168 169 THE CLASS STRUGGLE JAPAN AND CHINA the Chinese have realized the value of their national resources, they will become a powerful influence among nations.
Most nearly related to the Chinese are the Japanese. Racially these two nationalities have so much in common that either can be easily assimilated by the other. The Japanese who comes to China rapidly becomes absorbed into Chinese life, in spite of the fact that the Japanese are intensely nationalistic. The educated Chinaman learns the Japanese spoken and printed language readily. The Japanese word symbols are an adaptation of the older Chinese, and nouns and verbs still have a largely identical meaning. In the same way, the educated Japanese can master the Chinese language within a few months. It is mostly a matter of pronunciation Historically Japan owes everything to China, although there have been a number of bitter disputes between the two nations.
Japan has copied the Chinese language and written symbols, just as most European countries have built up their tongues on the Latin. With their peculiar genius for adopting the characteristics of all nations and weaving them into its national life, Japanese culture, politics, literature and even religion to day are an interesting conglomeration of the oriental and occidental, of all nationalities and all races, all happily adapted to the needs and demands of Japanese conditions. This characteristic applies to all classes of the Japanese people, to the ruling as well as to the lower classes. This tendency to adopt foreign methods and ideas can be distinctly traced in Japanese political life: Up to the FrancoPrussian war France was the teacher and leader of Japanese rulers. They followed the lead of France in all important matters, adopted its laws and administrative forms, copied its ariny and navy organization. But after the victory of Prussia over France, the intensely practical sympathies of the Japanese ruling class took up the new allegiance, and from this time on Prussian methods and Prussian ideas dominated Japan political life. The educated youth of Japan were sent to German schools, there to assimilate German practices and German ideas.
The government and its bureaucratic institutions bear every earmark of Germanic inspiration. The prominent political leaders on the other hand are unmistakably English in their political ideology, while French republican ideas find expression in the small handful of radical politicians who have survived.
Japanese literature, too, plainly shows the marked influence of the various nations of Europe at various times. English, Italian, French and German and Russian ideas all lave left their mark upon the literary and political life of the Japanese people.
Among the common people of Japan, on the other hand, there has always been a pronounced sympathy for American institutions. There exists, too, a firm bond of sympathy between the people of Russia and of Japan. This existed even before the days of the Russian revolution, and arises even more from an underlying similarity of life conception and an affinity of thought and feeling between the peoples of the two nations. The strain of orientalism that is the natural outcome of Russian peasant life and that runs through all Russian literature strikes an answering chord in the psychology of the people of Japan.
This popular sympathy in Japan toward the Russian people on the one hand and the Chinese on the other was in no way lessened by the fact that Japan, within the last decade, was engaged in war with both of these nations. In both wars Japan was victorious, but both wars were fought in accord with oldfashioned ideas of international justice, and the peace that followed left no sting in the hearts of the vanquished, no overbearing attitude of triumph with the victor. Japan lost whatever she may have gained through her military victory over China at the hands of Germany, Russia and Austria, while the Russian Japanese war was so palpably waged in the interests of the ruling classes of both countries that it failed, at any time, to awaken a responsive chord in the populace. In Russia the attitude of the masses from the outset was one of open opposition. The Japanese, it is true, followed blindly the dictates of their rulers. But there, too, there was a conspicuous lack of hatred or inimical feeling against the Russian foe. In this war, too, the beaten Russian people were the ultimate victors, for the coming of peace in 1905 brought on the first revolution and thus prepared the people for their ultimate emancipation.
The defeat of their autocratic government and its loss of influence increased the potential force of the people, winning for them not only direct reforms, but awakening in their minds and hearts hopes for a better and freer future.
In spite of their military victory, the Japanese were, in the end, the real losers, for the years that followed brought them a heavy burden of militarism and reactionary exploitation at the hands of an imperialistic government and a reactionary capitalist class as reward for their achievement. For the Chinese people, too, the Chinese Japanese war was an eye opener. It shocked them into a realization of the progress that the once so heartily despised Japanese had made at the expense of the sleeping Chinese giant. It put an end to the ancient prejudices of the Chinese against all things Japanese. They no longer called their neighbors