The combination of foreign commercial penetration and exploitation and the accom panying territorial aggression with the humili ating defeat of China by Europeanized Japan in the war of led the more thoughtful and progressive Chinese leaders to feel that the old order in China must be altered to allow the entry of the more advanced military and tech nological methods of western civilization if China was to be eased from ultimate partition lu 1898, accordingly, the reform party. led by the young emperor, Kwang Hsn. introduced a sweeping set of political, economic and educa tional reforms, but their beneficent program was halted for the time being, after only about 100 days of the new regime, through a reac tionary coup _d' etat led by the dowager em press, Tzu Hsi. The success of the reaction aries in 1898 led them to undertake a more am bitious program, namely, the ousting of all for eigners from China. This movement was led by the Boxers, or the °Society of the Fists of Righteous Harmony." It was stimulated foreign aggression; the commercial and cial exploitation; the territorial seizures; the burden of unjust indemnities; the indiscretion of the missionaries in seeking high Chinese rank, in protecting the lawless elements under the cover of a °rice conversion." and in a bigoted interference with Chinese customs; and the loose talk of foreigners about the ultimate partition of China. This anti-foreign movement broke out in 1900, but was speedily put down by Allied military intervention. On the whole however, it would seem that the Boxer revolt probably helped along the reform tendency by proving once more the utter helplessness of China with her antiquated technique when she was confronted with the material culture of the West. In 1905 the old competitive state exami nations were abolished and the basis laid for a new compulsory public school system. In 1906 legislation was enacted looking forward to the extinction of the opium trade. In 1911 oc curred the great Chinese Revolution. It broke out on 12 October, and received special support from the southern provinces. In about three months the revolution had accomplished its aims, and in February 1912 the Mandsti dynasty was ended and a republic proclaimed. To give greater unity and strength to the new republic the revolutionary president. Dr San Yat Sen, with a high degree of patriotic self-re straint, retired from power and surrendered the presidency to the northern and more con servative statesman, Yuan Shih Kai, a disciple of Li Hung Chang and next to his master the most astute of modern Chinese statesmen. The subsequent history of reform in China has cen tred around the struggle between the north and south of China. The northerners, led by Yuri Shih Kai, have desired to set up a comfits tional monarchy, while the more radical south ern party, led by Dr. Sun Yat Sen, have pre ferred a progressive republic. The soothers party organized a revolt in 1913 against the con servative policies and the provisional constitu tion of 1913, but this was speedilyressed and conservatism was only str En en couraged by his successes, Yuan ' z= Kai plot ted a restoration of the empire in 1915. 131 carefully manipulating the press and televise lines Yuan made it appear that there was an c verwhelrning desire in China for hint to re store the empire and assume the imperial title He announced his intention °to bow before the mandate of the people" on 11 Dec. 1915, but 12 days later the radical counter-revolution broke out which soon defeated Yuan and supplanted him, after his death in June vice president. Li Yuan Hung. A final to rr store the empire came in July 1917 when Gen Chang Hsun attempted to put the baby em peror, Hsuan Tung, on the throne, but tin reactionary coup was crushed in seven days.
Hung, refusing to resume office as trcsident, was succeeded by Feng Kwo Clang inJuly 1917, and in October 1918, Hsu Shih Chang. a northern military leader, sas elected president. A civil war between northern and southern China, alleged to have teen fomented in part by Japanese intrigue, ha, been in progress since 1917 with varied in tensity and unsuccessful attempts at final ad justment, but it seems likely that the common indignation of the Chinese at the treatment of China by the Peace Conference will go a long aay toward healing the breach between the ow districts. It appears absolutely certain that China will be successful in establishing a lib eral form of government and will go through a vast economic transformation within the next half century. The great natural resources of China warrant the prediction that she is bound to become one of the first industrial states of the world as soon as she is en abled to exploit these resources by more ad vanced methods. What she needs above all other things is ample public revenue to finance the reform program. The World War was a severe blow to China in this respect, as it pre vented the final arrangement of a large inter national loan to her which was contemplated on the eve of the war. Steps are already being taken, however, by the Western powers to ar range fur a great post-war loan to China. See CHINA - HISTORY.
The Awakening of Japan.— European con tact with Japan was first established in the middle of the 16th century and at first the Jap anese welcomed the foreign incursion, but fear ing European domination they ousted the for eign element in the decade following 1587, and massacred many of the Christianized natives. From 1600 to 1163 European relations with Japan were limited to a very severely restricted trading arrangement with the Dutch. In 1853 5t Commodore Perry, an American naval of ficer, obtained certain commercial concessions for American ships, and his success prompted other nations to attempt to secure similar privileges. Native opposition soon developed.
