sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/StrengthStrong/invasion.html
It was in the year 1976 that the trouble between the world and China rea ched its culmination. It was because of this that the celebration of th e Second Centennial of American Liberty was deferred. Many other plans of the nations of the earth were twisted and tangled and postponed for the same reason. but for over seventy years, unperceived, affairs had been shaping toward this very end. The year 1904 logically marks the beginning of the development that, sev enty years later, was to bring consternation to the whole world. The Ja panese-Russian War took place in 1904, and the historians of the time g ravely noted it down that that event marked the entrance of Japan into the comity of nations. This awakening, long expected, had finally been given up. The Weste rn nations had tried to arouse China, and they had failed. Out of their native optimism and race-egotism they had therefore concluded that the task was impossible, that China would never awaken. What they had failed to take into account was this: THAT BETWEEN THEM AN D CHINA WAS NO COMMON PSYCHOLOGICAL SPEECH. The Western mind penetrated the Chinese mind but a short distance when it found its elf in a fathomless maze. The Chinese mind penetrated the Western mind an equally short distance when it fetched up against a blank, incompreh ensible wall. There was no way to comm unicate Western ideas to the Chinese mind. The m aterial achievement and progress of the West was a closed book to her; Back and deep down on the tie-ribs of consciousness, in the mind, say, of the English-speaking race, was a c apacity to thrill to short, Saxon words; back and deep down on the tie- ribs of consciousness of the Chinese mind was a capacity to thrill to i ts own hieroglyphics; but the Chinese mind could not thrill to short, S axon words; nor could the English-speaking mind thrill to hieroglyphics . The fabrics of their minds were woven from totally different stuffs. And so it was that Western material achievemen t and progress made no dent on the rounded sleep of China. Now the Japanese race wa s the freak and paradox among Eastern peoples. In some strange way Japa n was receptive to all the West had to offer. Japan swiftly assimilated the Western ideas, and digested them, and so capably applied them that she suddenly burst forth, full- panoplied, a world-power. There is no explaining this peculiar openness of Japan to the alien culture of the West. As well might be explained any biological sport in the animal kin gdom. Having decisively thrashed the great Russian Empire, Japan promptly set about dreaming a colossal dream of empire for herself. treaty privileges and vulpine diplomacy gave her the monopoly of Manchuria. There lay a vast territory, and in that terr itory were the hugest deposits in the world of iron and coal - the back bone of industrial civilization. Given natural resources, the other gre at factor in industry is labour. In that territory was a population of 400,000,000 souls - one quarter of the then total population of the ear th. Furthermore, the Chinese were excellent workers, while their fatali stic philosophy (or religion) and their stolid nervous organization con stituted them splendid soldiers - if they were properly managed. Needle ss to say, Japan was prepared to furnish that management. But best of all, from the standpoint of Japan, the Chinese was a kindred race. The baffling enigma of the Chinese character to the West was no baffling enigma to the Japanese. The Japanese understood as we could ne ver school ourselves or hope to understand. The Japanese thought with the same thought-symbols as did th e Chinese, and they thought in the same peculiar grooves. Into the Chin ese mind the Japanese went on where we were balked by the obstacle of i ncomprehension. They took the turning which we could not perceive, twis ted around the obstacle, and were out of sight in the ramifications of the Chinese mind where we could not follow. Long ag o one had borrowed the other's written language, and, untold generation s before that, they had diverged from the common Mongol stock. There ha d been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse conditions an d infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of their beings, twi sted into the fibres of them, was a heritage in common, a sameness in k ind that time had not obliterated. In the years imm ediately following the war with Russia, her agents swarmed over the Chi nese Empire. A thousand miles beyond the last mission station toiled he r engineers and spies, clad as coolies, under the guise of itinerant me rchants or proselytizing Buddhist priests, noting down the horse-power of every waterfall, the likely sites for factories, the heights of moun tains and passes, the strategic advantages and weaknesses, the wealth o f the farming valleys, the number of bullocks in a district or the numb er of labourers that could be collected by forced levies. Never was the re such a census, and it could have been taken by no other people than the dogged, patient, patriotic Japanese. her drill sergeants made the mediaeval warr iors over into twentieth century soldiers, accustomed to all the modern machinery of war and with a higher average of marksmanship than the so ldiers of any Western nation. The engineers of Japan deepened and widen ed the intricate system of canals, built factories and foundries, nette d the empire with telegraphs and telephones, and inaugurated the era of railroad- building. It was these same protagonists of machine-civiliza tion that discovered the great oil deposits of Chunsan, the iron mounta ins of Whang-Sing, the copper ranges of Chinchi, and they sank the gas wells of Wow-Wee, that most marvellous reservoir of natural gas in all the world. In China's councils of empire were the Japanese emissaries. In the ears of the statesmen whispered the Japanese statesmen. The political recons truction of the Empire was due to them. They evicted the scholar class, which was violently reactionary, and put into office progressive offic ials. And in every town and city of the Empire newspapers were started. Of course, Japanese editors ran the policy of these papers, which poli cy they got direct from Tokio. It was these papers that educated and ma de progressive the great mass of the population. She had transmuted Western culture and achievement into terms that were in telligible to the Chinese understanding. Japan herself, when she so sud denly awakened, had astounded the world. China's awakening, with her four hundred millions and the scientific advance of the world, was frightfully astounding. S he was the colossus of the nations, and swiftly her voice was heard in no uncertain tones in the affairs and councils of the nations. Japan eg ged her on, and the proud Western peoples listened with respectful ears . China's swift and remarkable rise was due, perhaps more than to anything else, to the superlative quality of her labour. For sheer ability to w ork no worker in the world could compare with him. It was to him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure had been to other peoples. Liberty, to him, ep itomized itself in access to the means of toil. To till the soil and la bour interminably was all he asked of life and the powers that be. And the awakening of China had given its vast population not merely free an d unlimited access to the means of toil, but access to the highest and most scientific machine-means of toil. She discovered a new pride in herself and a will of her own. She began to chafe under the guidance of Japan, but she did not chafe long. On Japan's advice, i n the beginning, she had expelled from the Empire all Western missionar ies, engineers, drill sergeants, merchants, and teachers. She now began to expel the similar representatives of Japan. The latter's advisory s tatesmen were showered with honours and decorations, and sent home. The West had awakened Japan, and, as Japan had then requited the West, Jap an was not requited by China. Japan was thanked for her kindly aid and flung out bag and baggage by her gigantic protege. The blood and the swords of the Samurai would out, and Japan...
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