Changing China Part 1

Changing China.

by William Gascoyne-Cecil and Florence Gascoyne-Cecil.

PREFACE

Our interest in China was first aroused by a letter from an old school-fellow, Arthur Polhill, who, with heroic self-denial, has spent the best part of his life in China as a missionary. Subsequently I joined the China Emergency Committee, who in 1907 invited us to go out to the Shanghai Centenary Conference. That visit led naturally to a tour in China, Korea, and j.a.pan. When we returned we found that great interest was being felt at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the movement in the Far East; a Committee was formed to study the whole question, which accepted provisionally the idea of encouraging the foundation of a Western University. Before finally accepting the idea it was felt that some one ought to go to the mission centres of China and find out the opinions of the missionaries working on the field, and at the same time sound the Chinese Government and see whether it would be favourable to the scheme. As a result of these deliberations, the Committee asked us in 1909 to go out again, this time on behalf of the United Universities Scheme. On our return it was suggested that if we put our report into the form of a book it might possibly excite interest in the whole question, especially in the University scheme.

We were deeply impressed with two great facts--the greatness of the need of Western education from a Christian standpoint and the vital importance of immediate action.

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Not only did we seek information from English and American but also from French and Italian missions as occasion offered. We tested and compared this information by the information we got from that most enlightened and able body of men who form the consular body in China.

We are especially grateful to Sir John Jordan, by whose great diplomatic skill both the position of England and the goodwill of the Chinese are maintained.

It would be impossible even to record the names of all with whom we conversed, but our thanks are especially due to the following friends, not only for their generous hospitality, but also for the patient and kind way in which they instructed us in the many difficult aspects of the Chinese problem:--

Sir John and Lady Jordan, British Legation, Peking. H.E. the late Chang-Chih-Tung. H.E. the late Prince Ito. H.E. Tong-Shao-Yi. H.E.

Tuan-Fang. H.E. Liang-Ten-Sen. Sir Robert Hart. Sir Walter and Lady Hillier. Sir Robert and Lady Breedon. Dr. Aspland of Peking. Dr. and Mrs. Avison of Seoul. Dr. and Mrs. Baird of Pyeng-Yang. Bishop and Mrs. Bashford of Peking. Mr. Blair of Pyeng-Yang. M. et Mme.

Boissonnas, French Legation, Peking. Mr. Bondfield of Shanghai. Miss Bonnell of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Bonsey of Hankow. Dr. and Mrs.

Booth of Hankow. Miss Brierley of Wuchang. Bishop Ca.s.sels of West China. Mr. U. K. Cheng of Nanking. Dr. and Mrs. Christie of Mukden.

Mr. Chun Bing-Hun of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Clarke of Newchw.a.n.g. Dr.

Cochrane of Peking. Consul-General and Mrs. c.o.c.kburn, late of Seoul.

Miss Corbett of Peking. Mr. Deans of Ichang. Mr. and Mrs. Deeming of Han-Yang. Dr. Du Bose of Soochow. Mr. Ede of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs.

Arnold Foster of Wuchang. Consul-General and Mrs. Fraser of Hankow.

Mr. and Mrs. Gage of Changsha. Dr. and Mrs. Gibb of Peking. Dr. and Mrs. Gillieson of Hankow. Dr. Glenton of Wuchang. Bishop and Mrs.

Graves of Jessfield, Shanghai. Dr. and {v} Mrs. Hawks Pott of Jessfield, Shanghai. Consul and Mrs. Hewlett of Changsha. Mr.

Hollander of Hankow. Mr. and Mrs. Hoste of the C.I.M. Dr. Huntley of Han-Yang. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson of Wuchang. Monseigneur Jarlin, Pe-T'ang, Peking. Dr. Griffith John of Hankow. Miss Joynt of Hangchow. The late Miss Keane of Shanghai. Dr. and Mrs. Keller of Changsha. Consul and Mrs. King of Nanking. Dr. and Mrs. Lavington Hart of Tientsin. Mr. M. T. Liang of Mukden. Mr. and Mrs. Littell of Hankow. Dr. and Mrs. Lowry of Peking. Mr. and Mrs. MacIntosh of Tientsin. Dr. and Mrs. Macklin of Nanking. Dr. Macleod of Shanghai.

Dr. and Mrs. Main of Hangchow. Consul-General and Miss Mansfield, late of Canton. Dr. Martin of Peking. Mr. and Mrs. Meigs of Nanking. Miss Miner of Peking. Archdeacon and Mrs. Moule of Ningpo. Mr.

