America's stake in the Far East

Preface

Many who are alert to the present world situation feel that the Far East constitutes at this time one of the areas of extraordinary strain and that the whole group of issues which make up the complexus often designated as the Far Eastern problem requires a widespread, dispassionate, and understanding discussion in America.

It is not easy, amid the engrossing interests and duties that are close at hand, for us to see clearly the various issues involved in such a problem, and especially to see those issues in their interlocking aspects. Whatever thinking we might be able to do about the problem, moreover, is discouraged by propaganda which tends to confuse us. Consequently, many assume that such questions must be left entirely to the experts, in the belief that there is no chance for the formation of an intelligent and effective public opinion with respect to the larger world problems. America's attitude on international affairs, however, should be the concern of every citizen, and it must be possible to present these subjects in ways which will lead to illuminating and profitable discussion and ultimately to trustworthy social judgments.

As will be discovered on examination, this book is not a treatise on the Far Eastern problem. It consists simply of questions to open up those issues involved which are likely to be of most interest to the American public, the questions in each chapter being followed by reference quotations setting forth the essential facts and the principal viewpoints held with reference to the major questions raised. To read through the questions and reference material would provide some basis for the personal opinion of an individual. If such thinking can be still further clarified by discussion and comparison of personal viewpoints in a group or forum with other individuals who are also trying to find their way, more progress can be made.

Two chapters might well have been added to the book : one on the Japanese problem in Hawaii, and the other on the interrelation of American interests in the Far East and those of other predominantly Anglo-Saxon national groups, such as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, self-governing commonwealths of the British Empire whose territories border on or are in the Pacific.

Every day's newspaper brings to notice new or shifting aspects of the Far Eastern situation, and it is probable that a few questions and quotations will be out of date before the volume is long in print. It is believed, however, that for the most part both questions and

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IV

PREFACE reference selections bear on the more permanent features of the problem.

An effort has been made to avoid implying answers expected to questions asked. The major question as to whether the Christian ideals and dynamic will in the end provide a way out of the most baffling difficulties in the situation has been raised repeatedly, now in one, now in another form, in these pages. Confessedly special emphasis has been laid on this issue. If the answer of Christian idealism, with its implied summons to life purpose and life service, be not found acceptable, then some more promising solution must be suggested. In this respect the book reflects an issue which has been inescapably drawn for us by recent world tendencies and events.

The forming and ordering of the questions have been done with the skilled cooperation of Mr, Harrison S. Elliott, whose wide experience in guiding discussion groups and whose resultant sense of need for the production of effective tools for the use of such classes led in the first instance to the preparation of the book.

There may fairly be claimed for the work the advantages accruing from months of careful research, for the most part amid the resources of the Missionary Research Library of New York City, and from such insight as has been gained from a lifelong interest in the Far East. Two journeys, each all too short, to Japan, Korea, and China, one made shortly before the beginning of the World War and one just before its close, have also been of high value.

Charles Harvey Fahs.

Contents

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Preface iii

I. Is Japan Becoming a Menace to the Peace of the

Chapter I Is Japan Becoming A Menace To The Peace Of The World?

I. What does the world think of Japan? Why?

1. In various parts of the world the traveler not infrequently hears : "I don't trust the Japanese" ; or, "I hate the Japanese." Why are the Japanese so disliked and distrusted ? How far is this dislike due to prejudice ; how far is it well founded ?

2. Which of the following would you consider the chief causes of this feeling: Japanese racial peculiarities; jealousy over Japan's rapid rise in power; faulty ethical practices in business or in other ways on the part of the Japanese; an overweening Japanese sense of international destiny?

3. To what extent are you led to believe that international opinion of Japan is being formulated on the basis of her procedure in China, Korea, and Siberia?

4. What evidence is there that the people in America have experienced this same uneasy attitude of mind towards the Japanese ? How did they come by it ? To what extent do you feel that opinion in other parts of the United States reflects that in California ?

II. What danger is there, if any, that Japan will become a menace to the United States and to the welfare of the Far East?

