Why Chinese Dislike Us

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 July 1927, Page 3

Why Chinese Dislike Us

Western American Influe7ices

, are all awar * that the Chinese revolutionary has usually a smattering of Western education; but he is v\ esternised in a curious wav. V. u‘ r Auekland Cteddes, who has been Biitish Ambassador at Washington reminds us that the majority of Chinese students imbibe their culture from the United States. The young Chinese who are sent abroad to be educated go mainly to America. Plenty of them are to be found at the American universities, colleges, and technical schools (writes Sir Sidney Low in the “Daily Mail”)- They are brisk young fellows, very glib, talkative, and modern. But they do not come Into contact with the mercantile and society elements of New Torlt and Boston which know something about Europe, and have a considerable regard for England. They largely frequent th» mum, ° f , the , Middle and live in mmnm' C ! aSS homes - And among the middle classes of the Middle West the current opinion still is that Great Bril'', 1 ' 5 , a brutal, domineering State, luled by a corrupt nobility and an autocratic monarch. To them King morge V. is rather like the wicked George 111. of th<4r school textbooks. Liucago lias just elected its new*Mayor on an emphatic anti-British ticket, lwiating the lion’s tail is still a popular sport in the Middle West. In the intervals of hearing lectures on techmedicine, or economics, the Chinese student converses with his hosts and their friends, imbibes all then* anti-British prejudices, and adds to them a tincture of communistic internationalism derived from the cosmopolitan gatherings he favours. Chicago swarms with Russian, German * and Central European revolutionaries. They all agree in a cordial hatred of British “imperialism.” They teach their young disciples that Britain is still oppressing and exploiting her “colonies” in the eighteenth cenutry fashion. Of these colonies the chief is India, where the mild Asiatic is subjected to the tyranny of English satraps and the rapacity of English financial adventurers. This, they are told, is what England is doing in China. Nobody has thought it necessary to direct their attention to the amazing achievements in that country of Britain and the British. It has not been brought before them that the European settlements in the Far East are indeed colonies, but colonies of an unprecedented kind. The great trading cities such as Shanghai, Hankow, and Canton, have been created by European, chiefly British, enterprise and energy. Here, on mudflats, or barren shores, or alongside swarming, filthy, native warrens, our merchants and traders have established magnificent modern towns, wealthy and prosperous. A vast commerce has grown up, and thriving industries which have given employment to hordes of Chinese labourers and made numerous Chinese merchants wealthy. The returned “intellectual,” who is neither a merchant nor a labourer, ignores all this. He sees Shanghai and Hankow, and does not understand that he and his nationals could no more have created these splendid modern centres of tvade than they could have -designed the acropous at Athens. If he has thought fit to become a Christian he may see something in China of the American missionaries and teachers. These are excellent people, sincerely desirous of spreading the light as they see it. But they too are middle-class Americans, who have learnt their history in American colleges. They have not been taught to love Britain!