Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-08-23
THE Parties IN CHINA
EMPRESS DOWAGER AT THE HEAD
OF DOMINANT FACTION.
Members Care for Nothing but Wealth
and POsfti0n--EmperOr'sF Follow
ers and Middle Party.

The following extracts from memoran-
dunn prepared last fall for an English
| friend by the Chinese reformer, kang Yu
Wei. will doubtless be read with interest
| at the present time:
| In order to properly comprehend the In
ner affairs of the Chinese empire the first
thing needful is rightly to distinguish the
different parties in China. The empress
| dowager holds on to the old ways; her
| party Is known as the empress party.
| The emperor and his friends, who desire
reform, are knwon as the emperor's party.
| Then there is a third party. known as the
| middle party, which is chiefly concerned
| with its own interests and dares not inter-
fere In politics Nine-tenths of the people
and officials are comprised In this party.
The empress dowager, Notwithstanding
| she is the head of the ruling party, pos
| sesses few or no friends outside of Off
cial circles and the yamens. Otherwise
her influence is small. Her intimates are
all Manchus-Yung Lee, appointed her
| commander-in-chief; Kang Wei special
commissioner for the collection of addi-
t1onal revenues from the provinces; Prince
Luin and some others who might be named.
The only clever man among them Is fung
Lu. The rest are denseiy ignorant and
| care for nothing but wealth and official
rank. OF the high military officials,
Lung-Fu-Siang belongs to the empress
party and Yuan-Shi-kai to that of the
| emperor. All the remainder may be said
| to belong to the middle party. Thus am
right in saying that the empress party
consists of but few although at the mo-
ment their power is great
Status of Middle Party.
The middle party, on the other hand, is
spread throughout the whole empire. The
majority of its members are in their hearts
devoted to the emperor, admiring his intelli-
gence and rectitude, and these are alarmed
and angry at the empress usurpation. But
the high officials are too old; they Sit blink
Ing in the twilight, not daring to act but
leaving success or ruin to come, as the en-
peror or empress gains the upper hand.
Ruined the emperor's party is, yet it
consists of the real reformers. They long
for reform and new methods, but while the
emperor's party holds the power they are
in dread of severe punishment. AT the time
of the coup detat the empress falsely as
serted that the emperor's party was plan
ming revolt. She prohibited newspapers.
killed or drove out hundreds of reformers
and eXiled numbers of high reformers to
the frontiers. Six of the reformers executed
were high metropolitan officials, one MEM
Der or the grand council and one whom the
emperor had named to be prime minister.
All were the emperor's personal friends.
They were beheaded without trial, while
hundreds of smaller officials and thousands
OF the common people were prescribed.
These measures were carried out In order
to clip the emperd's wings. Why were all
these leading men willing to associate them
selves with the reform party? The answer
is that they were loyal subjects anxious to
save their country and deserve the en-
peror's benevGlence. You have only to read
the Chinese newspapers published in Tien
Tsin Shanghai. Macao. Yokohama and
Singapore, under foreign protection and
able to speak the truth, to confirm what is
here asserted. They, one and all, sympa-
thize with the party of reform. The jap
anese newspapers take tho same view; their
criticism is Independent.
Not the EmperOr's Mother.
The empress dowager is not the emperor's
real mother. and she had hesitation in
deposng him SO to retain her power.
But she was wrong to take Yung LUIS ad-
vice to depose the emperor and place the
power in Yung LUIS hands. AS soon as he
got control OF the northern troops Yung
Lu threw off the mask, and the empress
lives in constant dread of treachery on the