Mun-Yew-Chung of Shanghai. Dr. and Mrs. Murray of Peking. Mr. Norris of Peking. Mr. Oberg of Shanghai. Miss Phelps of Hankow. Mr. Arthur Polhill of the C.I.M. Miss Porter of Peking. Bishop Price of f.u.kien.

Deaconess Ransome of Peking. M. et Mme. Ratard, French Consulate, Shanghai. Mr. Ready of Changsha. Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert Reid of Shanghai. Dr. Timothy Richard of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts of Shan-hai-kwan. Mr. and Mrs. Ridgley of Wuchang. Bishop and Mrs. Roots of Hankow. Dr. and Mrs. Ross of Mukden. Miss Russell of Peking.

Bishop Scott of North China. Mrs. Scranton of Seoul. Mr. and Mrs.

Sedgwick of Tientsin. Mr. Shen-Tun-Lo of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs.

Sherman of Hankow. Mr. and Mrs. Smalley of Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs.

Sparham of Hankow. Mr. Sprent of Newchw.a.n.g. Mr. Squire of Ichang. Mr and Mrs. Stockman of Ichang. Mr. and Mrs. Symons of Shanghai. Taotai J. C. Tong of Shanghai. Taotai S. T. Tseng of Nanking. Mr. James Tsong of Wuchang. Mr. and Mrs. Turley of Mukden. Bishop Turner of Korea. Mr. and Mrs. Upward of Hankow. Dean and Mrs. Walker of Shanghai. Miss Wambold of Seoul. Consul-General Sir Pelham and Miss Warren of Shanghai. Mr. Warren of Changsha. Mr. Watson of Mukden.

Dr. and Mrs. Weir of Chemulpo. Dr. and Mrs. Wells of Pyeng-Yang.

Consul and Mrs. Willis of Mukden. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson of Changsha.

Mr. Yih-Ming-Tsah of Shanghai. Pere Recteur of Ziccawei, Shanghai, and many others.

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The following books were consulted:--

Among the Mongols: by James Gilmour, M.A. Annuaire Calendriere pour 1909. Appeal, An: by H. E. T'ang-K'ai-Sun. Buddhism in China: by Rev.

S. Beal. Catholic Church in China, The: by Rev. Bertram Wolferstan, S.J. Catholic Encyclopaedia of Missions. Century of Missions in China: by D. MacGillivray. China and the Allies: by A. Henry Savage Landor.

China in Transformation: by A. R. Colquhoun. China's Book of Martyrs: by Luella Miner. China's Only Hope: an Appeal by her greatest Viceroy, Chang-Chih-Tung. Chin-Chin: by Tcheng-Ki-Tong. Chinese Characteristics: by Dr. Arthur Smith. Chinese Cla.s.sics, The: Legge's Translation. Chinese Empire, The: by Marshall Broomhall. Chinese Shi-King: by Jennings. Chinese, The: by J. S. Thomson. Development of Religion in j.a.pan: by Knox. Diplomatic and Consular Reports, 1905-1908. Early Chinese History: by H. J. Allen. Educational Conquest of the Far East, The: by Lewis. Education in the Far East: by Thwing. Emba.s.sy to China: by Lord M'Cartney. Four Books, The: Anonymous. Griffith John: by R. Wardlaw Thompson. John Chinaman: by E. H. Parker. History of China, The: by Boulger. Indiscreet Letters from Peking: by Putnam Weale. Les Missions Catholiques Francaises aux XIX. Siecle: by Pere J. B. Piolet, S.J. Life and Works of Mencius: by Legge. Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, edited by Marshall Broomhall. Mission in China, A: by Soothill. Mission Methods in Manchuria: by John Ross, D.D. New China and Old: by Archdeacon Moule. Original Religion of China: by John Ross, D.D. Pastor Hsi: by Mrs. Taylor. Railway Enterprise in China: by P. H. Kent. Religions in China: by Edkins. Religious System of China: by J. J. M. de Groot, vol. v. Sidelights on Chinese Life: by MacGowan. Taoist Tests.

Things Chinese: by J. Dyer Ball. Troubles de Chine, Les: par Raoul Allier. Uplift of China, The: by Arthur Smith.

CHAPTER I

WHAT HAS AWAKENED CHINA?

For centuries China has been the land that never moved. It had a political history full of wars and bloodshed, of intrigue and murder; periods of prosperity and enlightenment; periods of darkness and desolation; but the country remained essentially the same country.

