The Problem of China Part 4

The intelligentsia in China has a very peculiar position, unlike that which it has in any other country. Hereditary aristocracy has been practically extinct in China for about 2,000 years, and for many centuries the country has been governed by the successful candidates in compet.i.tive examinations. This has given to the educated the kind of prestige elsewhere belonging to a governing aristocracy. Although the old traditional education is fast dying out, and higher education now teaches modern subjects, the prestige of education has survived, and public opinion is still ready to be influenced by those who have intellectual qualifications. The Tuchuns, many of whom, including Chang-tso-lin, have begun by being brigands,[36] are, of course, mostly too stupid and ignorant to share this att.i.tude, but that in itself makes their regime weak and unstable. The influence of Young China--_i.e._ of those who have been educated either abroad or in modern colleges at home--is far greater than it would be in a country with less respect for learning. This is, perhaps, the most hopeful feature in the situation, because the number of modern students is rapidly increasing, and their outlook and aims are admirable. In another ten years or so they will probably be strong enough to regenerate China--if only the Powers will allow ten years to elapse without taking any drastic action.

It is important to try to understand the outlook and potentialities of Young China. Most of my time was spent among those Chinese who had had a modern education, and I should like to give some idea of their mentality. It seemed to me that one could already distinguish two generations: the older men, who had fought their way with great difficulty and almost in solitude out of the traditional Confucian prejudices; and the younger men, who had found modern schools and colleges waiting for them, containing a whole world of modern-minded people ready to give sympathy and encouragement in the inevitable fight against the family. The older men--men varying in age from 30 to 50--have gone through an inward and outward struggle resembling that of the rationalists of Darwin's and Mill's generation. They have had, painfully and with infinite difficulty, to free their minds from the beliefs instilled in youth, and to turn their thoughts to a new science and a new ethic. Imagine (say) Plotinus recalled from the shades and miraculously compelled to respect Mr. Henry Ford; this will give you some idea of the centuries across which these men have had to travel in becoming European. Some of them are a little weary with the effort, their forces somewhat spent and their originality no longer creative.

But this can astonish no one who realizes the internal revolution they have achieved in their own minds.

It must not be supposed that an able Chinaman, when he masters our culture, becomes purely imitative. This may happen among the second-rate Chinese, especially when they turn Christians, but it does not happen among the best. They remain Chinese, critical of European civilization even when they have a.s.similated it. They retain a certain crystal candour and a touching belief in the efficacy of moral forces; the industrial revolution has not yet affected their mental processes. When they become persuaded of the importance of some opinion, they try to spread it by setting forth the reasons in its favour; they do not hire the front pages of newspapers for advertising, or put up on h.o.a.rdings along the railways "So-and-so's opinion is the best." In all this they differ greatly from more advanced nations, and particularly from America; it never occurs to them to treat opinions as if they were soaps. And they have no admiration for ruthlessness, or love of bustling activity without regard to its purpose. Having thrown over the prejudices in which they were brought up, they have not taken on a new set, but have remained genuinely free in their thoughts, able to consider any proposition honestly on its merits.

The younger men, however, have something more than the first generation of modern intellectuals. Having had less of a struggle, they have retained more energy and self-confidence. The candour and honesty of the pioneers survive, with more determination to be socially effective. This may be merely the natural character of youth, but I think it is more than that. Young men under thirty have often come in contact with Western ideas at a sufficiently early age to have a.s.similated them without a great struggle, so that they can acquire knowledge without being torn by spiritual conflicts. And they have been able to learn Western knowledge from Chinese teachers to begin with, which has made the process less difficult. Even the youngest students, of course, still have reactionary families, but they find less difficulty than their predecessors in resisting the claims of the family, and in realizing practically, not only theoretically, that the traditional Chinese reverence for the old may well be carried too far. In these young men I see the hope of China. When a little experience has taught them practical wisdom, I believe they will be able to lead Chinese opinion in the directions in which it ought to move.

