Chapter VIII: China and the Powers

The Question of the Far East unexpectedly brought to an issue by the
defeat of China—Foreign misconception of Chinese power, and the
amazement of European diplomacy at its collapse—The new state of
affairs created by Japanese victories—The aims of the various
Powers in the Far East and their policy—England seeks an ally
against Russia—Her sudden change of policy in 1895—She abandons
China for Japan—Russia covets the whole of Northern China—Japan’s
wish to conquer the Celestial Empire—The treaty of
Shimonosaki—Opposition of Russia to Japanese policy—Russia becomes
the interested protectress of China—The convention between the
three Powers, France, Germany, and Russia—Attempt to bring about a
reconciliation between China and Japan—Substitution of a powerful
Russian influence for that of England.

The Chinese Question presents many difficulties, not only because the details are extremely complicated and the rival pretensions which it has created difficult to reconcile, but because of the unexpected manner in which it was thrust on the attention of Europe, at a time when diplomacy had no ready remedy.

The present position in the Far East is not the result of a gradual chain of events, but of the absolute surprise created by the unexpected results of the Chino-Japanese War. No doubt the collapse of China in 1894 was only the last act in a long drama of decadence, but it revealed to astonished Europe the utter incapacity of China either to reform or to defend herself, a fact for which we were quite unprepared. Japan alone knew the truth, and profited by her knowledge of her colossal neighbour’s almost incredible weakness. Russia had suspected it, but was not sufficiently convinced to venture on carrying her conviction into effect. Thanks to the astuteness of the Chinese and their remarkable aptitude in all arts of deception, and the effect mentally created by the prodigious multitude of her population—between three and four hundred million souls—China had systematically fooled both Governments and public alike, who shared the same illusion as to her power. Certain events had, it must be confessed, conspired to maintain this illusion, notably the bold resistance which the French army had met in Tongking, under, no doubt, peculiar circumstances, but, nevertheless, such as induced people to forget, at least for the time, the facile victories of the Allies in 1860. Certain far-seeing writers—Mr. Henry Norman and Mr. Curzon, the latter one of the most brilliant young statesmen of the United Kingdom—had indeed realized that under a smooth surface there existed in China amazing weakness and corruption. But they preached in the desert. The war had only just broken out, when one of the best-informed organs of the English press, the _Spectator_, stated: ‘We think the weight of opinion is with those who believe, as we do, that, if necessary, China could organize a most formidable army.’ This was the illusion universally entertained in Europe, and, strange to relate, shared by the majority of foreigners living in the Far East.

By dissipating these illusions and exhibiting to the world the truth concerning China’s decrepitude, the Japanese victories produced almost the effect of an earthquake. European diplomacy had foreseen that the war was likely to give rise to trouble, and Lord Rosebery even proposed to the Powers at the beginning of the conflict to come to an understanding with a view of stopping hostilities; but if the Queen’s Prime Minister feared that complications in Korea might lead to Russian intervention, the other Powers were not less unfavourably disposed to see a naval demonstration in Chinese waters in which England should take the lead. It was therefore resolved that European diplomacy should remain inactive and watch proceedings, everyone believing that Japan would soon be expelled from Korea, and that both the Japanese and Chinese fleets, weakened in one or two naval battles, would collapse altogether from sheer lack of combatants. When, however, the Chinese forces were annihilated in the autumn of 1894, Europe was taken aback with amazement, so great was her surprise, not to say consternation. By the spring of 1895 the Powers had recovered from the shock they had received, but their policy had consequently to be changed with respect to a Power which they had believed to be formidable, but whose weakness was now revealed.

England, with perhaps excessive frankness, turned her back on her old ally China. At the beginning of the conference she had been the champion of the Celestial Empire, and the newspapers related at the time a curious incident which happened before Wei-hai-wei, which the Japanese squadron was about to attack. The British fleet upset their plan by saluting Admiral Ito, contrary to all precedents, before sunrise, whereby the sleeping Chinese were warned of their danger. On more than one occasion the English did not hesitate to threaten the Japanese, especially after the latter had fired on a British merchant ship conveying some Chinese troops.[27] There was no mistaking the peremptory tone of England when she gave the Japanese to understand that she had no desire to see the war extend to Shanghai and the region of the Yang-tsze.

