THE TRUE SOLUTION
OF
THE CHINESE QUESTION
~ Autumn, 1904 ~
The attention of the whole world is at present directed towardsthe Far East, not only because of the war which is now going onbetween Russia and Japan, but also because of the fact that Chinawill ultimately be the main field of struggle between those coun-tries striving for the mastery in Asia. European possessions in Af-rica which had hitherto been the bone of contention between theEuropean powers having now been pretty well defined, a new fieldfor territorial aggrandizement and colonial expansion must there-fore be sought. China, long known as the "Sick Man of the Far East",affords naturally such a field for the satisfaction of European am-bitions. America, notwithstanding her traditional seclusive policyin international politics, is, however, by no means disinterested init, although in a way somewhat different from that of the other coun-tries. In the first place, the passing of the Philippine Islands underAmerican control makes the United States one of the nearest neigh-bors of China, and it is therefore impossible for her to shut her eyesto the state of things in that country. In the second place, Chinais a great market for American goods, and if America intends toextend her commercial and industrial activity to other parts of theworld, China is the first country that she must look to. Hence theso-called "Far Eastern question" is of peculiar importance to thiscountry.
The problem is as important as it is difficult of solution, owingto the many conflicting interests involved therein. The ultimate out-come of the present war between Russia and Japan has been con-sidered by many as the probable solution of the question. But, froma Chinese standpoint, the war raises more difficulties than it solves;if it decides anything at all, it would decide, at the most, the ques-tion of supremacy between those two countries only. What about
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the interests of Great Britain? of France? of Germany? of the Un-ited States? As to these questions, the war is far from being asolution.
In order to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the whole ques-tion, we must find out the root of all these difficulties. The mostsuperficial knowledge of Asiatics affairs will convince any one thatthis lies in the weakness and corruptness of the Manchu govern-ment which threatens, by the very fact of its weakness, to disturbthe existing political equilibrium of the world. Paradoxical it is, itis not without foundation, as a proof of this, we would only men-tion the present Russo-Japanese war. Had it not been for the utterinability of the Manchu government over Manchuria, the war mighthave been avoided. And it is but the beginning of the long seriesof conflicts which are likely to arise between the different powersinterested in the Chinese question.
We say the Manchu government, and not the Chinese govern-ment, with intention. The Chinese have at present no governmentof their own, and the term "Chinese Government", if applied tothe present government of China, is a misnomer. This seems tobe startling to one who is not well acquainted with Chinese affairs,but it is a fact - a historical fact. In order to convince you of this,let us give you a short account of the establishment of the ManchuDynasty.
Before they came in contact with the Chinese, the Manchuswere a savage, nomadic tribe roaming in the wilds of the Amoorregion. They often raided and plundered the peaceful Chinese in-habitants along the frontier. Towards the close of the Ming Dyn-asty there was a great civil war in China, and taking advantage ofthis golden opportunity they suddenly came down and capturedPeking in much the same way as the barbarians overran the Ro-man Empire. This was in the year 1644. The Chinese were un-willing to submit to this foreign yoke and offered to the invaders
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the most stubborn resistance. In order to force them to yield, thebarbarous Manchus ruthlessly massacred millions of people, com-batants and non-combatants, young and old, women and children;set fire to their dwellings; ransacked their houses and forced themto adopt their costume. It has been estimated that for disobeying,the order of keeping the queue tens of thousands of persons wereslaughtered. It was not until after must bloodshed and barbaritythat the Chinese finally submitted to the Manchu rule. The next measure the Manchus adopted was to keep the con-quered people in ignorance as much as possible by burning anddestroying all the Chinese books and literature concerning theirdealings with and their invasion of China. They also prohibited thepeople to form associations or to hold meetings for the discussionof public affairs. Their object was to stamp out the patriotic spiritof the Chinese, so that in course of time they might forget that theywere subject to a foreign rule. The Manchus number at present notmore than five millions, while the Chinese have a population ofnot less than four hundred millions. It is therefore their constantfear that the Chinese might rise up some day and regain their coun-try. To safeguard against this, many precautions measures have beenand are still being adopted. Such has been the policy of the Man-chus towards the Chinese.
There is a general misapprehension among western peoples thatthe Chinese are by nature a seclusive people, unwilling to have anyintercourse with outsiders, and that it was only at the point of thebayonet that a few ports along the coast were opened to foreigntrade. This misapprehension is due more to the ignorance of Chi-nese history than to anything else. History furnishes us abundantproof that from the very earliest times up to the establishment ofthe present dynasty the Chinese entertained close relations withthe neighboring countries and did not appear to have the least ill-disposition towards foreign traders and missionaries. The Nestor-ian Tablet at Si-an Fu give us an excellent record of the evangelistic
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works of foreign missionaries among the people there as early asthe seventh century after christ. Again, the Buddist religion wasintroduced into China by the Emperor in the Han Dynasty, andthe people welcomed the new religion with great enthusiasm. Ithas since continued to flourish until now it is one of the three lead-ing religions in China. Not only missionaries but traders also wereallowed to travel freely throughout the length and breadth of theEmpire. Even as late as the Ming Dynasty there was no sign of anti-foreign spirit among the Chinese. The Prime Minister, Hsu KwangChe, himself embraced the Catholic faith, and his intimate friend,Mathew Ricci, a Jesuit missionary in Peking, was held in great es-teem by the people.
