CHAPTER XXI

EUROPEAN INTERESTS IN ASIA TO-DAY

GREAT as were the accomplishments of the Washington Conference, it would have been too much to expect from it the creation of an entirely new Asia. It will be useful, in the light of the preceding chapter, to make some kind of rough survey, showing the extent to which foreign influence in Asia still survives a remarkable piece of idealistic international legislation. In this chapter we shall consider only the surviving interests of Europe in the continent and its adjacent archipelagoes. In the next chapter there will be a similar survey of the relations with Asia of the United States.

In some ways it has been made clear that the old imperialistic policy by which Asia was made the happy hunting-ground of European political exploitation is curbed. This is partly due to the Great War and partly to the negotiations which followed. For example, prior to the war, Germany's mailed fist was very evident in Oriental politics from Asiatic Turkey and Persia to Shantung. The ambition of the Teuton was but slightly concealed from the world's chancelleries. Now, for the time being, Germany is cancelled from consideration in Asia by the return to China, through Japan, of the Shantung lease, and by the destruction, through Britain, of the Berlin-Bagdad plan. Yet it would be the most serious of mistakes to rule out the influence of Germany from the Orient in the future. In China especially the Germans are liked; their professors are welcomed at Chinese seats of learning; they take infinite pains to under1 See Hans and Margarete Driesch, Fern-Ost.

stand China's commercial needs; in consequence, German trade is rapidly picking up.

Russia too, though unrepresented at Washington among the Pacific Powers, is to be reckoned with both now and increasingly in the immediate future. The Soviets have reëstablished Muscovite influence in the East in the most remarkable way. "The Soviets to-day occupy all the territory in Siberia within the boundaries of the former Russian Empire, and in addition they have a firm hold on Mongolia. The Chinese East is once more in their grasp, carrying the products of Siberia and Manchuria to Vladivostok, which is again a Russian port.' "1 Beyond this, agents are alert in every part of the continent, even in the Dutch Indies. No Power is so active in the cause of PanAsianism. One need only picking up the story of Joffe's visit to China in 1922 - recall how the same able agent of Bolshevism visited Baron Goto (then mayor of Tokyo) at Tokyo early in 1923. After a not wholly unfruitful stay, he passed on to Shanghai to make a thorough convert of Sun Yatsen to the principles of Asiatic independence. When Karakhan came as Joffe's successor, with the formidable title of Ambassador of the United Federation of Socialist Soviet Republics in the Far East, he came fortified with the recognition of the British Labor Cabinet. Then, negotiating with Dr. C. T. Wang, who had been placed in charge of the Chinese discussions with Russia, he brought about the preliminary agreement of March 1924. Foreign Minister Wellington Koo, who is said to have had a private feud with Wang, repudiated the arrangement. Yet even he, after some display of bravado, recommenced the negotiations, and on May 31, 1924 the signing of the treaty and the resumption of relations with Russia were. announced together. This treaty is very important in itself, since Russia thereby relinquished extraterritoriality and all other interference with Chinese sovereignty. Yet there was certainly a quid pro quo, particularly in enhanced prestige. As

1 H. K. Norton, quoted in North China Herald, Aug. 22, 1925; see also "Political Rights in the Arctic," Foreign Affairs, Oct. 1925.

to the complicated question of the Chinese Eastern Railway, Russia recognized the political sovereignty of China over the territory through which the railway passed, while holding to her own economic ownership and arranging for joint management of the lines. It should be added that Karakhan's success was rewarded by his appointment as the first minister to Peking with the title of Ambassador, thus outranking all other diplomats at the Chinese capital. Japan at once followed suit by giving to its minister, Mr. Obata, the same distinction. The United States so far has failed to do the like, although as long ago as March 1921 Congressman Stephen Porter had tried to secure the higher title for the representative of America.

Having secured coöperation between Russia and China, Karakhan turned his attention to Japan. His negotiations with Mr. Yoshizawa in Peking culminated in the important treaty of January 1925. In 1924 civil war seemed imminent between the forces of Chang Tso-lin and Wu Pei-fu, and the Russians were nervous lest Chang's victory should lead to Japanese domination of China; so the Soviet emissaries, working with great skill and exercising an influence which the rest of the diplomatic corps may well have envied, began to cultivate an understanding with Japan. At the same time they were encouraging the coup of General Fêng and his adviser, C. T. Wang, for the elimination of Wu. The result was the elevation of the pro-Japanese Tuan Chi-jui to the executive position. Foreign opinion scents in the double understanding thus achieved a new triple alliance in the Far East, with Russia engineering a combination against the "imperialistic" nations. China's difficulty at present is to reconcile her Russian commitments with her relation to Japan. Of this there will be something to say hereafter, in connection with Goto's visit to Moscow.