1. What evidence is there that the military and imperialistic party has been shaping the policy of Japan ? How far has Japan's policy thus far tended to Prussianize the Far East ?

2. To what extent has democracy obtained a foothold in Japan ? What likelihood is there that the group in Japan working against militarism and autocracy and for a more liberal policy will win?

3. What are the imperial ambitions of Japan ? In what ways, if any, are these likely to clash with those of other powers and to threaten the peace of the world ?

4. Where and on what issues would Japan and the United States be most likely to clash ? What is the hkelihood of such a clash ?

I

5. In what ways would the triumph of military and imperialistic policy jeopardize the largest and noblest future for Japan?

6. In what ways would a militaristic policy in Japan pave the way for another world war ?

III. How have America and the other nations hindcicd and how helped the liberalization of Japan?

1. What occasion, if any, has Japan had to fear the United States ?

2. In her modernization what nations have had the most influence? In what ways has each influenced Japan?

3. How can the liberal movement in Japan be helped by other countries? Take into consideration the effect of sentiment in America, the impact of travelers and traders from the west, the influence of educational and other missionary work.

REFERENCE MATERIAL Estimates of the Japanese People

The Japanese, like yourselves, are human beings — subject to all the wants and frailties of our common humanity — bloving and courting love — aspiring and falling — sinning and being sinned against — ^but knit together by a few underlying principles of far-reaching worth, among which are loyalty, the capacity for self-sacrifice, and the enthronement of knightly honor as the supreme rule of life. . . . The Japanese people of this day and generation have inherited from their sires these ethical standards, and in their relations to the outside world, they are doing what is humanly possible to realize them. . . .

Japan has not escaped the fire of doubt and denunciation with which the world resounds. Her motives are questioned, her policies criticized, and her purest aspirations scouted as criminal and sordid. She has been branded as the Yellow Peril, the Robber of China, the despoiler of Korea, the standing menace to the peace and well-being of her neighbors. And yet I . . . solemnly declare — in no spirit of either bravado or apology — that Japan is conscious of rectitude in her attitude towards the nations and peoples of all the world. She has been scrupulously faithful in the observance of all international engagements, whether in the form of treaty, covenant, or understanding. She has borne insult and humiliation in order to make good her plighted word. — Viscount Kikujiro Ishii, Japan Review, November, 1919, pp. 9, 10.

Is it not a fact that not only in Chosen [Korea], but in China, in America, in Australia, everywhere, this selfish imperialism of Japan has as its shadow the so-called anti-Japanese sentiment ? Before we hate

JAPAN A MENACE TO PEACE OF WORLD? 3

the shadow it is necessary to look at ourselves. The ideals and principles under which Japan has gone forward are expressed in the familiar phrases, "Shed the national glory abroad"; "greatly extend our territory"; "rule the world"; and other such expressions. The result is that our neighbors have become anti-Japanese and today on all sides barriers, invited by ourselves, are being raised against us. — Takashi Suzuki, Missionary Review of the World, September, 19 19, p. 661.

The Japanese is not worse than other men. We may dismiss at once the charges of trickiness and untrustworthiness which we have unconsciously trumped up against him in defense of our race-exclusiveness. Such charges have the usual, and no more than the usual, justification. The salient facts are that the Japanese are in the ascending phase of race assertion, that they are led with singular sagacity, that they have certainly no more and possibly somewhat less scruple about race-encroachment than other civilized races of our day, and finally that there is between us no cushion of kinship or common culture to lessen the shock of race collision. — ^Harry H. Powers, "America among the Nations," p. 213.