With the establishment of the Manchu Dynasty came a grad-ual change of policy. The whole country was closed to foreign trade;missionaries were driven out; native Christians were massacred;and no Chinese was allowed to emigrate outside the Chinese borderunder pain of death. Why was this? Simply because the Manchuswanted to exclude foreigners from their jurisdiction and instigatethe people to hate them, lest the Chinese might be enlightened andrealize their own nationality through coming in contact with them.The anti-foreign spirit fostered by the Manchus finally culminatedin the Boxer trouble of 1900. It is only well known that the leadersof the movement were nobody else than the members of the reign-ing family. Hence it may be seen that the seclusive policy of Chinais the outcome of selfishness on the part of the Manchus and doesnot represent the will of the majority of the Chinese people. Fore-igners traveling in China have often noticed the fact that those peo-ple who are farther away from official influence are always morefriendly to them than those nearer.
Since the Boxer war many have been led to believe that theTartar government is beginning to see the sign of time and to re-form itself for the betterment of the country, just from the occa-sional imperial edicts for reform, not knowing that they are mere
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dead letters made for the express purpose of pacifying popular ag-itations. It is absolutely impossible for the Manchus to reform thecountry, because reformation means detriment to them. By refor-mation they would be absorbed by the Chinese people and wouldlose the special rights and privileges which they are enjoying. Thestill darker side of the government can be seen when the ignor-ance and corruption of the official class is brought to light. Thesefossilized, rotten, good-for-nothing officials know only how to flat-ter and bribe the Manchus, whereby their position may be streng-thened to carry on the trade of squeezing. A very striking evidencecan be seen from the proclamation issued recently by the ChineseMinister at Washington prohibiting the Chinese in this country fromhaving anything to do with the Patriotic Society under the severepenalty that their families and distant relatives will be arrested andbeheaded in China. Such a barbarous act coming from such an ed-ucated man as Sir Liang Ching, the Chinese Minister, cannot beaccounted for except upon the probable assumption that he wishesto flatter the government so that his position as a minister maybe secured. Where is the hope for reform by the government andits officials? During the two hundred and sixty years of Tartar rulewe have suffered innumerable wrongs, chief of which are following. (1) The Tartars run the government for their own benefit and not for the benefit of the governed.
(2) They check our intellectual and material development. (3) They treat us as a subjected race and deny us equal rights and privileges.
(4) They violate our inalienable rights of life, liberty and property.
(5) They practise or connive at official corruption and bribery. (6) They suppress the liberty of speech.
(7) They impose heavy and irregualr taxes on us without our consent.
(8) They practise the most barbarous tortures in the trial of an alleged offender for the purpose of compelling him to
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give evidence to incriminate himself.
(9) They deprive us of our rights without due process of law. (10) They fail in their duty to protect the lives and property of all persons residing within their jurisdiction. Notwithstanding all these grievances, we have tried every pos-sible means to become reconciled with them, but to no purpose.In view of this fact, we, the Chinese people, in order to redress ourwrongs, and to establish peace in the Far East and in the world gen-erally, have therefore determined to adopt adequate measures forthe attainment of those objects, "peaceably if we may, forcibly ifwe must".
The whole nation is ripe for revolution. Look at the Weichowuprising of 1900, the attempted Coup de Main at Canton in 1902,and the Kwang-si movement which is now still going on with everincreasing force and encouragement. The newspapers and the re-cent publications in China are also full of democratic ideas. Fur-thermore, there is the Chee Kung Tong (Chinese Patriotic Society),commonly known in this country as the Chinese Freemason, whichhas for its object "the overthrow of the Ching (Manchu) and therestoration of the Ming (Chinese) Dynasty". This political organ-ization has lasted for over two hundred years and it has now a mem-bership of tens of millions of people, spreading all over SouthernChina. About 80 per cent of the Chinese in this country belongto this league. Those Chinese who favor revolutionary ideas maybe roughly divided into three classes. The first class, the most nu-merous of the three, comprises those persons who cannot even ob-tain a bare livelihood because of the extortions and exactions ofthe officials. To the second belong all those who are provoked byracial prejudice against the Manchus, while to the third class be-long those who are inspired by noble thoughts and high ideas. Thesethree factors, co-operating together in different directions, with in-creasing force and velocity, will ultimately produce the desired re-sult. It is evident, therefore, that the downfall of the Manchu
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government is but a question of time.
