legal principles and on the duties of states in their international relations, will be fully reported, and their careful examination cannot fail to enlighten the student of international law. 66 The traditional policy of China, from time immemorial, has been that of a closed door - China for the Chinese. Against it, for the last half century, has stood the foreign policy as regards China, viewed by Chinese eyes as one of aggression and invasion by the several powers, each acting for itself, without concert but rather in rivalry, each bent on gaining advantage for itself in trade and influence, and each aiming to close more or less extended areas of China to all influences save its own. In the earlier stages this policy was carried out by the simple process of gaining a local foothold through cession or annexation; in its later stages it evolved the less material expedients of leaseholds, and spheres of influence, so called, radiating from the primary establishments and expanding their exclusive privileges over indeterminate regions of China proper. The cession of the island of Hongkong to Great Britain in 1842 was the initial step, followed in 1860 by the cession of adjacent territory on the mainland. Like Macao, which had been granted to the Portuguese in 1586 in consideration for the efforts of Portugal to suppress piracy, Hongkong was made an exclusive colony, governed by the laws and regulations of the parent state. In 1858 Russia acquired a large part of Amur, and in 1860 gained the whole coast of Manchurian Tartary, from the mouth of the Amur to the frontier of Korea, embracing the strategic naval port of Vladivostok, following up these acquisitions in 1881 by annexing the western part of the Ili country. In 1862 France occupied part of Cochin China, a feudatory of the Chinese Empire, and in 1867 annexed more of its territory. The subsequent expansion of the French settlements northward into Tongking, a part of the feudatory State of Annam, resulted in the Franco-Chinese war, which was ended by the treaty of peace of 1885 whereby Annam was enabled to negotiate with France for the cession of Tongking. The war between China and Japan terminated by China's recog nition of the complete independence of Korea, theretofore a tributary of the Empire, and by the cession to Japan of the southern part of the Province of Feng-tien (southern Manchuria), with its appurtenant islands in the Bay of Liao Tung and in the northern part of the Yellow Sea, besides the cession of the Formosan islands and the Pescadores group. (Supplement, p. 378.) Subsequently, however, through the interference of Russia, Germany, and France, Japan was persuaded to retrocede to China the Feng-tien territory and its islands, by the convention of November 8, 1895. (Supplement, p. 384.) These several acts of dismemberment inured to the exclusive benefit of the acquiring state. Sovereignty and administration passed to the foreign power with each successive alienation of imperial territory. The result was merely local, one absolute control supplanting another. The vast bulk of China remained sealed to foreigners. Each change of borders shifted the closed doors of China on the one hand, and on the other replaced them by other doors of alien privilege almost equally closed. Nevertheless, the process of dismemberment seemed to be checked, for a time at least. Any fresh attempts of other powers to acquire Chinese territory would naturally be opposed by the rival powers already in possession. Indeed, such a contingency was in several cases expressly guarded against. By her treaties with France in 1897 and 1898, with Great Britain in 1897, and with Japan in 1898, China made explicit declarations as to the non-alienation of neighboring territory. It remained to devise some practical expedient by which the material benefits of territorial acquisition could be enjoyed without resort to positive annexation. The germ of the new foreign movement upon the hitherto unassailable interior country is found in the settlement effected in 1897 between Great Britain and China relative to the anomalous regions near the "buffer" territory of Upper Burmah. By the treaty of February 4, 1897, Great Britain agreed to recognize certain defined territory as belonging to China, with the important qualification that "in the whole of this area China shall not exercise any jurisdiction or authority whatever. The administration and control will be entirely conducted by the British Government, who will hold it on a perpetual lease from China; while China in turn agreed not to cede to any other power certain other lands in the same general locality. Besides this enunciation of the theory of territorial acquisition by leasehold tenure, an effective implement stood ready to hand in the theory of spheres of paramount influence. This latter expedient, which already had existed in practice in other quarters, found its earlier application in China in the opening of the Yangtsze Valley to commerce by the British in 1860 and 1876, and by the establishment of British lines of steamers on the river, whereby British trade became virtually predominant in that extensive region. In fact, Great Britain utilized the Yangtsze Valley as a rightful natural thoroughfare to her eastward Indian possessions, and by so doing aided to develop the commerce and resources of the valley, thus benefiting China scarcely less than England. The term "sphere of influence" became the common mode of expressing the relation of Great Britain to the whole of the Yangtsze Valley and its adjoining provinces. The position of England in this regard was, later, emphasized by an exchange of identic notes between the United Kingdom and Russia under date of April 28, 1899, by which, in return for the British assurance of noninterference with Russian railway projects to the north of the great wall of China, "Russia, on her part, engages not to seek for her own account, or on behalf of Russian subjects or of others, any railway concessions in the basin of the Yangtsze, and not to obstruct, directly or indirectly, applications for railway concessions in that region supported by the British Government." (Brit. and For. State Papers, Vol. XCI, pp. 91-94.) About this time in November, 1897-the murder of two German missionaries by Chinese in the Province of Shantung was followed by a German naval demonstration in force to compel redress for the injury. The Bay of Kiao-chou was occupied by the Germans. The settlement which followed embraced the signature of a treaty on March 6, 1898, by which China "cedes to