But the battle of the Yalu and the taking of Port Arthur in one morning by the troops of the Mikado opened the eyes of the Cabinet of St. James’s. What Britain desired in the Far East was, on the one hand, a political prop, and even a military one, if necessary, against the Empire of the Tsar—‘a bolt to fasten the door against the ambitions of Russian expansion,’ to use the significant expression of Herr von Brandt, and, on the other, a wide opening for her commerce and capital. Once convinced that Japan, firmly established in Korea and on the northern coast of the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, would become a far more efficacious ‘bolt’ than China, England began to favour the Japanese, and at the same time to advise the Chinese Government to abandon Peking, and establish itself nearer the centre of the Empire. If the Middle Kingdom was no longer a useful ally, it might still become a splendid prey, a field of extraordinary economic activity, so that the transfer of the capital to some point on the banks of the Yang-tsze accessible by sea—to Nanking, for instance, would have placed China at the mercy of the supreme mistress of the seas. The English, moreover, fully intended to force China to open her ports, and their commercial superiority and the influence which they have already established over the peoples in the Far East would soon have enabled them to profit largely by this revolution.

If, however, the consequences of the Chinese defeat were realized in London, they were no less so in St. Petersburg, and subsequent events proved that Russian diplomacy was equal to the occasion. The Government of the Tsar had beheld the war with quite as much displeasure as England, and would have preferred the Far Eastern Question remaining in abeyance until the termination of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The object pursued by Russia in the Far East is, it should be remembered, absolutely opposed to that of England, and concentrates itself on the one issue—the securing of open sea. The vast Empire of the Tsars possesses no port in Europe, where the ‘keys of the house’ are in the hands, so to speak, of other Powers, and England barred her way to the south fifteen or twenty years ago in Afghanistan and Beluchistan. In the Far East somewhere in the middle of the century Russia contrived to descend from the Polar Sea of Okhotsk and to advance at the expense of China as far as Vladivostok; but this port remains closed for two months on account of the ice, and Russia has always considered her provinces of the Amur and of the Littoral merely in the light of temporary stations, whence she intended on some future and favourable occasion to push her way further south. Between 1880 and 1886 it was reported that she was about to obtain a concession somewhere in the Bay of Korea, or even in the isle of Quelpart, which is in the strait separating that country from Japan. A little later she seemed to covet Port Arthur or Talien-wan, which are free of ice, and are situated at the extremity of the peninsula of Liao-tung, which would provide her access to an open sea at the back of Korea and other advantages. At the narrow entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li and only 50 miles from the opposite coast of Shan-tung, are ports which offer great advantages as naval stations, whence a rapid transport fleet could easily convey troops in twenty-four hours to Ta-ku, and thence in four days’ march to the Chinese capital. Once established at Port Arthur, and having plenty of elbow-room in Pe-chi-li, Russia could exercise over the Chinese Government, in its present capital, even a more irresistible pressure than could England have done had she been able to induce the Imperial Court to transport itself to the banks of the Yang-tsze.