There is one traditional Chinese belief which dies very hard, and that is the belief that correct ethical sentiments are more important then detailed scientific knowledge. This view is, of course, derived from the Confucian tradition, and is more or less true in a pre-industrial society. It would have been upheld by Rousseau or Dr. Johnson, and broadly speaking by everybody before the Benthamites. We, in the West, have now swung to the opposite extreme: we tend to think that technical efficiency is everything and moral purpose nothing. A battleship may be taken as the concrete embodiment of this view. When we read, say, of some new poison-gas by means of which one bomb from an aeroplane can exterminate a whole town, we have a thrill of what we fondly believe to be horror, but it is really delight in scientific skill. Science is our G.o.d; we say to it, "Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee." And so it slays us. The Chinese have not this defect, but they have the opposite one, of believing that good intentions are the only thing really necessary. I will give an ill.u.s.tration. Forsythe Sherfesee, Forestry Adviser to the Chinese Government, gave an address at the British Legation in January 1919 on "Some National Aspects of Forestry in China."[37] In this address he proves (so far as a person ignorant of forestry can judge) that large parts of China which now lie waste are suitable for forestry, that the importation of timber (_e.g_. for railway sleepers) which now takes place is wholly unnecessary, and that the floods which often sweep away whole districts would be largely prevented if the slopes of the mountains from which the rivers come were reafforested. Yet it is often difficult to interest even the most reforming Chinese in afforestation, because it is not an easy subject for ethical enthusiasm. Trees are planted round graves, because Confucius said they should be; if Confucianism dies out, even these will be cut down. But public-spirited Chinese students learn political theory as it is taught in our universities, and despise such humble questions as the utility of trees. After learning all about (say) the proper relations of the two Houses of Parliament, they go home to find that some Tuchun has dismissed both Houses, and is governing in a fashion not considered in our text-books. Our theories of politics are only true in the West (if there); our theories of forestry are equally true everywhere. Yet it is our theories of politics that Chinese students are most eager to learn. Similarly the practical study of industrial processes might be very useful, but the Chinese prefer the study of our theoretical economics, which is hardly applicable except where industry is already developed. In all these respects, however, there is beginning to be a marked improvement.

It is science that makes the difference between our intellectual outlook and that of the Chinese intelligentsia. The Chinese, even the most modern, look to the white nations, especially America, for moral maxims to replace those of Confucius. They have not yet grasped that men's morals in the ma.s.s are the same everywhere: they do as much harm as they dare, and as much good as they must. In so far as there is a difference of morals between us and the Chinese, we differ for the worse, because we are more energetic, and can therefore commit more crimes _per diem_.

What we have to teach the Chinese is not morals, or ethical maxims about government, but science and technical skill. The real problem for the Chinese intellectuals is to acquire Western knowledge without acquiring the mechanistic outlook.

Perhaps it is not clear what I mean by "the mechanistic outlook." I mean something which exists equally in Imperialism, Bolshevism and the Y.M.C.A.; something which distinguishes all these from the Chinese outlook, and which I, for my part, consider very evil. What I mean is the habit of regarding mankind as raw material, to be moulded by our scientific manipulation into whatever form may happen to suit our fancy.

The essence of the matter, from the point of view of the individual who has this point of view, is the cultivation of will at the expense of perception, the fervent moral belief that it is our duty to force other people to realize our conception of the world. The Chinese intellectual is not much troubled by Imperialism as a creed, but is vigorously a.s.sailed by Bolshevism and the Y.M.C.A., to one or other of which he is too apt to fall a victim, learning a belief from the one in the cla.s.s-war and the dictatorship of the communists, from the other in the mystic efficacy of cold baths and dumb-bells. Both these creeds, in their Western adepts, involve a contempt for the rest of mankind except as potential converts, and the belief that progress consists in the spread of a doctrine. They both involve a belief in government and a life against Nature. This view, though I have called it mechanistic, is as old as religion, though mechanism has given it new and more virulent forms. The first of Chinese philosophers, Lao-Tze, wrote his book to protest against it, and his disciple Chuang-Tze put his criticism into a fable[38]:--

Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat gra.s.s and drink water, and fling up their heels over the champaign. Such is the real nature of horses. Palatial dwellings are of no use to them.

One day Po Lo appeared, saying: "I understand the management of horses."