While not blind to the faults of the Japanese, I deplore . . . indiscriminate condemnation of them. If they are not the lovely fairies that Lafcadio Hearn pictures them, neither are they the "varnished savages" that Price Collier called them. From the huge mass of available data it is not difficult to make a selection that will apparently support almost any preconceived idea. But conclusions obtained in that way are one-sided. They leave some facts out of account, and state others in ways which make them appear more unfavorable than they really are. If one is to err at all, it is better to do so on the side of charity, to magnify good qualities rather than to minimize them. It is unreasonable to expect an Asiatic people to exemplify within sixty years standards of Christian character and conduct which Europe and America but imperfectly exemplify after fifteen hundred years. The Japanese have many fine qualities. They also have some grave defects. So have we. It is easy to pick out flaws in any people under heaven, including our own. After all, the Japanese are human beings like ourselves, and in thinking of them we may well remember the words of the poet Bailey: "Men might be better if we better deemed of them." — ^Arthur J. Brown, "The Mastery of the Far East," pp. 242, 243.

The old belief that the Japanese are a race of diminutive supermen dies hard, but dying it is. The Japanese are an extremely brave and brainy nation. . . . They have in a very short space of time adopted the habits and customs of the Occident, and tacked them on to their own. They are . . . just humans with human faults and human virtues. They have a high code of military ethics, and a supreme but painfully modern sense of patriotism. Their moral sense is low, they are not industrious, their intelligence is imitative but not initiative, whilst their ambition is blended with an unfortunate aggressiveness and a deplorable sensitiveness. — ^Andrew M. Pooley, "J^pan at the Cross Roads," p. 20.

The net judgment with which we returned to America, after three visits during seven months, is a judgment of increased respect for Japan and for what she has achieved, and a deepened confidence in the worthy and better elements of Japanese life and character. There are circles both in the East and in the West in which it is almost as much as a man's life is worth to express such a judgment as this, so deep is the feeling of racial distrust of the Japanese and of suspicion of their political and commercial ambitions. . . .

No one can complain of fair and discriminating judgments, but what frightens one in much of the prejudice against the Japanese is its unfairness and its lack of discrimination. Courses of action pursued by America or Great Britain or Germany are viewed and judged in an entirely different light from similar courses of action pursued by Japan. Japan's conduct is often considered a matter of mere political expediency or a cover of sinister purposes, while wrong done by Western nations is too often condoned or lamented with soft judgments. Wrong and right are not affected by degrees of longitude. Evil or unworthy actions on the part of the Japanese ought to be judged on precisely the same basis as that on which a Western race or nation would be judged, unless the latter be held to a stricter accountability because of their fuller light. — Robert E. Speer, Missionary Review of the World, July, 191 6, p. 517.

American Opinion o£ Japan

I have touched the mind of the country in cities and villages in the east and middle west. I do not think it too much to say that there is a general suspicion of the motives and program of Japan. The Japanese course at the Peace Conference, whatever it may have accomplished diplomatically, has undoubtedly cost that country the confidence of the American public. . . .

One simple idea seems to have taken possession of America's mass consciousness. It believes that Japan is the Germany of the East. One does not have to suggest this idea. Everywhere one is asked if it does not explain most of the things that are now happening in the Orient. And it will take more than fair words and high banqueting to wipe it out.

It is likely, of course, to take some time for this feeling to reach the point where it demands action. The United States is thoroughly sick of foreign trouble. The seventy thousand dead who lie in France form a wholesome check to precipitate action in any quarter of the world. But with the passage of time, especially if proofs of Japan's imperialism accumulate, belief that China and Korea are being exploited for the

JAPAN A MENACE TO PEACE OF WORLD? 5

benefit o£ an archaic militarism will lead to belief that such a policy cannot be permitted in a sphere where the interests of the United States are as great as they are in the Pacific. — 'T. H.," China Christian Advocate, September, 1919, p. 7.

When you ask . . . why the affection for the Chinese and the hatred for the Japanese — there is a good deal of selfishness and human weakness mixed up in the answer. The Chinaman is not ambitious in a worldly way. The Japanese is. The Chinaman does not want to own land in America. He does not leave his employers suddenly and without warning to take a more lucrative job or go into business for himself. According to the California appraisal of character and traits, the Japanese is the direct opposite of all these things which make the Chinese, welcome. . . . Nothing here written on the subject is in any way an attempt at expression of personal opinion or prejudice for or against the Japanese or Chinaman. It is merely the report of what seems to be practically unanimous opinion throughout the state. It is the opinion of such men as Benjamin Ide Wheeler and Senator Phelan, of shipping men, bankers, merchants, gardeners, and farmers. Frequently the opinion is expressed with an apologetic admission that fear of the Japanese is based chiefly on the feeling that the Japanese are much more clever than the Americans. — Charles A. Selden, New York Times, January 25, 1920.