Unquestionably the dreams of Russian aggrandizement have become much more ambitious since she has discovered how very weak the Sick Man of Peking is. She no longer seeks an open port on the Pacific, but apparently pursues her object, unostentatiously however, towards the complete domination of the Middle Kingdom, especially over her vast dependencies in Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria—in a word, over the whole of North China. And as the Muscovite temperament is ever a dreamy one, who knows but that on the shores of the Neva the heir of Peter the Great does not already picture himself on the throne of the Sun of Heaven, commanding the latter’s multitude of subjects, who are accustomed to submit to a foreign yoke, and might obey the Tsar as unresistingly as they did Ghengis Khan, even as to-day they pay homage to a degenerate Manchu, and as indeed they would have done to the Mikado, had not Europe put a stop to further advances on the part of the Japanese? The Mikado, too, who had been driven into the war by the repeated insolence of the Chinese and also by the justifiable desire to protect his commercial interests in Korea, may also, when intoxicated by his surprising successes, have entertained the thought that it might be possible for him one day to annex China. If this war had taken place fifty, or even twenty-five, years ago, when Europe paid less attention to foreign affairs, it is probable that the Manchu Dynasty would have been replaced by that of Japan. Possibly then the ‘Yellow Peril’—the military ‘Yellow Peril’—which to-day is but a mere chimera, might have become a very evident reality. The Japanese, after having thoroughly reorganized and disciplined the Chinese army, might at a given moment have let loose its innumerable hordes upon the Western world; but if in 1895 they had allowed themselves for a moment to dream of placing their Emperor upon the throne of Peking, the Japanese were not allowed to indulge in this pleasant vision for long, and were soon made to feel how intently and jealously their movements were watched by European diplomacy.

By the treaty of Shimonosaki, signed April 2, 1895, the Celestial Empire granted to her conquerors all their demands, recognising at the same time the independence of Korea, and allowing Japan, whose troops still occupied that country, a free hand. If this treaty had been ratified as it was originally drawn up, Russia would have had to renounce for a long time to come all hope of possessing an outlet to the open sea, and would certainly have had to see her influence substituted by a rival at Peking, who would have reorganized China possibly in a hostile spirit. She could not allow this, but she dared take no initiative by herself, fearing lest she might suddenly find herself confronted by England and Japan. She, therefore, before the signature of the treaty of peace, placed herself in communication with France and Germany, and endeavoured to make those Powers understand that the installation of Japan on the coast was as detrimental to their interests as it was to her own. She successfully converted them to her way of thinking, and on April 22 the three Powers addressed a Note to the Mikado, couched in the most courteous terms, begging of his Majesty to renounce his pretensions over the peninsula of Liao-tung, the establishment of his authority in that country being likely to create a permanent danger to the peace, not only of the Far East, but of the whole world. At first the Mikado, so it seems, was determined to resist at any cost, and to refuse to yield. His Government cast an eye towards England, to see if her support could be counted upon; but at that time the Cabinet of St. James’s had not made up its mind whether it would openly espouse the cause of Japan or not. Possibly it was influenced by the absolutely anti-Japanese feelings entertained by the vast majority of English subjects living in the Far East, and it is also by no means improbable that she did not wish to assist a Power that might eventually become a dangerous rival to her own commercial supremacy. Perceiving at last that England would neither join the three great Powers nor back the Mikado in his pretensions, the Government of Tokio very wisely consented, at the time bearing great ill-feeling towards England, who now found herself isolated in the Far East. Nevertheless, resentment against Russia was so powerful, and the feeling of alarm entertained by the two insular Powers at the spectacle of the progress made by Russia so great, that in a short time a reconciliation was effected between them.

The intervention of what is known in the Far East as the New Triple Alliance resulted in consequences quite as grave and durable as the war itself. Its immediate effects dominated the politics of the Far East until the end of 1897, and even now continue to do so. The essential features of the new situation were the substitution in China of Russian influence, now become all-powerful, for that of England, the antagonism which has risen between Russia and Japan, and the friendly feeling which now exists between this last Power and England. The mandarins and the Court of Peking, whilst never ceding an iota of their pride or their firm belief in the superiority of their civilization, were, nevertheless, obliged to admit the irremediable weakness of the military power of the Celestial Empire. If the majority did not care much for China as their country, they one and all considered her to be their prey, and consequently required a protector against the Japanese, and they proceeded from Legation to Legation in quest of one; as their situation was desperate, they were obliged to take what they could get, and, Russia being agreeable, they accepted her friendly offer, even though their new ally might eventually become a domineering master. This gave them time, and they counted upon their cunning, when a favourable opportunity presented itself, to set the Powers by the ears. Probably at heart they entertain less dislike for the Muscovite Empire than for any other European country, and, indeed, China has less friction with the Russians than with any other nationality. Russia can enter the Celestial Empire over her land frontier through countries very thinly populated by inhabitants not of Chinese race, who are not hostile to strangers; whereas the other Europeans coming by sea are brought into immediate contact with the turbulent crowds of the seaport towns, where the least act of imprudence may give rise to grave incidents. Moreover, the subjects of the Tsar exhibit a greater degree of forbearance than the peoples of the West. They do not experience that innate contempt for men of colour, they are more tractable to the habits of the countries in which they establish themselves, and are not so forward in protesting against petty annoyances. The Orthodox Church, too, scrupulously abstains from all propaganda in China, and the Russian Legation is therefore spared those delicate questions concerning the rights and the wrongs of missionaries which so greatly irritate the Chinese. All this facilitates the substitution of Russian influence for that of the English.