So he branded them, and clipped them, and pared their hoofs, and put halters on them, tying them up by the head and shackling them by the feet, and disposing them in stables, with the result that two or three in every ten died. Then he kept them hungry and thirsty, trotting them and galloping them, and grooming, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, with the misery of the ta.s.selled bridle before and the fear of the knotted whip behind, until more than half of them were dead.

The potter says: "I can do what I will with clay. If I want it round, I use compa.s.ses; if rectangular, a square."

The carpenter says: "I can do what I will with wood. If I want it curved, I use an arc; if straight, a line."

But on what grounds can we think that the natures of clay and wood desire this application of compa.s.ses and square, of arc and line? Nevertheless, every age extols Po Lo for his skill in managing horses, and potters and carpenters for their skill with clay and wood. Those who _govern_ the Empire make the same mistake.

Although Taoism, of which Lao-Tze was the founder and Chuang-Tze the chief apostle, was displaced by Confucianism, yet the spirit of this fable has penetrated deeply into Chinese life, making it more urbane and tolerant, more contemplative and observant, than the fiercer life of the West. The Chinese watch foreigners as we watch animals in the Zoo, to see whether they "drink water and fling up their heels over the champaign," and generally to derive amus.e.m.e.nt from their curious habits.

Unlike the Y.M.C.A., they have no wish to alter the habits of the foreigners, any more than we wish to put the monkeys at the Zoo into trousers and stiff shirts. And their att.i.tude towards each other is, as a rule, equally tolerant. When they became a Republic, instead of cutting off the Emperor's head, as other nations do, they left him his t.i.tle, his palace, and four million dollars a year (about 600,000), and he remains to this moment with his officials, his eunuchs and his etiquette, but without one shred of power or influence. In talking with a Chinese, you feel that he is trying to understand you, not to alter you or interfere with you. The result of his attempt may be a caricature or a panegyric, but in either case it will be full of delicate perception and subtle humour. A friend in Peking showed me a number of pictures, among which I specially remember various birds: a hawk swooping on a sparrow, an eagle clasping a big bough of a tree in his claws, water-fowl standing on one leg disconsolate in the snow. All these pictures showed that kind of sympathetic understanding which one feels also in their dealings with human beings--something which I can perhaps best describe as the ant.i.thesis of Nietzsche. This quality, unfortunately, is useless in warfare, and foreign nations are doing their best to stamp it out. But it is an infinitely valuable quality, of which our Western world has far too little. Together with their exquisite sense of beauty, it makes the Chinese nation quite extraordinarily lovable. The injury that we are doing to China is wanton and cruel, the destruction of something delicate and lovely for the sake of the gross pleasures of barbarous millionaires. One of the poems translated from the Chinese by Mr. Waley[39] is called _Business Men_, and it expresses, perhaps more accurately than I could do, the respects in which the Chinese are our superiors:--

Business men boast of their skill and cunning But in philosophy they are like little children.

Bragging to each other of successful depredations They neglect to consider the ultimate fate of the body.

What should they know of the Master of Dark Truth Who saw the wide world in a jade cup, By illumined conception got clear of heaven and earth: On the chariot of Mutation entered the Gate of Immutability?

I wish I could hope that some respect for "the Master of Dark Truth"

would enter into the hearts of our apostles of Western culture. But as that is out of the question, it is necessary to seek other ways of solving the Far Eastern question.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: _The Truth about China and j.a.pan_, Allen & Unwin, 1921, p.

14. On the other hand Sih-Gung Cheng (_Modern China_, p. 13) says that it "killed twenty million people," which is the more usual estimate, cf.

_China of the Chinese_ by E.T.C. Werner, p. 24. The extent to which the population was diminished is not accurately known, but I have no doubt that 20 millions is nearer the truth than 150 millions.]

[Footnote 32: In January 1922, he came to Peking to establish a more subservient Government, the dismissal of which has been ordered by Wu-Pei-Fu. A clash is imminent. See Appendix.]

[Footnote 33: The blame for this is put upon Sun Yat Sen, who is said to have made an alliance with Chang-tso-lin. The best element in the Canton Government was said to be represented by Sun's colleague General Cheng Chiung Ming, who is now reported to have been dismissed (_The Times_, April 24, 1922). These statements are apparently unfounded. See Appendix.]