Militarism in Japan

Japan's success in the Russo-Japanese War did not insure the peace of the Far East ; now ten years later Japan has attacked and defeated the Germans in order to insure that peace. But no sooner has she defeated the Germans than she finds it necessary to fall upon the Chinese, likewise to "insure peace." The process is cumulative. The peace of the Far East will, it would appear, only be assured when there is no one left to disturb Japan's peace of mind; that is, when all of Japan's rivals for commercial and political influence have been eliminated. And then, when the peace of the Far East has been established to Japan's satisfaction — what about the peace of the world ? — Stanley K. Hornbeck, "Contemporary Politics in the Far East," p. 300.

It is specially to be deplored that such a reactionary spirit, largely influenced by the political theories of German writers, had played on the mind, when the constitution was being framed by government leaders. It was in those days of the 8o's that the cry of "Preserve the best of Japan" or "Japan for the Japanese" was loudly proclaimed. Magazines and books were published for the spread of the propaganda. This considerably hampered the Anglo-Saxon influence of earlier days as well as the religious work of missionaries, which was moving on by leaps and bounds.

The universities had been most influenced by German ideas of

Kultur. The army, which was at first modeled after the French army, had been gradually Germanized. German methods, with their exact precision and comprehensive organization, strongly appealed to the young minds of Japan, as they had to not a small number oiE Americans before the war. Japanese students flocked to the German universities, and later accepted the important positions in the Government and in the institutions of higher learning. But the compelling cause for the collapse of the Anglo-Saxon democratizing influence was Japan's discovery of her own danger, both political and economic. The governments of Europe she saw organized on a basis of force, rather than of right. She saw them engaged in world-wide rivalry for the possession of those countries which were weak, backward, and unable to defend themselves from European aggressors. The native peoples of the Americas, of Africa, of south and north Asia and of all the Pacific Ocean had already been swallowed up by the aggressive white races of Europe. In the Far East China and Japan alone remained unappropriated.

This discovery brought a horrible chill to every thoughtful Japanese. Not her intrinsic civilization, nor her attainments in appreciating the moral, intellectual, and political achievements of the most advanced nations of the West, would of themselves alone protect her from the engulfing swirl of European militaristic domination. Only by her own military might could she hope to confront their military might and maintain her independent life. Even most of those who through the 70's and 8o's had been liberal leaders, since 1890 had at least acquiesced in the rise of the new militarism of Japan. They said that "preparedness" was essential to safety in such a world as Europe had created. — President Tasuku Harada, Doshisha University, Japan Review^ February, 1920, p. 105.

A certain Japanese writer stated not long ago with startling frankness . . . that "a united, awakened, organized, efiicient China is a menace to the very existence of Japan." That statement, while in a sense the very essence of reality, is, by the light of dawning world peace, the pathetic negation of truth. Consider the reverse side of the statement — a China disintegrated, demoralized, and wholly subservient to Japanese domination — would that mean a great destiny for Japan? In the first place, it suggests a parting of the ways with world democracy. It means a program autocratic, materialistic, and militaristic to the last degree. Its logical goal would be the complete subjection and reorganization of China's countless laborers and resources under Japanese overlordship as a vast industrial foundation for Japanese military power. Imagine its limits, if you can. — ^Jackson Fleming, Asia, August, 1918, pp. 636, 637.