There might be some small alteration in its customs, but China was distinctly unprogressive. And everybody who knew China ten or fifteen years ago was prepared to prophesy that it would continue to remain unprogressive.

Many a missionary speaks of the China that he used to know as a very different land from the China of to-day. It used to be a sort of Rip Van Winkle land that had slept a thousand years, and showed every sign of remaining asleep for another thousand. Mrs. Arnold Foster told us that when she first came to Wuchang she used to see the soldiers dressed mediaevally, learning to make faces to inspire terror in the hearts of the adversary. Monseigneur Jarlin, the head of the French mission in Peking, described the China of olden times by saying that in his young days all Chinamen had a rooted contempt for everything Western. Theirs was the {4} only civilised land. The West was the land of barbarism. Now, he added, the positions are reversed; every Chinaman despises China, and is convinced that from the West comes the light of civilisation. Arch-deacon Moule tells how he sailed out to China in a sailing ship, and found a land absolutely indifferent to the existence of the West--more ignorant of the West than the West was of the East, and that, when he was young, was saying a great deal; and now he finds himself in a land that has telephones and motor cars and takes an active interest in flying machines.

China has fundamentally altered. She used to be absolutely the most conservative land in the world. Now she is a land which is seeing so many radical changes, that a missionary said, when I asked him a question about China, "You must not rely on me, for I left China three months ago, so that what I say may be out of date."

China is now progressive; yes, young China believes intensely in progress, with an optimistic spirit which reminds the onlooker more of the French pre-Revolution spirit than of anything else. And this intense belief in progress shows itself at every turn; the Yamen runner has become a policeman, towns are having the benefit of water-works, schools are being opened everywhere, railways cover the land. One may well ask what has accomplished this change, what has awakened China?

Perhaps, like many other great events in history, {5} this change of opinion in China should be attributed to more than one cause. There are two chief causes. One may be small, but it is not insignificant; the other is certainly great and obvious. The less appreciated factor that is causing the regeneration of China is Christianity; the larger and more obvious factor is the new national movement.

The cause of the new national movement was the sense of humiliation brought about by political events culminating in the battle of Mukden, where a flagrant act of insolent contempt for the laws of neutrality was felt all the more deeply because China had to submit to that which she was powerless to resist.

The events of the last few years are so well known that I must ask the indulgence of the reader in recapitulating them. China, confident in the number of her people, which reached to a quarter of the world's population, attempted to a.s.sert her rights of suzerainty over Korea against j.a.pan. She had not realised then that j.a.pan was no longer an Eastern power, where knights with two-handed swords did deeds of valour and won for themselves everlasting renown. And when at Ping-yang the armies met, the Chinese General ascended a hill that he might direct the armies of the Celestial Empire with a fan. He conceived the battle to be merely a small affair, where a fan could be seen by all the officers engaged. The result was, of course, that the German-trained j.a.panese army had a very easy victory. The war ended in the taking of Port Arthur by the j.a.panese, {6} and China was in the humiliating position of having to appeal to Western countries to secure her territory.

So far, however, the sting of her humiliation gave to China a sense of resentment against all foreigners, rather than a sense of repentance for her own shortcomings, and the missionaries found hostility to their work in every part of China. That hostility resulted in the murder of two German Roman Catholic missionaries in Shantung. The well-known action of Germany in demanding a cession of territory as a punishment for this murder may have been a good stroke of policy, but it has brought but little honour either to Germany or to Christianity. In fact it may be regarded as a most regrettable action from a missionary point of view, for it convinced the Chinese that the missionary was but a part of the civil administration of a hostile country, and that if China was to be preserved from the foreigner, missionaries must be induced to leave the country. A deep feeling of national resentment spread over the land, which was encouraged by some in authority. The direct connection between Government patronage of the anti-foreign movement and the German occupation of Kiauchau can be deduced from the fact that the Governor who was responsible for the awful murders in Shansi had been Governor of Shantung when Germany took Kiauchau.