[Footnote 34: The soya bean is rapidly becoming an important product, especially in Manchuria.]

[Footnote 35: There are, however, no accurate statistics as to the birth-rate or the death-rate in China, and some writers question whether the birth-rate is really very large. From a privately printed pamphlet by my friend Mr. V.K. Ting, I learn that Dr. Lennox, of the Peking Union Medical College, from a careful study of 4,000 families, found that the average number of children (dead and living) per family was 2.1, while the infant mortality was 184.1. Other investigations are quoted to show that the birth-rate near Peking is between 30 and 50. In the absence of statistics, generalizations about the population question in China must be received with extreme caution.]

[Footnote 36: I repeat what everybody, Chinese or foreign, told me. Mr.

Bland, _per contra_, describes Chang-tso-lin as a polished Confucian.

Contrast p. 104 of his _China, j.a.pan and Korea_ with pp. 143, 146 of Coleman's _The Far East Unveiled_, which gives the view of everybody except Mr. Bland. Lord Northcliffe had an interview with Chang-tso-lin reported in _The Times_ recently, but he was, of course, unable to estimate Chang-tso-lin's claims to literary culture.]

[Footnote 37: Printed in _China in 1918_, published by the _Peking Leader_.]

[Footnote 38: _Musings of a Chinese Mystic_, by Lionel Giles (Murray), p. 66. For Legge's translation, see Vol. I, p. 277 of his _Texts of Taoism_ in _Sacred Books of the East_, Vol. x.x.xIX.]

[Footnote 39: Waley, 170 _Chinese Poems_, p. 96.]

CHAPTER V

j.a.pAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION

For modern China, the most important foreign nation is j.a.pan. In order to understand the part played by j.a.pan, it is necessary to know something of that country, to which we must now turn our attention.

In reading the history of j.a.pan, one of the most amazing things is the persistence of the same forces and the same beliefs throughout the centuries. j.a.panese history practically begins with a "Restoration" by no means unlike that of 1867-8. Buddhism was introduced into j.a.pan from Korea in 552 A.D.[40] At the same time and from the same source Chinese civilization became much better known in j.a.pan than it had been through the occasional intercourse of former centuries. Both novelties won favour. Two j.a.panese students (followed later by many others) went to China in 608 A.D., to master the civilization of that country. The j.a.panese are an experimental nation, and before adopting Buddhism nationally they ordered one or two prominent courtiers to adopt it, with a view to seeing whether they prospered more or less than the adherents of the traditional Shinto religion.[41] After some vicissitudes, the experiment was held to have favoured the foreign religion, which, as a Court religion, acquired more prestige than Shinto, although the latter was never ousted, and remained the chief religion of the peasantry until the thirteenth century. It is remarkable to find that, as late as the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi, who was of peasant origin, had a much higher opinion of "the way of the G.o.ds"

(which is what "Shinto" means) than of Buddhism.[42] Probably the revival of Shinto in modern times was facilitated by a continuing belief in that religion on the part of the less noisy sections of the population. But so far as the people mentioned in history are concerned, Buddhism plays a very much greater part than Shinto.

The object of the Restoration in 1867-8 was, at any rate in part, to restore the const.i.tution of 645 A.D. The object of the const.i.tution of 645 A.D. was to restore the form of government that had prevailed in the good old days. What the object was of those who established the government of the good old days, I do not profess to know. However that may be, the country before 645 A.D. was given over to feudalism and internal strife, while the power of the Mikado had sunk to a very low ebb. The Mikado had had the civil power, but had allowed great feudatories to acquire military control, so that the civil government fell into contempt. Contact with the superior civilization of China made intelligent people think that the Chinese const.i.tution deserved imitation, along with the Chinese morals and religion. The Chinese Emperor was the Son of Heaven, so the Mikado came to be descended from the Sun G.o.ddess. The Chinese Emperor, whenever he happened to be a vigorous man, was genuinely supreme, so the Mikado must be made so.