To the Japanese themselves, I venture to repeat words that I wrote over eleven years ago: They are even more true now than when they were written :

JAPAN A MENACE TO PEACE OF WORLD? >9

"The future of Japan, the future of the East, and, to some extent, the future of the world, lies in the answer to the question whether the militarists or the party of peaceful expansion gain the upper hand in the immediate future (in Japan). If the one, then we shall have harsher rule in Korea, steadily increasing aggression in Manchuria, growing interference with China, and, in the end, a titanic conflict, the end of which none can see. Under the other, Japan will enter into an inheritance, wider, more glorious, and more assured than any Asiatic power has attained for many centuries. . . . Japan has it in her to be, not the Mistress of the East, reigning, sword in hand, over subject races — for that she can never permanently be — but the bringer of peace to, and the teacher of, the East. Will she choose the nobler end?" — Frederick A. McKenzie, "Korea's Fight for Freedom," pp. 319, 320.

The Vision of Japanese Statesmen

Consolidation of Asia under Japanese domination is the vision of the Japanese statesmen ; and toward the attainment of this national goal there is unity of purpose among Japanese leaders. With this in view. Inner Mongolia and Fukien province are being overwhelmed, and, last but not least, Japan has obtained from the Powers at the Peace Conference the official recognition of her paramount interests in Shantung. At the present rate of Japanese aggression, China cannot last very long. Shall she be left to her own fate, or will the Powers of the West take an active interest in the Far Eastern affairs and save her national entity? The United States is not interested in any particular European or Asiatic problem, individual in character. But the United States is interested in a problem that has far-reaching effects on the world's peace and the welfare of mankind. What are her obligations, by treaty, by policy, by moral rights, to her sister republic in the East? — Henry Chung, "The Oriental Policy of the United States," pp. 11-13.

Shantung is only an incident in Japan's imperial policy for dominating Eastern Asia.' Behind Shantung is Japan's determination to control the economic resources of China, in order to raise herself to a first-class power and to maintain that position. Everyone now knows that this program is a policy of force to the utmost. We know it. Europe knows it. China knows it. Japan knows it.

Japan is carrying this program to the limit of Prussianism. Upon a country with whom she was not at war — merely a weakened people in vassalage to her, Korea — Japan has committed extreme cruelties, sabering and beating the people, burning whole villages, abolishing civil rights. Japan has terrorized a nation, and until recent weeks was in the act of terrorizing a great province in China. She has poisoned whole populations through illegitimate smuggling of morphine and opium. . . .

But admitting that Japan has gone to extremes, drawing the heaviest indictment against her, it remains that in principle she has merely followed the example of Europe — imperialism in its essence — the policy of taking everything you can lay hands on, whether or not it belongs to you. We in America, in ignorance of the game of international affairs, thought the Great War had ended that. We are now undeceiving ourselves.

Sharply then, and immediately, our democracy has collided with Japan's imperialism. There is no blinking that fact. There are two opposed systems. They have met in the persons of Americans and Japanese in Manchuria, buying beans or selling oil or soldiering against the Bolsheviki. They have met again over the conference tables of statesmen. — Louis D. Froelick, Asia, September, 1919, p. 875.

Clouds on the International Horizon

One such cloud that constantly hangs on the horizon of Japan- American friendship is the anti-Japanese agitation in California. It is but a tiny spot on the great body politic of America, but the latter should remember that it is quite big to Japan which has an area less than the state of California. Another cloud threatens to darken the horizon of America's relations with Japan in China. Americans will understand our feeling on this subject if they can but put themselves in our place and imagine what America would think and how her people would feel if Japan began to interfere in American relations in Mexico or some country of South America! Russia, too, promises to provide another problem in which Japan's relations with America may be put to the test; but after all, this also is nothing but the China problem in another guise. — 'Baron Yoshiro Sakatani, Japan Review, February, 1920, p. 107.