The result of this bitter feeling was the creation of a secret and patriotic society which concealed the nature of its propaganda under a name with a double {7} meaning. The Boxer Society was, as its name suggests, apparently an athletic society--a society which had for its object the encouragement of the art of self-defence. But the name had another signification. Its real object, as a Chinaman explained to me, was to "knock the heads of the foreigners off." It was a religious as well as a political movement, however. It had its prophets, who did wonders or were thought to do them, and its disciples were believed to be invulnerable to any Western weapon. It protested against the movement towards Western ideas, which it regarded as immoral; it condemned and destroyed everything Western, from straw hats and cigarettes to mission houses and railways; its disciples believed that the spirits that defend China were angry at the introduction of Western things, that they were withholding the rain so necessary to the light loess land of that district, and that the only way they could be propitiated was by the sacrifice of a Western life or by the destruction of a Western building. One of the things that precipitated the siege of Peking was the apparent success of such an action. In pursuance of their faith, the Boxers set a light to the rail-head station of the half-made Hankow-Peking railway, a place called Pao-ting-fu; the station was a mere wooden barrack, and blazed up merrily with an imposing column of smoke; hardly had the smoke reached the heavens, when the sky was overcast with heavy thunder-clouds, and in a short time the thirsty land received the long-wished-for rain, and the Boxer {8} prophets pointed with sinister effect to the heavenly confirmation of their doctrine.

It is necessary to remind the reader of the religious aspect of Boxerdom, so that he shall realise what its fall meant to many Chinese.

Really their faith in it was wonderful. A Boxer, for instance, at the siege of Peking walked composedly in front of the Legation, waving his sword and performing mystic signs; the soldiers first of one then of another Legation fired on him with no effect; probably his coolness put out their aim. Another example of their credulity was told me at Newchw.a.n.g. The Russians had occupied Newchw.a.n.g, and, _more suo_, were pacifying it; they were shooting all the Boxers on whom they could lay hands, and, I am afraid, a great number who were not Boxers. They chained one of these fanatics to a stone seat with the intention of executing him; but they thought they might get some useful information out of him, so they asked an Englishman who spoke Chinese perfectly to make inquiries of him, giving him authority to offer a respite as a reward. He went to the prisoner, and sitting down by him, tried to induce him to save his life by giving information, but he was met by a contemptuous refusal; and when he pointed out that the firing party was there, the misguided man merely said, "I am a Boxer, and their bullets cannot hurt me." Another minute, of course, proved his error. But his firmness showed the reality of his conviction.

Sometimes this fanaticism had curious results. {9} A Boxer prophet a.s.sured the village that no works of the West could hurt him, no bullet could harm him, no train could crush him. As a railway ran near the village, he and all the inhabitants adjourned thither to put his invulnerability to the test. The daily train came puffing along, as the Boxer, waving his sword, stood right in its path. The driver was a European, and seeing some one on the line, pulled up his train to avoid running over him. The Boxer pointed to the train triumphantly, and the astonished villagers became Boxers. There was, however, a sceptic who refused to believe, so next day they repaired again to the line, and the Boxer again made his pa.s.ses and uttered his charms. Alas for him!

this time the driver was a Chinaman, and he was not going to stop his master's train because a coolie fellow got in the way, so he put on full steam and cut him to pieces, and the village deserted the Boxer faith to a man.

With the relief of Peking, the Boxer Society fell; but the popular view was not that Boxer teaching was false, but that the spirits behind Western religion were stronger than those behind Boxerdom. So one of the immediate results of the fall of the Boxers was to establish the spiritual prestige of Christianity; the second result was to inspire the Chinese with a respect for the military power of the foreigner.

The Boxers had failed, the foreign powers had taken Peking, the Son of Heaven had become a fugitive; all this was gall and {10} wormwood to the Chinaman. The sack of Peking was especially felt, both because of the wanton destruction that was committed--one informant told me he saw a vase worth 200 smashed into a thousand atoms by a drunken soldier--and because the enlightened Chinese knew very well that no civilised city is sacked at the present time, and that they were being treated as no other race is now treated.

Yet the old spirit of pride prevented them learning completely the full truth. The thinking Chinaman was still disposed to attribute the victory of the West to the superior fighting powers of Western men. A Chinese gentleman, explaining the fear his people have of Europeans, said, "They regard you as tigers." The troops who sacked Peking were to the thinking Chinaman but another example of the well-known truth, that those nearer the savage state fight better than civilised men, and really, considering the behaviour of some of the European troops, no surprise can be felt at this conclusion; it needed another lesson to make them finally and thoroughly realise the superiority of our civilisation.

The bitterness of their next humiliation made them ready to learn as they had never been before in the whole of their history, and events provided them with teachers who taught them that the cause of this humiliation was their refusal to accept Western ideas, and that if they would maintain {11} their independence they must learn the art of war from their conquerors.

