JAPAN AND CHINA.
THE arrangement concluded on October 20 between Japan and China is no doubt satisfactory to traders, but as a poli- tical incident it is puzzling, and may possibly prove dangerous
to the permanent interests of Europe. The Japanese Govern- ment, it will be remembered, suffered some injury at the hands of a savage tribe in Formosa, which excited unexpected re- sentment among the military classes of the Mikado's subjects. They consequently demanded redress from the Cabinet of Pekin, to which Formosa is supposed, when convenient, to belong ; but the Chinese statesmen disclaimed all responsibility for the incident, affirming that the island lay outside the proper limits of the Celestial Empire. Japan might punish them for her- self, if she could. The Japanese, discontented with this reply, pressed by public opinion, which seems to be active on points involving the honour of the Empire, and anxious to find work for the hordes of dismissed " Samurai" or feudal retainers, de- spatched an expedition to Formosa, attacked and defeated the savages, and intimated some intention of increasing the boundaries of their dominion. The Chinese, greatly indig- nant with this unexpected vigour, now asserted that Formosa
was their property, threatened Japan with war, purchased a Dutch ironclad, assembled a considerable army in the neigh- bourhood of Amoy, and made every preparation to drive the Japanese troops out of the island. It was fully expected that war would commence in the late autumn, when the Japanese fleet would be least formidable, and several white adventurers were engaged in the Chinese service, when suddenly the Govern- ment of Pekin not only made overtures of reconciliation, but agreed to pay 500,000 taels (about £120,000) to Yeddo, as compensation for the injuries inflicted by the savages, and payment for Japanese military stores. It also admits in terms that the invasion was justifiable. The Japanese troops are to retire, and we presume the Treaty admits what Yeddo has never tried to deny, that Formosa is part of the Chinese Empire, but anything more unlike the policy to be expected from Pekin can hardly be conceived. The Chinese Government has bought out invaders often enough, but not till it has fought them, and it is part of its tradition to maintain an attitude of almost contemptuous superiority towards the island power which is its only ancient neighbour, and is so like and yet so unlike itself in language, race, and social organisation. It has com- mitted itself to assertions of its right to Formosa, has denounced Japanese arrogance, has spent large sums on preparations for war, and then has suddenly receded, and actually paid the Japanese invaders for invading a territory to which it asserts, in the very same Treaty, its own right. Moreover, it has done this just at the moment when the Court is inflated by unaccustomed victory, when it is preparing for conquest in the West, and when it has humiliated its best administrator— Prince Kung—for pursuing, as Europeans understand, a too conciliatory foreign policy.
It is, of course, quite impossible for outsiders to perceive all the secret motives which may have influenced a Court like that of China, where a very young man, unused to govern- ment, is now absolute, and where intrigue influences State action at least as much as policy, but clearly some severe pressure must have been placed upon Pekin. No absolute Sovereign makes an arrangement of the kind reported unless he is forced to make it. This pressure may have been, of course, only the pressure of necessity. The Court may have dis- covered, somewhat late in the day, that the Empire was not prepared for a maritime campaign, that the transport of 40,000 men, with their artillery and provisions, across even a narrow strait, and in the face of a superior fleet, is an enter- prise of extreme danger, and may have preferred to draw back, rather than plunge into unknown expenditure and perils. That explanation in any other case would be complete, and most satisfactory to Europe, which is directly interested in seeing close limitations placed on the range of Chinese power ; but then why should China sign a treaty, or agree to pay certain taels Pekin does not govern Formosa, and has no interest in its savages' fate, and might just as easily have acted on her tradi- tionary policy of doing nothing, maintaining her rights, and waiting the happy hour. This is the policy her rulers have followed towards Mohammedan rebels, towards Nepaul, towards Kashgar, towards all insurgents whom they were unable im- mediately to subdue, and there is no evident reason why they should not have pursued it towards Japan. They could not have feared invasion. They could not have cared whether Japanese did or did not settle in Formosa. They must have cared ex- ceedingly not to seem beaten in a quarrel with a State which
