The international problems raised by this situation have been
brought into the forefront of world-politics by the Washington
Conference. What settlement, if any, will ultimately be arrived at, it
is as yet impossible to foresee. There are, however, certain broad facts
and principles which no wise solution can ignore, for which I shall try
to give the evidence in the course of the following chapters, but which
it may be as well to state briefly at the outset. First, the Chinese,
though as yet incompetent in politics and backward in economic
development, have, in other respects, a civilization at least as good as
our own, containing elements which the world greatly needs, and which we
shall destroy at our peril. Secondly, the Powers have inflicted upon
China a multitude of humiliations and disabilities, for which excuses
have been found in China's misdeeds, but for which the sole real reason
has been China's military and naval weakness. Thirdly, the best of the
Great Powers at present, in relation to China, is America, and the worst
is Japan; in the interests of China, as well as in our own larger
interests, it is an immense advance that we have ceased to support Japan
and have ranged ourselves on the side of America, in so far as America
stands for Chinese freedom, but not when Japanese freedom is threatened.
Fourthly, in the long run, the Chinese cannot escape economic domination
by foreign Powers unless China becomes military or the foreign Powers
become Socialistic, because the capitalist system involves in its very
essence a predatory relation of the strong towards the weak,
internationally as well as nationally.
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