Portugal was present at the Washington Conference rather as the shadow of a great name than as an actual present-day influence. Imagination must have run back to the time when her chivalry went forth to find wealth, to transplant the

Christian faith, and to seek romance. To-day Portugal in Asia recalls, not the great Viceroys of the Indies, but in India the mouldering ruins of Goa, Damaun, and Diu, and in China the vice-infested little peninsula of Macao, between the Canton River and the Si Kiang. To-day in Goa there is little but a memory, not all as fragrant as the memory of Saint Francis Xavier, who labored there in 1542. Once men talked of Goa Dourada and quoted the proverb, "He who has seen Goa need not see Lisbon," but now "the harbor shelters only an occasional ship. The streets are grass-grown. The once majestic churches are piles of hopeless ruins." As for Macao, with the illusion of its yellow walls and its blue waters, it is but a festering sore in the Orient. Occupied since 1557, it was only in 1849 that the Portuguese ceased to pay ground rent for the privilege, and it was not till 1887 that the Portuguese made their first treaty with the Chinese. Even to-day, though attempts at delimitation were made in 1901, 1904, and 1909, there is no certainty as to the limits of Portuguese sovereignty. Like Goa, the place is but a memory, the memory of Saint Francis, of Camoens, the singer of The Lusiads, whose bust stands in the grotto where he wrote, and of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, whose dust reposes in the little, square, high-walled cemetery. As to the political obligations. of Portugal in Macao, they extend merely to a pledge never to alienate the territory without China's consent, and to coöperate with China in the regulation of the opium trade.

In the case of Holland we have a much larger influence to appraise. The Dutch East Indies, known also as Insulinde, include territories between Malaysia and Australia, namely, the Greater Sunda Islands, comprising Sumatra, Borneo (excepting British Borneo), Java, and the Celebes; the Lesser Sunda Islands, comprising Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Selor islands, Weber, and Timor (excepting that portion belonging to Portugal); the Moluccas or Spice Islands; and Dutch New Guinea. The total area is about 587,000 square miles. Most of the islands are affected by earthquakes and

some are volcanic. The climate is hot and the fauna and flora are varied and extensive. The population is about 47,000,000, of whom 35,000,000 are in Java. The racial mixture is remarkable, there being, in addition to the native Malay (proper) and Javanese and Papuan stocks, large numbers of Arabs, Chinese, Japanese, and Indians from Southern India. There is a similar jostling of creeds. Hinduism, Buddhism, Muhammadanism, and Christianity all have their followers. There are only 110,000 Hollanders and a few hundred Americans.

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The history of the islands has already been touched upon, and but a brief further notice is necessary. While the Dutch got their spices from Lisbon they were not concerned about sending their own ships to the Orient. But after the closing of the port of Lisbon in 1587 there was an instant desire to join in what had proved for the Portuguese a very lucrative trade. avoid their rivals, the Dutchmen first attempted the Northwest Passage, but, this failing, Houtman conducted an expedition round the Cape of Good Hope. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was formed for the double purpose of winning wealth in the Far East and of fighting the battle of independence against Spain and Portugal. In both these aims Holland had large success till the dissolution of the Company in 1798, though she suffered at the same time from the rivalry of French and English. From 1811 till after the Treaty of Vienna in 1816 Java was in the possession of the English. "Slowly but surely there was built up in these Far Eastern islands a wonderful structure of government, which to-day is second to no other colonial administration in the world." This building-up had many periods of transition, such as in the passing from the old cultivation system to a system making larger use of private enterprise. Trouble, too, was frequently experienced with certain native tribes, particularly with the Achinese,2 a fanatical race of warlike brigands in the north of Sumatra.

1 Torchiana, Tropical Holland.

1

2 A people in Sumatra of mixed Malay, Hindu, and Arab blood, at war with the Dutch almost continuously since 1873; see Snouck Hurgronje, De Atjehers.