170 171 THE CLASS STRUGGLE JAPAN AND CHINA Japonlic (the eastern devil. Furthermore, it loosened the stranglehold that Germany held upon China. Hitherto the Chinese had felt that their army, drilled and commanded by German experts, was invincible. The ease with which the Japanese forces advanced once and for all discredited German domination.
Thus the Japanese Chinese war, far from creating hostile sentiments, actually knit the peoples of the two nations more closely together than ever before. So complete was the understandingthat had sprung up between the two nationalities that Japanese students and revolutionists took an active part in the Chinese revolution. The uprisings that swept over the country were openly fostered by Japanese, many of the Chinese leaders of the revolution had been, at one time or another, in Japan and stood under the protection of Japanese sympathizers. The second Chinese revolution was, to all intents and purposes, a fight between German and Japanese war machines; the Army of the South was practically fitted out by Japanese revolutionists. Japanese fought side by side with their Chinese brethren, while Germany controlled and supplied the army of the Pekin government.
This state of affairs persists down to the present day. There may be strong differences between the Japanese and Chinese governments between the two nations there exists only brotherliness and understanding. No doubt the existing difficulties will persist for some time to come. The Japanese rulers are aggressive and relentless in the pursuit of their imperialistic aims. The Chinese government, on the other hand, must place its reliance on diploinatic strategy, since China lacks a strong army and navy that inight eventually back up its demands. It is not altogether improbable that Japanese imperialism may for a time establish a political and military domination over the Chinese nation, provided European and American capital does not interfere in its own interests. This is, indeed, more than kely, for the Chinese government would welcome foreign interference in order to sidestep a crushing defeat by Japan, and would reward such assistance with valuable concessions. To us this latter possibility seems, after all, the more dangerous of the two, for Japanese domination, at best, would be but temporary.
It is very likely that a crushing defeat at the hands of Japan would arouse the people of China to their own self defense; but even if the Japanese should succeed in dominating China for any length of time, they would be eliminated by a process of absorption into the stronger and more virile Chinese race. The Japanese, probably because of the very adaptability that is the foundation of their present power, are racially weak, while the Chinese are, in the same sense, the strongest nation on earth. The history of China is one of a chain of such assimilations. Time and again foreign races have invaded and conquered China, only to disappear completely as a separate entity, rapidly losing their characteristic peculiarities as they merged their existence with that of their Chinese subjects. Not even the warlike Manchurians have been able to retain their dominant natural and social characteristic. They are lost, to day, in the mighty race of the Chinese people. It is a recognized fact that nowhere in Europe has it been possible to break down the strong barriers with which the Jewish race has surrounded its people and preserved its characteristics.
But not even this proverbially virile race has been strong enough to retain its individuality in China. Jewish emigrants who settled in China in large communities have, within a few generations, lost every Jewish characteristic and become almost wholly Chinaized. The present function between the governing classes of Japan and China may continue to exist for some years to come, and the people of both nations will, in consequence, suffer increased imperialistic and militaristic oppression. But their domination will be short lived.
China, so much seems fairly certain in the light of most recent developments, will never become a full fledged capitalist state. Like the Russian neighbor, the coming revolution in China will establish a socialist communist republic, earlier perhaps than this can be accomplished in the more capitalistically developed Japan. As we have tried to show at the beginning of this article, China is inherently a democratic country, or more correctly, the Chinese are more open to democratic and revolutionary ideas because individualism is more strongly developed in the masses.
This individualistic spirit makes the average Chinaman a more fruitful soil for Bolshevist propaganda than the native of militaristic and well policed Japan. The long, unprotected border line between Siberia and China has, in fact, already been utilized by the Russian revolutionary movement, and Chinese peasants are rapidly assimilating the communist ideas of their Bolshevist neighbors. Moreover, the Chinese are a characteristically economic people, and the ideals taught by the Bolsheviks have for them a strong appeal for this reason. And when once China has emerged from its present indifference into a state of proletarian self determination it will be the great dominant power of the Far East. Eventually even Japan will have to submit to the rule of the Asiatic majority.
And so, with the coming of the Socialist revolution in the East, Asia will at last enter upon an era of peace and progress.
The peoples of Russia, China and Japan will live together peace