After the siege of Peking came the Russo-j.a.panese war. The Russians had long been known and feared by the Chinese; they were to the Chinese mind the embodiment of the warlike and blood-thirsty spirit of the West; they were hated for their cruelty and feared for their prowess.

The awful story of the ma.s.sacre of Blagovestchensk in 1900 was still present to the popular mind. The story was this. The Amur divides China from Siberia. When the Boxer movement broke out the Russians required all the Chinese to go to their side of the river; but with sinister intent, they removed all the boats, so that no one could cross. The Chinese pointed this out, and the respectable merchants of the town presented a pet.i.tion saying they were ready to obey the Russian Government in everything, but without the boats they could not do so; but the Russians insisted that boats or no boats, they must cross the Amur; they protested, but in vain; a half-circle was formed round them by the soldiery, and the whole Chinese population of the city was driven into the river at the point of the bayonet.

The j.a.panese were also well known to the Chinese; they had been till lately, when the Western movement had altered everything in j.a.pan, their pupils in civilisation. The j.a.panese believed in Confucius, used Chinese characters, worshipped in Buddhist temples, sacrificed to ancestors, in fact {12} were in Chinese estimation a civilised race, though inferior of course to themselves.

When these two antagonists met in Manchuria, the war could not fail to make a deep impression on China. To begin with, it was an insult surpa.s.sing that of the sack of Peking to the Chinese _amour propre_, to have the war carried on in Manchuria. Russia and j.a.pan were disputing over Korea, and both nations were at peace with China. Russia might have invaded j.a.pan; j.a.pan might have invaded Russia, or both might have met in Korea, but what they did was to select a province of a neutral State and decide that there should be the scene of conflict. What made this more striking was that they agreed to respect the neutrality of the rest of China; in fact they selected their battle-ground with the same equanimity as if China and her national rights did not exist.

But the deepest impression made on the Chinese was by the victory of the Eastern over the Western. The j.a.panese demonstrated that there was no essential inferiority of the East to the West, and that when an Eastern race adopted Western military methods it proved itself superior to the most powerful of the Western races. This was the lesson the battle of Mukden taught the Chinese, and which convinced the anti-foreign party in China, that however much they might hate the foreigner, they must adopt Western methods if they would retain their independence. The result was that the progressive and {13} anti-foreign parties found themselves at one. Both agreed that Western ideas were necessary. The first, because they believed in Western progress; the second, because they felt that the only way to preserve China from the hated foreigner was to learn the secret of his military power. The first thing to be done was to study Western education, and then they could hope to hold their own against the Western races, as j.a.pan had more than held her own against the Russians.

I believe the battle of Mukden will prove one of the turning points in the history of the world. Few of us have any conception of the bitterness of the humiliation of China. People speak of Russia as having been humiliated, but my experience is that the Russians looked at the whole question as a colonial war in which a bungling Government embroiled their country--a war which, if it demonstrated the incapacity of their officers, proved the courage of their soldiers. But the humiliation of China was intense. When one remembers the position that the Emperor occupies in China; when one also remembers the reverential feeling that exists towards ancestors, one realises what it must have meant to the Chinaman that the site of the tombs of their Emperors should have been the scene of that t.i.tanic struggle between the East and the West. But the result of that humiliation was to burn in the lesson that j.a.pan had taken the right course, and that, however hateful were {14} Western ways, they were a necessity, and that every lover of China must do his best to introduce them into the Empire.

Of course there are many Chinamen--nay, I should think a vast majority--who intend to preserve to China the essential points of the Confucian civilisation; they mean to accept Western ideas only in so far as they are necessary to struggle against the West. Some, no doubt, definitely admire the West, but most are anxious for a compromise; they want to preserve China with its customs, with its essential thought, but to strengthen it by foreign knowledge and a foreign military system. The exact degree of what should be preserved in China and what should be destroyed and replaced by Western innovations, differs according to the age and the temperament of the thinkers, but the principle is most generally accepted--Western thought must be grafted on to Eastern civilisation. When we remember the size of China, we may well ask ourselves what effect this policy will have on the rest of the world. We have at present a period of reflection, for how long we cannot tell. The task of welding East and West into one whole is in practice proving difficult, and at present failure is very often the result; but with j.a.pan as a successful example, and with the threat of national extinction and foreign domination before them, the Chinese can never give up the effort; and whatever the exact result may be, I think one may a.s.sert {15} without rashness that not only will it fundamentally alter the whole of China, but through China affect the whole world.