We must, however, seek for the causes which induced France and Germany to enter, under the Russian auspices, into an unexpected alliance outside the question of the Far East. The harmony that exists between these two Powers is due to their desire to gain the good graces of the Tsar. Rivals in endeavouring to please him, they both answered all proposals which came from St. Petersburg favourably. Germany had no political interests in the East of Asia, and France only those of secondary importance connected with Indo-China, and therefore these nations never hesitated to regulate their line of conduct in the Far East in accordance with their political aspirations in Europe, and, the better to please Russia, forthwith modified their previously somewhat hostile attitude. During the war both Powers had been more or less favourable to Japan.

This change of conduct involved a considerable sacrifice, especially in the case of France, and signified the rupture of her old friendship for Japan, whose army had been formed by a French military mission, and whose battleships and arsenals had been in great part constructed and organized by Frenchmen, services which the Japanese recognised shortly after the victory of the Yalu by sending to the eminent naval engineer, M. Bertin, the grand cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. France had not obtained great advantages from this friendship, but if she did not do so, it was more or less because she did not wish it, for it is certain that the alliance of the Mikado was offered to her in 1884 on the condition that she conveyed to the coasts of Pe-chi-li a Japanese army corps, intended to march on to Peking. France had also the right to expect after the war some commercial advantages, notably some important commercial orders to her great industrial firms, for the renovating of the fleet, much damaged by the war. By placing herself on the side of China, whose friendship might have been useful, the more so as she was a neighbour, although she was constantly wrangling with her, France gave up an alliance with the one country in the Far East which represents progress and has a future, and, what is more, she literally pushed her into the arms of England, who may one day make use of her against the French.

The sacrifices made by Germany were less important, for she could not expect in the Far East any considerable advantages. To begin with, she had seized the opportunity to play a political part on a stage where she had never appeared before, but being much more commercial than France, she had more to gain from the concessions which China would be obliged to make, and she could thus include this vast market in the sphere of her industrial activity and commercial enterprise. By mixing in the affairs of the Far East the youthful German Empire only obeyed the instinct of foreign expansion which obliges her to watch over her political and commercial interests in all parts of the world.

On the other hand, the action of the three Continental Powers presented considerable danger, aggravated as it was by the warlike intentions of the commanders of the Russian fleet. A rumour certainly existed in 1896 in the Far East, and, moreover, has since been confirmed to me by most credible witnesses, that between April 25, the day on which the Note of the three Powers was presented, and May 5th, the date on which the representatives of Japan announced their acquiescence, Admiral Tyrtof, who commanded the Russian fleet and who has since become Minister of Marine, invited Admiral de la Bonninière de Beaumont to proceed with him to meet the Japanese fleet at the risk of provoking a collision, in which the latter would inevitably have been crushed. The presence of mind of the French Admiral, who evaded the invitation by protesting that he had received no instructions from his Government, and therefore delayed matters as long as possible, prevented an aggression which might have resulted in dreadful consequences, and led to a massacre in Japan itself of Russian and French residents, and, moreover, might have brought about extremely grave international complications. Who knows, too, but that public opinion in England might have been offended by such an act, and that on the morrow of an easy victory over the Japanese the Allies might have found themselves face to face with the British fleet?

