CHINA AND JAPAN. When in 1823 in response to the Russian ukase claiming exclusive possession of the Pacific coast of North Amer ica to the 51st parallel, John Adams told the tsar's minister, Baron de Tuyl, that *we should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume, distinctly, the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments,* he not only gave the first clear expression in action to the Monroe Doctrine (q.v.), but he uncon sciously perhaps dictated the future history of the Pacific Ocean and in large measure the peaceful progress of China and Japan through American influences. Thus ushered into the world's politics, the United States, after resist ing the tsar's demand and by diplomacy alone forcing it back to parallel No. 55, prevented the Russian advance southward in America, and later gained California, Alaska and the Aleu tians with a vast front on the Pacific, then whitened by whaling and trading ships. Once California and Oregon were ours, the incentive was quickly given to tap the markets of Asia and awaken the hermit nations to commerce. After Monroe came Fillmore. The latter, on the day that Mutsuhito (q.v.), the late emperor of Japan, was born, 3 Nov. 1852, ordered Coin Modore M. C. Perry (q.v.) to proceed, by the shortest route — around the Cape of Good Hope — to Yedo Bay to negotiate a treaty.
Perry's triumph was a brain victory," won by tact, patience and consummate knowledge of human nature and especially of the Japanese va riety of it. He opened a new era in the treat. ment of Oriental nations, showing how, apart from force, the door of international brother hood might be opened. On the spot at Kuri hama, where, in 1853, stood the pavilion for the reception of the President's letter, rises to-day in Perry Park the memorial monolith inscribed in gold by Marquis Ito (q.v.), to the erection of which the Mikado, leading his people, sub scribed. At Yokohama, where the conferences of Commodore Perry and Professor Hayashi were held to discuss ethics, humanity, and treaty business, and the first industrial exhibi tion in Japan of American tools, inventions and products was held, the United States consulate and the Union Church have been upreared.
Thus led forward, the hermit Japan entered the school of experience, whence she was to emerge as the pupil of the Anglo-Saxon nations and the champion of their principles in Asia, the teacher of China and the middle term between the civilizations of the Orient and the Occident. After her own political commotions, consequent upon the clash of old and new ideas, Japan from 1870 engaged the service of hun dreds, yes even thousands, of Yatoi (hired spe cialists) from America and Europe, to rebuild the foundations of the empire, and for 30 years, besides sending thousands of her sons abroad, put herself under the tuition of an army of teachers from western countries, who were active in every department. Yet what has been phenomenally true of Japan has been, in the working of leaven, true of China also, only her larger mass hindering the visibility of real prog ress. Perry's success with Japan really opened a new era in the whole Chinese world of east ern Asia. The spirit of America's commerce, education, diplomacy, missions and the political policy of the United States have been the great est factors not only in the awakening of China, but in influencing arm regulating the policies of the aggressive European nations in their dealings with China and the neighbor nations of the Far East. Japan, contrary to popular notion, is a very young nation, an being, accord ing to the unanimous verdict of critical scholar ship and all the evidence in hand, no older than the Germanic nations, coming to national self consciousness in the 5th century of the Chris tian era. Naturally then she has taken quickly to western culture in the 20th, as in the 5th and 15th century. The Chinese, being an old race, with all the limitations of senility are more slow in their mental movements than the Japanese, who show all the peculiarities of a young race. Yet in both empires progress, through coma an bination of old and new forces, has real.