Germany on lease, provisionally, for ninety-nine years," both sides of the entrance to the Bay of Kiao-chou; besides granting specific privileges in a zone of 50 kilometers (100 Chinese li) around the bay, and conceding exclusive rights to a system of German railways and to German mining enterprises in the Province of Shantung. This effectively established a German sphere of influence over the major part of that province. The example set by Germany in thus acquiring control of a valuable strategic harbor and large privileges in the neighboring territory was not lost upon other powers having important interests in the Far East. While the German negotiations were in progress, Russia was making a successful countermove. Three weeks after the signature of the Kiao-chou lease, a convention between Russia and China was signed at Peking, by which Russia obtained a lease, for twenty-five years, renewable, of Port Arthur and Talienwan, with a large defensible tract of land embracing the southern extremity of the Liao-tung Peninsula, and the right to fortify Port Arthur as a naval station. The treaty comprised the privilege of extending a branch line of the Chinese Manchurian Railway to Talienwan and to another unspecified point on the Liao-tung Peninsula. This latter concession was soon afterwards, by an agreement signed at St. Petersburg May 7, 1898, changed to a grant for the construction of a branch line of the Russian Siberian Railway to Talienwan; and by the same instrument the remainder of the peninsula was made neutral ground, closed to the occupancy of mining industries and trade of any other power. It is a curious fact that the official text of these two Russo-Chinese conventions has never been published by either party. France and Great Britain were at the same time operating on similar lines in quest of defensible naval stations. On April 10, 1898, China agreed to a convention with France for a ninety-nine year lease of a naval and coaling depot at Kuang-chou-wan, near the strait of Hai-nan, in the most southerly part of the Empire, convenient to the French establishments in Tongking, with the usual exclusive privileges in the adjacent territory. This convention is, however, of merely parenthetical interest, as it was not perfected by ratification until January, 1900, and its influence upon the national sentiment of China was not apparent. The most important countermove to offset the large naval advantages gained by Germany and Russia was made by Great Britain, on the most commanding site on the Shantung Peninsula, midway between the acquisitions of Germany and Russia and nearly facing Port Arthur. On July 1, 1898, an Anglo-Chinese convention was signed at Peking by which there was leased to Great Britain as a naval harbor, "for so long a period as Port Arthur shall remain in the occupation of Russia," the bay and islands of Wei-hai-Wei with a circumjacent belt of land ten miles in width, besides giving the right to fortify a part of the neighboring Shantung coast. It may be noted that this lease was in its terms purely for strategic purposes and carried no commercial or influential privileges. In this regard the German sphere of influence in the Province of Shantung was respected. By a declaration signed April 19, 1898, Great Britain formally gave assurance to Germany "that in establishing herself at Wei-hai-Wei she has no intention of injuring or contesting the rights and interests of Germany in the Province of Shantung or of creating difficulties for her in that province." (Blue Book, China, No. 1, 1899, pp. 27–31.) The lodgments so effected by three great naval powers of Europe commanded the approaches to the Gulf of Peh-chi-li and virtually sealed the normal path of access to Tientsin and thence to Peking itself. No purpose of favoring the welfare of the Chinese people was announced. Each succeeding foreign lease cut off Chinese territory from open commerce, without offering compensating advantages to the near-by country. To the Chinese mind the course of the foreign nations antagonized the traditional policies of China. It foreshadowed further dismemberment. It was calculated to confirm and embitter the anti-foreign feeling, and crystallize it into a national sentiment of chauvinism. Looking at the situation in this light it is hardly surprising that manifestations hostile to all foreigners should occur in the provinces most affected by the foreign occupation. The antagonism was made easier of development by the tendency of the Chinese to band together in secret organizations. Most formidable among these was the Boxer society, whose emblem was a clenched hand, and its name the Society of Righteous Harmony. Ostensibly innocent in character, its thinly veiled purpose was the extermination of foreigners and native converts to alien creeds. It rapidly increased in numbers and potency until the northern tier of provinces felt its influence. It first showed its power in Shantung, the same province in which its hostility to German missionaries had precipitated the German occupation of Kiao-chou two years before. In October, 1899, the Boxer uprising began. Subdued at first, the Boxers rallied, and by December their attacks terrorized many of the missionary establishments in Shantung. On January 1, 1900, the British missionary Brooke was murdered near Tainanfu. Other outrages followed. By March the Boxer movement had spread more alarmingly, and its members were openly organizing and drilling throughout northern China. The foreign ministers at Peking joined in calling upon the Chinese Government to suppress the Boxers and their associates, the Big Swords. The mildly deprecatory measures of the Tsungli-Yamen were ineffectual. The Government of the United States detailed war ships to Chinese waters to protect American interests. Other naval powers did the same, until a mixed fleet was gathered at Taku, the port of Tientsin. By May the victims of the Boxers, foreigners and native converts, were numbered by hundreds. The situation at Peking had grown so alarming that the foreign legations urgently called for defensive guards. On June 1, three hundred and fifty English, Russian, French, German, Italian, and American marines reached Peking, barely in time. By the 4th, the Boxer forces were pillaging and killing up to the walls of the capital. On June 11, the chancellor of the Japanese legation was murdered at the city gate. By this time the Chinese troops in Peking had sided with the Boxers. The legations were practically besieged and all communication with the outside world was cut off. |