The similarity of the influence of China in producing the Restoration of 645 A.D. and that of Europe in producing the Restoration of 1867-8 is set forth by Murdoch[43] as follows:--

In the summer of 1863 a band of four Choshu youths were smuggled on board a British steamer by the aid of kind Scottish friends who sympathized with their endeavour to proceed to Europe for purposes of study. These, friends possibly did not know that some of the four had been protagonists in the burning down of the British Legation on Gotenyama a few months before, and they certainly could never have suspected that the real mission of the four youths was to master the secrets of Western civilization with a sole view of driving the Western barbarians from the sacred soil of j.a.pan. Prince Ito and Marquis Inouye--for they were two of this venturesome quartette--have often told of their rapid disillusionment when they reached London, and saw these despised Western barbarians at home. On their return to j.a.pan they at once became the apostles of a new doctrine, and their effective preaching has had much to do with the pride of place Dai Nippon now holds among the Great Powers of the world.

The two students who went to China in 608 A.D. "rendered even more ill.u.s.trious service to their country perhaps than Ito and Inouye have done. For at the Revolution of 1868, the leaders of the movement harked back to the 645-650 A.D. period for a good deal of their inspiration, and the real men of political knowledge at that time were the two National Doctors."

Politically, what was done in 645 A.D. and the period immediately following was not unlike what was done in France by Louis XI and Richelieu--curbing of the great n.o.bles and an exaltation of the sovereign, with a subst.i.tution of civil justice for military anarchy.

The movement was represented by its promoters as a Restoration, probably with about the same amount of truth as in 1867. At the latter date, there was restoration so far as the power of the Mikado was concerned, but innovation as regards the introduction of Western ideas. Similarly, in 645 A.D., what was done about the Mikado was a return to the past, but what was done in the way of spreading Chinese civilization was just the opposite. There must have been, in both cases, the same curious mixture of antiquarian and reforming tendencies.

Throughout subsequent j.a.panese history, until the Restoration, one seems to see two opposite forces struggling for mastery over people's minds, namely the ideas of government, civilization and art derived from China on the one hand, and the native tendency to feudalism, clan government, and civil war on the other. The conflict is very a.n.a.logous to that which went on in mediaeval Europe between the Church, which represented ideas derived from Rome, and the turbulent barons, who were struggling to preserve the way of life of the ancient Teutons. Henry IV at Canossa, Henry II doing penance for Becket, represent the triumph of civilization over rude vigour; and something similar is to be seen at intervals in j.a.pan.

After 645, the Mikado's Government had real power for some centuries, but gradually it fell more and more under the sway of the soldiers. So long as it had wealth (which lasted long after it ceased to have power) it continued to represent what was most civilized in j.a.pan: the study of Chinese literature, the patronage of art, and the attempt to preserve respect for something other than brute force. But the Court n.o.bles (who remained throughout quite distinct from the military feudal chiefs) were so degenerate and feeble, so stereotyped and unprogressive, that it would have been quite impossible for the country to be governed by them and the system they represented. In this respect they differed greatly from the mediaeval Church, which no one could accuse of lack of vigour, although the vigour of the feudal aristocracy may have been even greater. Accordingly, while the Church in Europe usually defeated the secular princes, the exact opposite happened in j.a.pan, where the Mikado and his Court sank into greater and greater contempt down to the time of the Restoration.

The j.a.panese have a curious pa.s.sion for separating the real and the nominal Governments, leaving the show to the latter and the substance of power to the former. First the Emperors took to resigning in favour of their infant sons, and continuing to govern in reality, often from some monastery, where they had become monks. Then the Shogun, who represented the military power, became supreme, but still governed in the name of the Emperor. The word "Shogun" merely means "General"; the full t.i.tle of the people whom we call "Shogun" is "Sei-i-Tai Shogun," which means "Barbarian-subduing great General"; the barbarians in question being the Ainus, the j.a.panese aborigines. The first to hold this office in the form which it had at most times until the Restoration was Minamoto Yoritomo, on whom the t.i.tle was conferred by the Mikado in 1192. But before long the Shogun became nearly as much of a figure-head as the Mikado. Custom confined the Shogunate to the Minamoto family, and the actual power was wielded by Regents in the name of the Shogun. This lasted until near the end of the sixteenth century, when it happened that Iyeyasu, the supreme military commander of his day, belonged to the Minamoto family, and was therefore able to a.s.sume the office of Shogun himself. He and his descendants held the office until it was abolished at the Restoration. The Restoration, however, did not put an end to the practice of a real Government behind the nominal one. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet are presented to the world as the j.a.panese Government, but the real Government is the Genro, or Elder Statesmen, and their successors, of whom I shall have more to say in the next chapter.

