THE NEW CHINA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 312, 29 June 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE NEW CHINA

A REMARKABLE ARTICLE. Dr. E. J. Dillon draws a remarkable picture of the new China in an article in the Contemporary Review, and leads off with a portrait of the man of the moment, Yuan-Shih-Kai. It seems that when Yuan-Shih-Kai was Governor of Shantung, some Boxer emissaries waited upon him, invited him to join them in the plan of butchering all "foreign devils" indiscriminately, and explained to him that their magic made them invulnerable to steel or bullet. Yuan-Shih-Kai suggested that they should give a demonstration of their invulnerability. They agreed, and twelve of them attended for the ordeal. They were shot dead by Yuan's soldiers, whereupon Yuan explained to the people that the Boxers were liars and mischief-makers, who would lure them to their ruin. He also executed 40,000 other Boxers, in order to demonstrate to them that their claim to invulnerability was unfounded. Dr. Dillon considers Yuan-Shih-Kai a remarkably able statesman, as is also his Premier, Tang Shao Yi. But they have no money for their schemes of constructive statesmanship. The United States, Great Britain, Germany and France form a group that is eager to supply China with a loan of £100,000,000 for "development work. But Russia and Japan, who are chiefly interested in preventing China, from becoming a powerful and well-or-ganised State, are against the loan, and are determined to stand by each other. They cannot prevent the Powers from lending the money to China, but they can and will prevent —by war if necessary— China from spending the money in establishing a powerful army that would imperil their "special interests" in Manchuria and elsewhere. Here, then, are great problems for Yuan Shih Kai.to face. Dr. Dillon pens a gloomy account of the present position of China with mutinous troops everywhere, an impecunious Government, and raiding bands of freebooters intent on plunder in every direction. He quotes a Japanese journal as declaring that Japanese and Russian interests are now identical. "The AngloJapanese Alliance Is buried, and its place is taken by the Russo-Japanese entente." In dealing with the same subject of the new China, Mr. J. 0. Bland, writing in the Nineteenth Century, scouts the idea that the pacific Chinese will ever become a military danger, even to their neighbors. He considers that "it is improbable that either Russia or Japan really believes in the possibility of Chinese aggression, and their concerted objections to the 'four nations" loans may thereafter safely be ascribed to a desire to prevent the creation of foreign interests in Manchuria rather than to any genuine fear of Chinese armaments." This contributoi is of opinion that Japan has no real apprehensions with regard to China's alleged development of military strength, "But as long as the maintenance of the integrity of China remains the ostensible purpose of the Anglo-Jap-anese alliance, and as long as Japanese finances remain in their present condition, Japan has to walk warily. So Russia is induced to take the lead in proclaiming the right of China's nearest neighbors to supervise her borrowing activities and to limit her armaments. The reviewer considers that the real "yellow peril" is in China's military weakness, not in her strength, for a weak and disorganised China means the danger of chronic unrest in the Far. East. But he also draws attention to the pressure wbich the huge mass of industrious Chinese is likely to bring upon the economic and industrial equilibrium of the Western world. Whenever the Chinese work alongside Europeans it is the Chinese who become wealthy. "Already,'' we read, "at Harbin and Tsitsihar, in Chinese territory, Russian railway porters ire cheerfully carrying the baggage of itst-class Chinese passengers."