China rose

“ One hundred and twenty years ago the Western nations were only a stage removed from the barbaric civilisation the Chinese had reached two or three thousand years before, but still they were moving onward, and they felt they must combine if they would trade with this rich land, and yet protect their subjects and their goods. And so they did combine, and there arose that curious state of affairs between the foreigners and the people of the land that has held for many years, that holds in no other land, and that has crystallised in the Legation Quarter of Peking. ”

“ The Chinese are under the impression that there is no nation equal to theirs. They suppose themselves the centre of civilization for the last 2000 years, and claim that China knew the art of printing, invented gunpowder, and was learned in astronomy, long before us. They consider that China is the middle of the Universe, as is shown by the name, which, in their language, signifies "The Middle Kingdom." They look upon themselves as superior to us, as we think ourselves to them, calling us Barbarians, and considering all European nations as such. ”

“ Her plight is sore to-day. But China has held together longer than any other empire in history. We Chinese never forget, and we do not meekly forgive. Again and again we have seemed to accept innovations, have tried them, have found them unacceptable, and then we have discarded them once and forever. We are in peril now; but the end is not yet. Already the word passes over China, as a breath of summer over the head-heavy poppy fields, ‘Back to Confucius’! And I—I descended from that great sage—I, too, who love China as I did not love your mother—I, too, have betrayed China—and you! ”

“ The culture of China is changing rapidly, and undoubtedly rapid change is needed. The change that has hitherto taken place is traceable ultimately to the military superiority of the West; but in future our economic superiority is likely to be quite as potent. I believe that, if the Chinese are left free to assimilate what they want of our civilization, and to reject what strikes them as bad, they will be able to achieve an organic growth from their own tradition, and to produce a very splendid result, combining our merits with theirs. ”

“ At the end of a certain period it is highly probable that the march of events may be accelerated, and when the mass of the Chinese people have been placed in contact with the results of Western progress, it is very probable that its great common-sense will do the rest. It is an appeal to their essentially commercial and money-making instincts that we must make if we wish to convert the Chinese, the most realistic and the least idealistic of nations. ”

“ When the European realm expanded so as to include the whole planet, when Western civilization began to dominate the earth, and the Christian family of nations became the world-wide international system, the Chinese were forced to concede that the Far East could not be kept to itself. They have found it indispensable to respond, as individuals and as a people, to the new environment closing in on them. Doing so has necessitated the reexamination and restatement of nearly all basic values of Chinese life. ”

“ It has a much more difficult task to achieve, and one which, on account of the size of the Empire, is likely to have a far greater importance for the world at large. The Chinese are strongly animated by the spirit of patriotism ”

“ China is the wonder of history, both ancient and modern. Civilization after civilization has battered at its gates, taken some trifle only to lose it, and has departed. Chinese civilization has continued unharmed by its transient rivals. Each of these rivals has pondered over China's strangeness, and has failed to impress foreign ideals on its people. The Arab, Malay, Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, American, German, and now the Japanese and the Russian people, have taken trifles. ”

“ In the open ports, where a large foreign commerce has sprung up, an immense number of Chinese congregate from the interior. Many of them are adventurers who come to these places to engage in the general scramble for wealth. The Chinamen of the best class are, as a matter of fact, not the most numerous in the open ports. Moreover foreign ideas and customs prevail to a great extent in these foreign communities, and the natives, whatever they might have been originally, gradually become more or less denationalized, and present a modified type of their race. ”

“ She was the colossus of the nations, and swiftly her voice was heard in no uncertain tones in the affairs and councils of the nations. Japan egged her on, and the proud Western peoples listened with respectful ears.
China's swift and remarkable rise was due, perhaps more than to anything else, to the superlative quality of her labour. The Chinese was the perfect type of industry. He had always been that. For sheer ability to work no worker in the world could compare with him. Work was the breath of his nostrils. ”

“ American Influence in the Far East—Officials and the Boycott—Interview with President Roosevelt—Riot in a British Concession—Ex-territoriality—Two Ways to an End—A Grave Mistake—The Nan-chang Tragedy—Dangers from Superstition
So far from being new, an anti-foreign spirit is the normal state of the Chinese mind. Yet during the year past it has taken on new forms, directed itself against new objects, and employed new methods. It deserves therefore a conspicuous place among the new developments in the China of the twentieth century. ”

“ The Chinese are traditionally an unaggressive race, and there is no reason to suppose that the adoption of Western ideas would work a change within their nature.
Whatever danger there may be for Western nations in the regeneration of China lies probably exclusively in the industrial sphere. There, indeed, we may look for startling results when the teeming population of the empire is organised on scientific lines and its energies are turned to the production of manufactures of which Europe and America have now practically the monopoly. ”

“ The aim to be pursued is of importance, not only to China, but to the world. Out of the renaissance spirit now existing in China, it is possible, if foreign nations can be prevented from working havoc, to develop a new civilization better than any that the world has yet known. This is the aim which Young China should set before itself: the preservation of the urbanity and courtesy, the candour and the pacific temper, which are characteristic of the Chinese nation, together with a knowledge of Western science and an application of it to the practical problems of China. ”