American Imperialistic Tendencies

In the course of a hundred years or so the United States had jumped the Mississippi River, crossed the Rockies, occupied the Pacific slope, and since Japan's war with China had spanned the Pacific, occupying Hawaii and the Philippines, and was seeking investments in Chinese mines and railways. What might she not do next? What wonder that many Japanese, misunderstanding the spirit of the American people, should be irritated by their open-door policy and regard it as a hypocritical cloak for selfish designs? What wonder that they should think of America as a menace and, even if they could be persuaded that for the present she had no selfish motives, should believe that commercial expansion and the investment of capital in China might lead her later to challenge Japan's special interests in that land? Many of them might feel, too, that the open door, splendid in theory, could not be left safely to the protection of Occidental powers. All of Japan's experience had been to the contrary. — Kenneth S. Latourette, "The Development of Japan," p. 206.

JAPAN A MENACE TO PEACE OF WORLD? 9

Modesty, moderation, and content with existing boundaries, in the sense in which Americans have sometimes enjoined them upon other nations, have not thus far revealed themselves as American traits. It would be unwarranted to attribute to Americans in this period of national expansion a definite policy of deliberate and unlimited expansion. They have had no such policy — indeed, no consistent and persistent policy whatever — and they have consistently and sincerely condemned such a policy on the part of others. But they have had, like other peoples, what the outside world quite naturally construes as such a policy, a permanent instinct of self-assertion which acts automatically in all situations. They don't want the earth — far from it. But whenever circumstances have directed their attention toward some concrete portion of it, it has looked good to them, and they have cast about successfully for reasons why they should possess it. They have wanted it, and if possible have taken it, from impulse, and then have justified the taking by arguments developed later. Best of all, they have justified it by their own large power to organize, develop, and bless. The need of room, so often and plausibly cited by other peoples in justification of their aggressions, is a need that they have never known. The needs and the convenience of neighbor nations they have never regarded. American imperialism has been of the most unmistakable and undisguised variety. — Harry H. Powers, "America among the Nations," pp. 68, 69.

America's Contribution in Opening Japan to the World

As Japan witnesses her enormous and unprecedented expansion of trade today and her rapid and colossal increase of specie, she cannot but reflect on the fact that such progress would have been impossible had not America forced open our doors and brought us into contact with the world at large.

One cannot help saying that there is no true Japanese who is not deeply grateful to America for what that country has done in the way of bringing Japan once more into commerce with the outside world. It is only right that 'we should acknowledge our obligations to the United States in this regard. — Baron Yoshiro Sakatani, Japan Review, February, 1920, pp. 106, 107.

Helping Japanese Liberals

The outcome of the war has dealt the militaristic and bureaucratic party in Japan the greatest blow it has ever had. It is not too much to say that only one thing could have shaken its hold to a greater extent, and that is the actual defeat in war of the party itself. . . .

The moral of all this for our own country is almost too obvious to need mentioning. The cause of liberalism in Japan has taken a mighty forward leap — so mighty as to be almost unbelievable. The causes which lo AMERICA'S STAKE IN THE FAR EAST

produced it can sustain it. If they do sustain it, there will be little backward reaction. If they do not continue in force to sustain it, they will betray it. To speak more plainly, the release of liberal forces that had been slowly forming beneath the lid was due to the belief that democracy really stood for the supremacy of fairness, humanity, and good feeling, and that consequently in a democratic world a nation like Japan, ambitious but weak in many respects in which her competitors are strong, could afford to enter upon the paths of liberalism. The real test has not yet come. But if the nominally democratic world should go back on the professions so profusely uttered during war days, the shock will be enormous, and bureaucracy and militarism might come back. One cannot believe that such a thing is to happen. But every manifestation of national greed, every cynical attack upon the basic ideas of the League of Nations, every repudiation of international idealism, every thoughtless word of race prejudice, every exhibition of dislike and unjustified suspicion directed at Japan, is a gratuitous offering in support of the now waning cause of autocratic bureaucracy in Japan. Liberalism here has plenty of difficulties still to overcome. Only the liberals in Japan itself, who have now taken heart and courage, can work out the problem. But liberals elsewhere can at least fight against those untoward developments in their own countries, which will restore to the Japanese reactionaries the weapons which the outcome of the war has loosed from their hands. — John Dewey, Dial, May 17, 1919, pp. 502, 503.