What the j.a.panese made of Buddhism reminds one in many ways of what the Teutonic nations made of Christianity. Buddhism and Christianity, originally, were very similar in spirit. They were both religions aiming at the achievement of holiness by renunciation of the world. They both ignored politics and government and wealth, for which they subst.i.tuted the future life as what was of real importance. They were both religions of peace, teaching gentleness and non-resistance. But both had to undergo great transformations in adapting themselves to the instincts of warlike barbarians. In j.a.pan, a mult.i.tude of sects arose, teaching doctrines which differed in many ways from Mahayana orthodoxy. Buddhism became national and militaristic; the abbots of great monasteries became important feudal chieftains, whose monks const.i.tuted an army which was ready to fight on the slightest provocation. Sieges of monasteries and battles with monks are of constant occurrence in j.a.panese history.

The j.a.panese, as every one knows, decided, after about 100 years'

experience of Western missionaries and merchants, to close their country completely to foreigners, with the exception of a very restricted and closely supervised commerce with the Dutch. The first arrival of the Portuguese in j.a.pan was in or about the year 1543, and their final expulsion was in the year 1639. What happened between these two dates is instructive for the understanding of j.a.pan. The first Portuguese brought with them Christianity and fire-arms, of which the j.a.panese tolerated the former for the sake of the latter. At that time there was virtually no Central Government in the country, and the various Daimyo were engaged in constant wars with each other. The south-western island, Kyushu, was even more independent of such central authority as existed than were the other parts of j.a.pan, and it was in this island (containing the port of Nagasaki) that the Portuguese first landed and were throughout chiefly active. They traded from Macao, bringing merchandise, match-locks and Jesuits, as well as artillery on their larger vessels. It was found that they attached importance to the spread of Christianity, and some of the Daimyo, in order to get their trade and their guns, allowed themselves to be baptized by the Jesuits. The Portuguese of those days seem to have been genuinely more anxious to make converts than to extend their trade; when, later on, the j.a.panese began to object to missionaries while still desiring trade, neither the Portuguese nor the Spaniards could be induced to refrain from helping the Fathers. However, all might have gone well if the Portuguese had been able to retain the monopoly which had been granted to them by a Papal Bull. Their monopoly of trade was a.s.sociated with a Jesuit monopoly of missionary activity. But from 1592 onward, the Spaniards from Manila competed with the Portuguese from Macao, and the Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, brought by the Spaniards, competed with the Jesuit missionaries brought by the Portuguese. They quarrelled furiously, even at times when they were suffering persecution; and the j.a.panese naturally believed the accusations that each side brought against the other. Moreover, when they were shown maps displaying the extent of the King of Spain's dominions, they became alarmed for their national independence. In the year 1596, a Spanish ship, the _San Felipe_, on its way from Manila to Acapulco, was becalmed off the coast of j.a.pan. The local Daimyo insisted on sending men to tow it into his harbour, and gave them instructions to run it aground on a sandbank, which they did. He thereupon claimed the whole cargo, valued at 600,000 crowns. However, Hideyoshi, who was rapidly acquiring supreme power in j.a.pan, thought this too large a windfall for a private citizen, and had the Spanish pilot interviewed by a man named Masuda. The pilot, after trying reason in vain, attempted intimidation.

He produced a map of the world, and on it pointed out the vast extent of the dominions of Philip II. Thereupon Masuda asked him how it was so many countries had been brought to acknowledge the sway of a single man.... "Our Kings," said this outspoken seaman, "begin by sending into the countries they wish to conquer _religieux_ who induce the people to embrace our religion, and when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine with the new Christians, and then our Kings have not much trouble in accomplishing the rest."[44]