“ With but few and unimportant exceptions they do not want us, and would be glad to see the last of all Europeans, together with their civilisation, their missionaries and their trade. This is not very flattering, accustomed as we are to regard ourselves somewhat in the light of pearls before swine, but it is the truth. On the other hand, we know that our footing in the country was gained and is maintained by force, which knowledge, in addition to that pressure of silent enmity of which we are at all [213] times conscious, brings our minds into a hostile attitude vis-à-vis the Chinese. ”

“ A few of the more enlightened Chinamen of the upper classes, those who have lived abroad in Europe or America, in Australia, Hong Kong, and the Straits Settlements, or who have been educated in European colleges, may be inspired with the love of country as we understand it. But have the leaders of the nation, the nobles and the mandarins, ever been ready to sacrifice themselves for China? They batten on its misfortunes. The higher in rank they are the readier they prove themselves to intrigue with its enemies and sell their country for foreign gold. ”

“ EVER since the days when Marco Polo brought back to Europe the seeming fairy tales of the wonderland of the Far East, the country to which we have applied the name of China has been a field more and more attractive for commercial conquest.
At the close of the nineteenth century, when the ever-rising tide of industrial development has succeeded in sweeping over Europe, America, the better portion of Africa, of Western Asia and India, it is the Chinese Wall alone that resists its waves. ”

“ The Chinese are, like ourselves, quite capable of appreciating the refinements of learning and the pleasures of the intellect; only—and in their eyes this is a merit—they measure both by their own standards. One of the real curses of wealth in China lies in a feature of their domestic organisation. There is not a petty merchant or insignificant mandarin around whom does not crawl a swarm of lazy servants—parasitic maggots, and nothing better. ”

“ The empire of China is considerably larger than the whole of Europe, contains limitless natural resources, and is inhabited by a hardy race of some four hundred million souls who are bound together by ties of blood, language, tradition and religion. This race, which until quite modern times existed as [219] a world apart and was sufficient unto itself in all things, is highly developed both mentally and physically, though its government, as judged by Western ideas, is hopelessly obsolete. ”

“ It is rare because the Chinese do not excel in the things we really value—military prowess and industrial enterprise. But those who value wisdom or beauty, or even the simple enjoyment of life, will find more of these things in China than in the distracted and turbulent West, and will be happy to live where such things are valued. I wish I could hope that China, in return for our scientific knowledge, may give us something of her large tolerance and contemplative peace of mind. ”

“ Sometimes, alone at night, I have thought that I have heard the wind cry, and Heaven sob, and the parting knell of China toll. And I have thrown myself prostrate before our gods, and entreated that China—our China—may142 prove stronger than her enemies, stronger than her fools. But my soul aches. For I realize that change is in our air, from Canton to Pekin, from Ningpo to Tibet, and that any hour revolution may strike our mighty empire to the heart. The rebel, the missionary, the fanatic and the adventurer, the foe without and the dolt within, press her hard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Chinese are everywhere found enterprising and trustworthy men of business. Europeans, worried by the exhaustless refinements of the Marwarree or Bengali, find business with the Chinese in the Straits Settlements a positive luxury. Nor have the persecutions of the race in the United States and in self-governing British colonies wholly extinguished the spark of honour which the Chinese carry with them into distant lands. ”

“ The difficulty of preserving the good points and high qualities of Chinese thought is only equalled by the difficulty of introducing the splendid traditions of the West and grafting them on to the Chinese stock. What success has followed the efforts of those who are thus labouring is rather to be credited to the intensity of their efforts, to their single-hearted purpose, to their ready self-denial, than to the ease or simplicity of their task. ”

“ The first Traveller to reveal 107China in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of Tibet with its sordid devotees; of Burma with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces ”

“ In Marco Polo's time the middle door of the great portal was never opened save to admit the emperor, and that was still true a few months ago, but last winter a day came when the bars rolled back, and there entered no emperor, no ruler, but the representative of the People's Assembly, and then a placard was posted announcing that hereafter the door was open to every one, for all China belonged to the people. For a matter-of-fact man the Chinese has a very dramatic way of doing things. ”

“ There has been too much of a disposition to think of the Chinese as a mass, almost as we would regard immense herds of cattle or shoals of fish. Why not rather think of the Chinese as an individual, as a man of like passions with ourselves? ”

“ It is quite likely that they might outstrip us, because they come with fresh zest and with all the ardour of a renaissance. In fact, the enthusiasm for learning in Young China reminds one constantly of the renaissance spirit in fifteenth-century Italy.
It is very remarkable, as distinguishing the Chinese from the Japanese, that the things they wish to learn from us are not those that bring wealth or military strength, but rather those that have either an ethical and social value, or a purely intellectual interest. They are not by any means uncritical of our civilization. ”

“ But the Government was not the people, and the Chinese are neither worn out nor unsound.
I think it must be because everything seems finished in China that people talk about her decay. The whole thing impresses you as having been made and completed, after a fashion, a long time ago. Nowhere, save where the touch of the West has been felt, do you see things being tried for the first time. Everything has been done in China so many, many times, for so many centuries, and the results have spread abroad all over the empire ”