Daimios or feudal princes opposed the policy of the Shogun in opening Japan to for ngn interests and began an active anti-foreign campaign. As a mode of retaliation for this attitude the American and European fleets bombarded the Japanese ports of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki in 1863 and 1864. This ac tion proved, a very successful and rapid dem onstration of the superiority of Occidental ma terial culture, and the daimios, like the Chinese ut l90O, readily perceived the necessity of adopt ing the Western technology as a protective measure if they desired to preserve the inde pendent existence of Japan. From 1867 to 1871 a
political revolution occurred which ended the shogunate, revived the imperial power, abolished feudalism, carried through sweeping legal and administrative reforms, and established a new national army drilled and equipped according to Western standards. These reforms were syste matized in a new constitution drawn up and ac cepted in MO). A patriotic national religion was secured through the revival and strengthening of Shintoism, and a deliberate arid ssstematic duction of the European and American indus trial technology was provided. As a result Japan has advanced in less than a half-cen tury from a feudal regime with an archaic in dustrial and military technique to a modern in dustrial nation and a first-class military state. But, as in the case of modern Germany, the rapid technological evolution of Japan has not allowed the operation of the broader cultural forces which should accompany and moderate so sweeping a technological change, and the Japanese cultural complex has retained a large number of anachronisms which help to make Japan under the present dominating classes a dangerous and aggressive state. The growth of capitalism, as elsewhere, has produced a tendency toward imperialism and territorial ex pansion, which in the case of Japan has been greatly hastened and intensified by the dynamic power of a fanatically patriotic religion. In this process of imperialistic expansion it was natural that Japan should turn to the adjoin ing islands and to the neighboring coast of eastern Asia. The Liukiu Islands were secured from China in 1874; Formosa was retained from the spoil of the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95; as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 the Liaotung Peninsula and Port Arthur, as well as southern Sakhalin, were ob tained, and Korea and Manchuria were freed from Russian domination; in 1910 Korea was annexed and a political and economic penetra tion of Manchuria begun; as a result of minor and ineffective participation in the World War, Japan was awarded the German possessions in the Shantung Peninsula, with some political reservations, and the German island possessions in the Pacific north of the equator, including the Caroline, Pelew, Marianne and Marshall islands. During the war period the notorious '21 (later 24) demands' of Japan upon China were successfully negotiated and forced by Japan from 18 Ian. to 9 May 1915, and also the deplorable Lansing-Ishii Agreement of 2 Nov. 1917, by which the United States, while for mally proclaiming that it recognized and con tinued the policy of an 'Open Doors for China, actually gave up that position and conceded to Japan special interests in China and contiguous Asiatic territory, thereby confirming in practice Japan's claim to a Japanese Monroe Doctrine for China if not for the entire Far East. The '21 demands' are worthy of at least a brief summary and classification. They were divided into some five general groups. Group one re quired the cession to Japan of the former German interests in the Shantung Peninsula, with some significant extensions of the German concessions. Group two called for a recognition of the special position of Japan in southern Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, with respect to economic and political influence and activity. Group three aimed to give Japan control over the Chinese Hanyehping Company, in other words, over the key to the iron and steel indus try and the coal mines of China, with power also to exclude other nations from threatening Japanese domination. Group four was designed to give Japan power to dominate future con cessions of Chinese territory by requiring China "not to cede or lease to any third power any harbor or bay or island along the Chinese coast:" Most sismificant of all was the fifth group, ac cordit,s! to which "China was to employ Japanese advisers in political, financial and military affairs; to admit Japanese to joint participation in the policing of 'important places' ; to pur chase from Japan 'say fifty per cent. or more' of her munitions of war, or allow the estab lishing of an arsenal in China under Japanese supervision; to grant Japan the right to con struct important designated railway lines in the Yangtse Valley; to specify that Japanese might carry on missionary propaganda and own lands for hospitals, churches and schools in the in terior; and to give Japan first option for the furnishing of capital for developments, tin eluding dock yards,' in the Fukien Province.' It will readily be seen that these practically abro gated the sovereignty of China in both foreign relations and domestic affairs, and that as long as they are recognized they must inevitably prove a stumbling block to all liberal foreign illations in the Far East. As a result of the war Japan has also advanced to a position of first-rate importance in the world's ship ping. While there is little doubt that Japan is likely to prove the most aggressive and intractable modern state in imperialistic expansion, there can be no question that the western nations must refrain from a •holier than thou' attitude in the premises, for Japan received her first lessons in Weltpolitik and Machtpolitik from the nations of Europe, from the time of the bombardments of 1863-64 to the despoiling of Japan by the European powers after the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95. Nor has the conduct of the European powers in world politics generally been of the sort to c( nvince Japan that they were all inspired by the golden rule, any more than their redistri bution of German colonial possessions, and commercial interests in Africa and western Asia would be likely to make Japan hesitant in demanding the German possessions in the Far East. Probably the most promising aspect of the Japanese question in lf'eltpolitik is the existence of a growing liberal party in Japan which is likely to come into power and to re pudiate the aggressive policy now being pursued. See JAPAN — 1889-1919; JAPAN — RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR.