The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-06-07
THE SHADOW OF RUSSIA OVER CHINA
AND INDIA.

/
its actual and formal reception at the court Of
st. Petersburg, calls up train of interest.
ing reflections. The territorial relations and
the imperial aims and tendencies of Russia ia
respect to the countries of Southern and
Southwestern Asia form one of the most
pregnant questions in the international poll
| tics of the old world, question which
threatens to conyulse Asia and to involve in
war the principal governments of Europe.
Almost simultaneously with the official visit
of greeting from the Russian minister at
Washington to Mr.. Burlingame, the head OF
the Chinese embassy, a cable dispatch an
nounces decisive victory of the Russians
over the army of Bokhara, and the occupation
by the victors of the capital city of this
Khanate, which borders on the northwestern
extremity of China and On the northerE
extremity of British India. Thus while the
hand of Russia is held out in friendship to
China in one direction, the sword of Russia
CLEANS within striking reach of the imperial
domains of China in another direction. But
the same sword is poised at the verge of the
possessions of third power which divides
with the Celestial and the Muscovite empires
control over continental Asia beyond the
Euphrates and the Persian gulf Which of
these empires does it actually menace
Russia, to be sure, is not less emphatic
in protesting that she has no
hostile designs against British India,
than in Fastening to avow sentiments
of amity towards China. But all this is
neither here nor there, as regards the future
progress of Russian dominion in Asia. The
course of imperial conquest and extension, as
all history shows, is something quite indie
pendent, in the long run, of the courtesies or
the controversies, the expressions or the re-
servations of diplomacy. 1t looks more like
fatality than design. It seems to obey
blind force which nothing can arrest but the
shock of impact with indomitable resistance.
Having more than once encountered this sort
of resistance in the European field of strug-
gle and growth, the aggressive and expansive
instincts of Russia appear of late years to
have been occupied almost wholly with move
ments in Central Asia. With an iron tread,
though with little noise audible to the out
side world Russian dominion in Asia has adj
vanced steadily southwark, absorbing small
countries and curtailing larger ones, until
now it impends over the northern frontier of
British India, and over the interior frontier
of the Chinese empire from Bokhara to the
mouth of the Amoor river. Bokhara was one
of the independent states comprised in an
extensive region known as Independent Tar
tary or Turkistan. All the rest of this
region had been annexed to Asiatic Russia
after wars of more or less severity and dura-
ton, and the recent victory in Bokhara may
be regarded as completing The conquest and
annexation of the whole of it. This event
brings Russia to point from which she can
make no further advance in the same general
direction without menacing either the integ-
rity of British India or of the Chinese empire.
Will she voluntarily desist from movement
in that direction? Hardly. Her imperial
course in Asia, as already suggested, is under
one of those impulsions which, proceeding
from within, is only to be arrested by COLI
sion with superior force without. Assuming,
then, as certain that she will continue TO
press forward in Asia, will they be territories
of China or of British India that her pro-
gress will threaten to absorb? This is ques-
ton which naturally turns upon another,
namely: does China or British India offer the
greatest amount of visible resistance to such
progress? For as water breaks through the
weakest, or flows over the lowest part of
dyke, so viii Russian dominion in Central
Asia, if not disturbed by special causes of
detection, instinctively tend to the point where
there is the least opposition to its continued
spread. At present Chinese Mongolia seems
more open to the extension of this dominion
than any part of India. And, if we suppose
the government at Pekin, greatly shaken as it
has been by chronic rebellions, to be incapa-
BILE Of defying Russia with formidable dis
play of military power, and to be without
allies to guarantee her territorial integrity, it
is no extrayagant prophecy to say that not
many years hence the standard of the Nus
covite empire will be advanced to the Great
Wall of China, not one hundred miles from
Pekin, and within sword reach of the heart
Of China Proper. Such a position, once
attained and successfully maintained, would
give Russia a preponderance in Asia which
would make her more formidable and more
feared than ever in Europe Her population
would not be less than hundred million,
and her territorial extent greater than all the
rest of Europe and all the rest of Asia put
together. No single power in Christendom
could afford to engage in a contest with her
on land and should she at length develop a
corresponding naval strength, which is one
of her most cherished aims, there is no
country, however distant, not even the
United States, which could be assured that it
lay beyond the shadow of her power, or be-
yond her dream of conquest. The imperial
court of China has good reason for taking
measures to cultivate closer diplomatic rela-
tons with the Western powers. 1t is only
through some sort OF Western alliance that