the whole community so that conflicts may be avoided, the rights of each safeguarded, and the welfare of all promoted. Till this is done, economic and commercial rivalry between states will remain a menace to all life and progress — national and international — and a serious obstacle in the way of any solution of the problem of Asia.

Combined with these difficulties, there has been a complete lack of coéperation between all parties and forces engaged in the opening and development of the East. In the past, the Slav has been arrayed against the Japanese, the Briton against the Frenchman, the Teuton against the Chinese, and the United States against the World. They all stood for different ideals, principles, and policies. ‘The Slav struggled for land expansion and seaports; the Briton for sea supremacy and ports of entry; the Japanese and the Teuton for economic and colonial expansion; and the United States for the “‘open door” for all. The future of the Orient depends upon the ability of all these forces to unite, and upon the general principles adopted for their joint conduct and coéperation. The old idea of foisting agreements on one another — whether Easterner or Westerner — and of procuring concessions, privileges or special rights through force of arms, intrigue, or diplomatic pressure, is out of date. It has never worked justly and satisfactorily; and it never will. Real progress and ideal international codperation in the future will come only through the channels of mutual confidence and respect, and of reciprocity among equals.

Another impediment to the progress of the new internationalism in the East has been the unwillingness of . Western powers to assume any responsibility for the movement. No state at the present considers itself at all responsible for the present situation in the Orient; and none have thought it incumbent upon. them to assume the burden and expense of attempting to set things right. A few, more through accident and the pressure of circumstances than through design, have rendered material aid in improving conditions in certain regions; but the majority have had little desire to promote anything outside the sphere of their so-called special interests. And, with the exception of the United States, Great Britain, and in later years France, few powers have shown any inclination to give real assistance to Orientals from a sense of international duty or brotherliness. Yet, if the nations of the West to whom the world looks for leadership are to undertake the reorganization of international intercourse and to succeed in solving the problem of Asia, they must assume the responsibilities of such a work and, by codperation with Eastern states, put the movement on a sound and rational basis.

Fortunately, the enforced and codperative action of the allied nations and the United States during the Great War, leading as it did to the establishment of the Supreme War and Peace Councils and the creation of a League of Nations for the purpose of restoring order and maintaining peace throughout the world, was a great step in the formation of a new international policy. The inauguration of a system of mandates, whereby certain of the great powers have been given mandatory powers over dependent peoples, has assured small communities with limited resources and incompetent governments of the protection and assistance necessary to enable them to develop into self-supporting, autonomous states. And another and an equally important advance was made at the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments. Here, under the initiative and leadership of the United States, the situation in the vast region of the Far East and the Pacific was discussed by all the nations (except Soviet Russia) having possessions or interests in the Pacific, and an accord reached through which four states — Great Britain, France, Japan, and the United States — will assume a certain responsibility for conditions in the Pacific world. And a method was provided, through international codperation, conciliation, and conferences, whereby conflicts may be avoided, difficulties straightened out, equal opportunity for all nations assured, and the general peace of the Far East and the Pacific preserved.

Thus, an international conscience has come into being and the brotherhood of nations is becoming a reality. World confidence, good-will, and well-being are being restored; and the responsibility for world peace, security, and progress has been laid so firmly upon the shoulders of all the powers — both great and small — that it will be impossible henceforth for them to ignore the duties and obligations of this new world life. “It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in,”’ wrote President Wilson in his message of January 8, 1918, “‘and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by other peoples. All the states of the world are, in effect, partners in this interest; and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others, it will not be done to us.” These fundamental principles of world partnership and international justice apply alike to Europe, Asia, and the Americas. But it took a terrible world war to convince the . statesmen of Europe and America that they must assume the responsibility of enforcing these principles and of maintaining international equality, intercourse, and progress.

To understand the real situation in the Orient and how the application of these newly accepted principles is to be worked out in Asia, one must study the history of its past — more particularly the story of the rapidly moving drama of the last. sixty years beginning with the old Ottoman Empire and proceeding eastward from one region to another, till one reaches the “Land of the Rising Sun,” and comes into intimate touch with the great problems of the most wonderful seabcard in the world. But every student of Asiatic politics and every statesman whose activities have the slightest connection with Asiatic affairs must realize that henceforth he is dealing with a new East. The old days of European dominance and aggression, and of Oriental pacifism and stagnation are gone. ‘The peoples of the East are coming into their own, and are not to be denied their place in the family and the councils of the nations. Since 1904, a remarkable transformation has been going on throughout the Orient. The first impetus to this movement was given by the Russo-Japanese War and the second, and greater, by the Great War in Europe. The Japanese victorics over an European foe — heretofore considered invincible — aroused among Orientals an Asiatic consciousness and an intense desire for independence such as never before had been dreamed of in the East. Patriotism was born and democracy had its birth at this time, not only in Turkey, Persia, and India, but also in China and Japan.

** After Mukden and Tsushima,”’ wrote Georges Leygues, “all the Far Eastern peoples were conscious of the inward awakening of a sentiment previously unknown to them — the sentiment of racial solidarity and common interest as against the Western conquerors. Japan appeared to them to be, as it were, the deliverer of Asia. When we closely examine the movement, we find—in the Iranian region, Persia, Afghanistan, Kashgaria — a general ferment, aspirations after independence still formless but quite perceptible, a marked decline of Russian influence, and a spirit of defiance and hostility toward foreigners.” !

1 Preface to L’Inde contemporaine, page 17.

In India, claims E. Piriou in L’Inde contemporaine, “‘a national tendency which is upsetting old separatist prejudice, is breaking down the hierarchy of the caste system and consolidating races, sects, villages, and provinces in a common activity. The birth of patriotism in India is the most important fact and the newest since Brahmanism was founded.” And, “A Turkish consul of long experience in Western Asia told me,’ wrote the Reverend C. F. Andrews, “that in the interior you could see everywhere the most ignorant peasants ‘tingling’ with the news. Asia was moved from end to end, and the sleep of centuries was finally broken. It was a time when it was ‘good to be alive,’ for a new chapter was being written in the book of the world’s history.”