Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-16
CHINA HOPES TO IMPRESS
WORLD THROUGH ENGLAND
Cancellation of Extraterritoriality Is
Seen as Reaction Due to British
Action of 1926.

IeSenCLlS Ine II powers Wno mao
brought troops to Peking and signed
the protocol of 1901 whereby for all
practical purposes they disposed Of the
effective revenues Of the customs and
the railways.
The solidarity. which might have re-
created something permanent and zrest.
was succeeded by a great commercial
and industrial expansion. What with
leased territories, treaty ports (they
had risen to so now, railways and ship
ping on inland waters the face of the
country was being changed, and some
thing not disSimilar to India and Egypt
was arising.
But the revolution of 1911, which
brought the pSeudo-republic, interrupted
this orderly process of substituting a
new civilization for something which
was no longer valid. Moreover. 1t was
followed with AZ months by the World
War, comprehensive to China only in
the war cries which Wanted the claims
of oppressed nationalities and the rights
of peoples to self-determination.
Sun Yat-Sen's Action No Surprise.
Thus, with the progressive collapse
of Chinese civilization and the diSap-
pearsnce of its symbol, the throne,
there had come an interim government,
without ideals or permanent head, de-
War for its propulsion.
That modern world was no longer
the dim and intangible thing thousands
of miles away 1t had been in PalmerStonS
days; something of 1t had been trans
ported to China and lay like vast en-
trenchment along river and coast IN the
shape of European towns and railways
and swift steamers and great factories
and immense oil installations, not to
cYOnok IF tho to1auro YNnc ma V1Ncfc uyi1inh
had been developed as concomitants.
That the feeling Of impotence these
gave to a population still immersed in
the fourteenth century should have
eliminated in DR.. Sun Yat-Sen'S rap
prochement with Soviet Russia is per-
haps only natural. China was hunger
ing for a technique of government
which no one else would supply.
Powers Had No Plan Ready.
For, although the group Of 8 that
remained of the IL protocol pow
ers Germany, Austria and Russia hav-
ing been dropped were mighty enough
to do as they pleased in China, no one
had plan, and there were only the vel
leities of the Washington conference to
fall back upon. And when the meeting
provided for by that conference to deal
with tariff and extraordinarily was
convened in Picking u925) the bolshevik
storm already had broken and the at
mosphere was unpropitious.
The discussions which ensued soon
became conspicuous for one thing only
and undignified and uninterrupted quar-
rel between British and japanese dele
gates on the subject of customs duties
and unsecured debts every whit as bitter
as the reparations struggle in Europe
and fitting prelude to the Nationalist
OutraPeS on the YangtSZe,
The point was ignored that the for
ign-controlled customs provided all the
machinery necessary not only to make
government, but to sustain govern
ment, as Marking has since shown.
Quarreling over utterly unimportant
points when there was revenue In sight
which would have settled every one of
them. the two leading powers in Asia
presented a sorry spectacle, and the
meeting broke up in disorder with moth
ing done.
Memorandum Heartened China.
! In December, 1895, the so-called Brit
| ish memorandum was issued not only to
bolshevized China, but to q divided
diplomatic body-a last-minute attempt
to prove to the world that" 50 far as
England had been concerned she must
not be held responsible for all that had
occurred.
| The memorandum proclaimed O won
derful policy of laiSSez faire: everything
was to be abandoned to the Chinese,
tariff rights, foreign concessions, all the
carefully guarded machinery built up
since PalmerSton's days, the same fatal
loquacity being evident as in the case
of India in 1917 and Egypt in 1923.
This document rightfully enough
brought the whirlwind. Diplomacy de-
| clared 1t was an attempt to dictate a
policy to the world, while the Chinese
thought 1t was a signal of fear. 1t
brought the ignominy of Hankow,
where mob, inspired by Bolsheviks,
hauled down the British nag and
neceSsitated the dispatch of the larg-
ever sent 10000 miles across the seas
10000 men and costing f5,000,000.
Thinks Britain Is Afraid.
The latest decree of the Marking
government is entirely due to 1926. If
| through England's folly there is an
abandonment of all that Western civil
ization which lies like a vast entrench-
ment along river and coast, the Kuo-
even though the authentic China, the
fourteenth century China of the In
| terror provinces, rejects them.
| Properly speaking, the Marking gov
eminent has no home-no mandate
but that which is conceded them by
the powers; for the Spide: has become
the guardian of the palace of the en-
perors and has spun its web over the
great gate, while the owl fills the royal
tombs with its lugubrious song. No
matter. There Is on the coast fringe
this emblem of the modern world, so
easy to tax, so satisfying to manipulate
once few signatures have been put
to paper, so convincing as an attribute
OF sovereignty.
That there must be a rude awaken
ing one day Is irrelevant; the issue Just
now is that China believes that Eng
land is flying signal of fear and that
through her she can impose her will
| on the others.