they have recognised for ages as a power always struggling with themselves, and yet they have agreed to a payment which, though Europeans might account it just, their nominal subjects having misbehaved, must appear in all Asiatic eyes a confession- of defeat. It is difficult to avoid a suspicion that they have been coerced ; that the expedition to Formosa has been forbidden by a maritime power; and that the payment to Japan is the result of menacing advice, tendered by a European State. Only two Powers, England and Russia, could have forbidden the war ; and only one, Russia, would have insisted on a visible conces- sion to Japan, from which Prince Gortschakoff desires, accord- ing to popular belief in Shanghai, the cession of an island. The only natural explanation of the incident is that the Government of St. Petersburg, which has a powerful fleet in the North Pacific, and can always more or less threaten the Chinese frontier, being eager for influence at Yeddo, has insisted that the Court of Pekin, while retaining Formosa, which the Government of Japan does not want, should acknow- ledge the justice of its rival's demands and the pre-eminence of its rival's power. That acknowledgment—in itself a mere humiliation to China—was necessary to the Court of Yeddo to gratify the aroused feeling of national pride, and can only have been demanded by a Power acting in the direct interest of Japan. The necessity of yielding to such advice has been forced upon the young Emperor with such insistence by Prince Kung that he has yielded ; but in his rage and spite has degraded the Prince, avowedly for acts of " indecorum " to- wards himself personitlly,—that is, for enforcing his advice too brusquely, or with too much tenacity. That the Prince, pro- bably through the influence of the Empress-Mother, was re- instated next day, does not in the least alter the importance of the incident, but rather increases it, as showing the greatness of the opposition, in the teeth of which the Emperor struck down the leader of the peace party. The Chinese understand very well that Prince Kung, though reinstated, no longer guides the Emperor.
If this explanation be correct, and it is the only one which seems to explain the phenomena, another item has been added to the long account which Pekin keeps against the foreigner, another element of danger to the many which now menace the security of Europeans in Chinese ports. For some years past, the Government of China, though administered by a Prince known to be favourable to peace with the Treaty Powers, has been accumulating resources to defend Pekin against a second attack, has fortified the rivers accessible to European ships, and has endeavoured to organise armies upon the European model. The reception of the Ambassadors was a great blow to Chinese pride, and was studiously represented throughout the Empire as a ludicrous failure ; while the threats addressed to the foreigners, more especially the French, who are hated for their partial success in proselytising deserted children, have become more and more frequent. There is little doubt that the Mandarins and the mob, always in close alliance, have been restrained from open hostility to the foreigners mainly by Pekin, and if the Emperor himself is suspected of belonging to the Anti-Foreign party, nothing could long prevent some serious explosion. We do not know that he does belong to it, but he has been bred up by women of the ancient tone of opinion, he has heard of late of nothing but victory, he must have keenly felt the termination of the quarrel with Japan, and he has cer- tainly humiliated the most powerful statesman in the Empire, - and the one least inclined to risk a final encounter with the European Powers. All these things may be accidental, or may be misinterpreted by men painfully aware how liable Europeans in China are to official detestation and popular vengeance, but they may also mean that the Emperor has resolved to side with the ultra-national party. In that case, we may rely on it that, slowly as Chinese designs develop themselves, and greatly as the Court needs the Customs revenue—now by far our best guarantee for peace with China—we shall, sooner or later, be compelled to march a second time upon Pekin. The idea, common to all experienced residents in China, that the " people " are not hostile may be correct, but the Mandarins certainly are, and the soldiery are, and the mob is, and if, in addition to these forces, the immense weight of the Court is thrown into the scale, the Foreign Office will need all its skill and all its nerve to avert what might be an ex- traordinary disaster, a necessity for inflicting a deadly blow upon a Government which, with all its arrogant foibles, and its faithlessness, and its cruelty, does yet contrive to retain a third of the human race in endurable order. Such a blow would not cost as little as it has hitherto done, for China has now artillery, rifle-guns, and armies drilled after the European pattern. The men who have extirpated the Mussulmans of the West will scarcely be walked over by 10,000 Englishmen or Frenchmen, and we might have to call in allies, whether Russian or Japanese, of whose objects we know as little as of the range of their ambition.
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