It is certain that by taking sides with Russia in a question of only secondary interest to herself France incurred the grave risk of a war not only with Japan, but with England, a war in which her stake was far greater than that of Russia or of Germany, and the consequences of which she would have been obliged to bear alone. Fortunately, the prudence of Admiral de Beaumont smoothed over the angry feeling of the Russian commanders, which, however, manifested itself once more on May 8, 1895, the date on which the ratifications of the treaty of peace between China and Japan were to have been exchanged. On that day the Russian fleet was stationed in the roads off the Chinese port of Chefoo, at the entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, opposite Port Arthur, where the exchange of ratifications was to have occurred, ready for fight in case Japan refused her acceptance, in which case it was agreed between the admirals to oppose the Japanese near Ta-ku, at the mouth of the Pei-ho, close to Wei-hai-Wei, where their fleet was anchored. Alongside of the Russian fleet were two German cruisers, representing the German navy in the Far East; but Admiral de Beaumont steamed away, leaving only at Wei-hai-Wei the _Forfait_, thereby showing very clearly that he had no intention of taking part in a superfluous demonstration, which would only have resulted in increasing the irritation of Japan against the three Powers.

These warlike demonstrations presented a singular contrast to the extremely courteous tone of the Notes presented to Japan by the Russian, French, and German ministers. They had the effect of convincing Japan that she had in the future to count with the lasting hostility of the Tsar, and that the secret desire of the Government of St. Petersburg was not only to prevent her establishing herself on the Asiatic Continent, but also eventually to completely annihilate her. By a curious right-about-face, Japan now turned towards China, who received her overtures favourably. The fact was that at Peking the pretensions of Russia had created great alarm, and Li Hung-chang opened his heart to the Japanese Consul at Tien-tsin, and begged the Cabinet of Tokio to give a conciliatory answer with respect to the question of Liao-tung, and solve it in a friendly manner, and thereby avoid increasing the responsibilities which weighed upon his shoulders. The Chinese Government, he added, was entirely at the mercy of the Russians, and could only be saved by Japan.

Was this intended on the part of the old diplomatist as a disguised offer of service? It is impossible to say. One thing only is certain—the Tsung-li-Yamen proposed that the Japanese minister, M. Hayashi, should negotiate directly, and offer as a compensation for Liao-tung not an indemnity, but an alliance with China and a concession for the railway to be built between Tien-tsin and Peking. The Government of the Mikado was inclined to accept this solution, but the three Continental Powers—that is to say, Russia—did not view the matter favourably. They wished, for better security—that Japan should not be bound to China only, but that the retrocession of Liao-tung should not be subjected to clauses calculated to prolong matters, and, above all, a cessation of the continuance of the Japanese occupation of Korea. They therefore insisted that the matter should be settled at once by the payment of a supplementary indemnity of 30,000,000 taels, or £4,500,000, payable on November 18th, 1895, the Japanese evacuation to take place within three months.

Japan was obliged to accept these propositions by an exchange of Notes signed on the 19th October, and she, moreover, agreed to withdraw her troops from Korea immediately. The attempt at a reconciliation and an alliance with the Celestial Empire had failed; but since then the language of the Japanese press and of many of her statesmen proves that at Tokio this idea has not been entirely abandoned, and if they have not been able to confiscate China to the advantage of the Mikado, the Japanese wish to see her placed in a position to resist the pressure of other Powers and to exist by her own resources. On the payment of the indemnity, Japan endeavoured to obtain from China a formal promise that she would never cede to any other Power the territories which she had been obliged to restore. But Russian influence was already too firmly established, and the promise was refused. The new political line of conduct which the European Powers and those which had at first come to her assistance were about to follow with respect to China was now openly developed. If the Setting Sun had more worshippers now than the Rising Sun, it is assuredly not the result of any sentiment of chivalrous disinterestedness—quite the contrary.