The theory has sometimes been advanced with some show ofplausibility that China, with her immense population and her vastresources, would be a menace to the whole world, if she would wakeup and adopt western methods and ideas; that if the foreign coun-tries should do anything towards the uplifting and enlightening ofthe Chinese people, they would thereby creat a sort of Frankenstein;and that the wisest policy for other countries to pursue is to keepthe Chinese down as much as possible. This is, in short, the sub-stance of what is known as the "Yellow peril". The theory soundsvery well; but it will be found upon examination to be untenablefrom whatever standpoint you may view it. Apart from the moralside of the question as to whether it is right for one country to hopefor the downfall of another, is the political side to it. The Chineseare by nature an industrious, peaceful, law-abiding people. Theyare by no means an aggressive race. If ever they go to war at all,it is only for self-defence. The Chinese would be a menace to thepeace of the world only if they were properly drilled by some for-eign country and made use of as an instrument for the gratifica-tion of its own ambition. It left to themselves they would proveto be the most peaceful people in the world. Again from an eco-nomic standpoint, the awakening of China and the establishmentof an enlightened government is beneficial not only to the Chi-nese but also to the world at large. The whole country would beopen to foreign trade; railroads would be built; natural resourceswould be developed; the people would be richer and their stand-ard of living would be higher; the demand for foreign goods wouldbe greater, and international commerce would be increased a hun-dred fold above its present rate. Is this a peril? Nations are to eachother as individuals. Is it economically better for a man to havea poor, ignorant neighbor than it is for him to have a wealthy in-telligent one? Viewed from this light, theory falls at once to theground and we may safely assert that the yellow peril may afterall be changed into the yellow blessing.

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There are two conflicting policies pursued by the foreign pow-ers in regard to China. The one favors the partitioning and col-onizing; the other advocates the integrity and colonizing; the otheradvocates the integrity and independence of China. To thosemaintaining the former policy it is needless to remind them thatit is fomented with danger and disaster, as the case of colonizingManchuria by Russia exhibits; while to those maintaining the lat-ter policy we venture to predict that it is impossible for them torealize their object so long as the present government exists. TheManchu Dynasty may be likened to a collapsing house; the wholestructure is thoroughly rotten to its very foundation. Is it possiblefor any one to prevent the house from falling just by supportingthe walls collaterally outside with a few beams? We fear this veryact of supporting it might hasten its tumbling. The dynastic life inChina, as shown from history, is much the same as an individual;it has its birth, growth, maturity, declining and dying. The presentTartar rule has begun to decline since the beginning of the last cen-tury and is dying fast now. Therefore we say that even this ben-evolent and chivalric act of maintaining the integrity andindependence of China, if such is meant, as we understand, to sup-port the present tottering Tartar house, is doomed to failure. Now it is evident, in order to solve this burning question, and toremove the source of disturbance to the peace of the world, that anew, enlightened and progressive government must be substituted inplace of the old one. In such a case China would not only be ableto support herself, but would also relieve the other countries of thetrouble of maintaining her independence and integrity. There are manyhighly educated and able men among the people who would be com-petent to take up the task of forming a new government, and care-fully thought-out plans have long been drawn up for the transformationof this out-of-date Tartar Monarchy into a "Republic of China". The gen-eral masses of the people are also ready to accept the new order ofthings and are longing for a change for better, to uplift them from theirpresent deplorable condition of life. China is now on the eve of a great
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national movement, for just a spark of light would set the whole po-litical forest on fire to drive out the Tartar from our land. Our taskis indeed great, but it will not be an impossible one. It needed fewerthan twenty thousand troops of the allied army in the Boxer war in1900 to break down the Tartar resistance, to march into Pekingand capture that city. There is no doubt we could do the same withdouble or triple that number of men; furthermore, we could easilyraise a hundred or a thousand times more men from our patriots.And it is evident from recent experiences that the Tartar soldiersare not our match in every field. The present uprising of patriotsin the province of Kwang Si is a striking proof. They are far awayfrom the coast and cannot get supplies of arms and ammunitionfrom any source. The only means of getting such materials dependsexclusively upon capturing those of the enemy. Even thus they havecontinued the fight for the last three years and repeatedly defeatedexpedition after expedition of imperial troops sent against themvarious parts of the Empire. By possessing such a wonderful fightingcapacity, who could say that they could not vanquish the Tartarpower from China if sufficient supplies could be forthcoming? Whenour great object of revolutionizing China shall have been accom-plished not only a new era would down on our beautiful country,but a brighter prospect also would be shared by the whole humanrace. Universal peace will surely follow the step of the regenera-tion of China, and a grand field hitherto never dreamed of will beopened to the social and economic activities of the civilized world. To work out the salvation of China is exclusively a duty of ourown, but as the problem has recently involved a world wide inter-est, we, in order to make sure of our success, to facilitate our move-ment, to avoid unnecessary sacrifice and to prevent misunder-standing and intervention of foreign powers, must appeal to the peo-ple of the civilized world in general and the people of the UnitedStates in particular for your sympathy and support, either moralor material, because you are the pioneers of western civilizationin Japan; because you are a Christian nation; because we intend
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to model our new government after yours; and above all becauseyou are the champion of liberty and democracy. We hope we mayfind many Lafayettes among you.

Sun Yat Sen
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