Page images
PDF
EPUB

Asiatic States, the United States was bound by the spirit more than by the letter of a treaty.

In 1861 Russia occupied the Island of Tsushima midway between Japan and Korea. The island was of the utmost strategic importance, for it commanded the Sea of Japan. (It was in this vicinity that Admiral Rodjestovesky's fleet was destroyed by the Japanese May 27-8, 1905.) The Russians built barracks and planted seed, as though they had every intention of remaining permanently.10 Townsend Harris, American Minister in Yeddo, reported the presence of the Russians to Secretary of State Seward, October 7, 1861. He wrote:

For the last eighteen months many officials, English and French, and civilians and naval men, have frequently declared that war with Japan was inevitable, and that it could only end in the partition of the country (Japan). It is said that the Russian Commander justified his action by referring to those declarations, adding that he remains at Tsushima solely for the purpose of preventing its falling into the power of the English or French.11

Shortly after this Mr. R. H. Pruyn arrived in Japan to relieve Harris. Seward, whose whole Far Eastern policy is worthy of careful study, wrote to Pruyn, with a confidence in his ability and in the good-will of Russia which now seems astonishing, as follows:

If the occupation of Tsushima still is an object of anxiety to his Majesty the Tycoon, I will at once call the attention of the President to the matter, and with his authority which I doubt not will be granted, I will, in the name of this government, as the friend of Japan, as well as of Russia, seek from the latter explanations which I should hope would be satisfactory to Japan.12

But before this proposal, so significant as an item in American history, reached Japan, Admiral Sir James Hope, supported by a formidable fleet, had ordered the Russians to leave the island and they had obeyed. Meanwhile the Japanese, who had other matters of dispute with Russia, had entered into friendly negotiations with the great state which had recently become their neighbor, and the good offices of the United States became unnecessary.

It cannot be denied that the action of the British fleet was more appropriate for the occasion than the offer of Mr. Seward. The difficulties of securing the consent of Russia to the mediation of any of her Far Eastern projects became evident to the United States only a few years later.

SAKHALIN, 1870

Russia, unceremoniously driven from Tsushima, was all the more intent on securing a clear title to the island of Sakhalin, which lies along the coast

10 Griffis' Hermit Kingdom, p. 205; Douglas' Europe in the Far East, p. 190. 11 Japan Despatches, Vol. 4.

12 Japan Instructions, Vol. 1, Feb. 5, 1862.

of Siberia southward from the mouth of the Amur. The Russians had lodged a claim for this island as early as 1804.13

In September, 1870, after long and fruitless negotiations with Russia, in which Japan was inducted into some of the most questionable methods of European diplomacy, the latter country made a formal application to the United States, through United States Minister C. E. DeLong, for mediation, and Secretary of State Fish immediately took the matter up in an informal way with Russia.14 Through the American minister in St. Petersburg, Russia replied graciously, explaining that it would not be possible to submit the matter to mediation because a precedent would thus be established which some unfriendly European powers might subsequently turn to the disadvantage of Russia.

Meanwhile, the Japanese evidently placed little reliance on the effective good offices of the United States for, without notifying the American Minister, they took the matter up with Russia directly, and invited her to send a plenipotentiary to Yeddo to settle the matter.

MARIA LUZ CASE, 1872.

Two years later, Japan accepted a plan of mediation in the Maria Luz

case. 15

A Peruvian coolie ship from China was forced to put in at Yokohama. The Japanese promptly freed the coolies. Peru sought the good offices of the United States in the settlement of the consequent claim against Japan. The American government accepted the duty with the express stipulation that it could do nothing which would imply approval of the coolie trade. At the suggestion of the United States, the claim was referred to the Emperor of Russia, who awarded the decision to Japan, May 29, 1875. The reference of this matter to Russia became especially easy because in 1864 Mr. Pruyn had agreed to submit a disputed claim of the United States against Japan to the arbitration of the Czar. As a matter of fact the American claim had been settled without reference to St. Petersburg, but the discussion had given the United States an opportunity to show its willingness to conform its practice to its preaching.16

AMERICAN POLICY IN THE FAR EAST

The above noted instances of the use of good offices are of relatively slight importance except by way of preface to the very important disputes 13 For a history of the controversy see Stead, op. cit. pp. 149 ff.

14 Japan Despatches, Vol. 13, No. 7, Jan. 11, 1870; Japan Instructions, Vol. 1, No. 85, Jan. 17, 1871; Russia Instructions, No. 65, Nov. 11, 1870; Russia Despatches, No. 91, Dec. 9, 1870.

15 Moore's Digest, Vol. 2, p. 655.

16 Jackson Payson Treat, Japan and the United States, pp. 70, 100, 101; Treat, Early Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Japan, 1853-65, p. 249; Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, II, p. 1079; For. Rel., 1873, Vol. 1, p. 613.

which arose in the following twenty-five years. They served, however, to introduce the principle of mediation into Far Eastern questions, and they revealed the disposition of the United States at a time when all of the Oriental states were receiving from western powers lessons in diplomacy and international relations of a much less elevated sort.

In the events which occurred after 1872, the United States stood out preeminently as a disinterested peace-maker. This rôle suited the American spirit as it was being exhibited in domestic affairs and in trans-Atlantic relations; it was, moreover, the cornerstone of American policy in Asia. It was clearly seen that the interests of the United States could be only injured by war. War between Japan and China would result in the weakening of both nations, and would probably lead to the intervention of European powers in their own interests. The United States desired above all else strong and progressive native governments in Asia. War would paralyze progress and further impoverish the nations which joined in it. War between any western and any eastern power would be even more disastrous. American national interests, therefore, happily coincided, as they do today, with the highest welfare of the Asiatic states.

Indeed, one may indulge at this point in a very sweeping generalization. There were, and are, two possible general policies for the foreign powers in the Far East. One is to keep the Asiatic states in as weakened a condition as possible, with a view to making commercial conquest easy. The other policy is to assist these nations to achieve the greatest possible national strength, with a view to the building up of strong self-supporting and self-governing sovereign states. The American policy in Asia has uniformly been of the latter sort, and at times the United States has stood absolutely alone in the advocacy of such a course. Even today there are not a few whose proposals of policy in Asia rest upon the assumption that a weak East will help in the maintenance of a strong West. Furthermore, it is between these two policies that Japan, preferring to count herself as a power rather than as an Asiatic state, is halting. The question before Japan is: Does her national well-being require a weak or a strong China? This is but another phase of the older question asked by the western powers when they inquired whether their well-being required a weak or a strong Asia in which Japan was considered as an integral part.

Perhaps the best proof of the sincerity of this characteristic American policy of strengthening Asia has been its repeated and long continued efforts to introduce mediation and arbitration into the ominous Asiatic. disputes.

One other general consideration is important for the understanding of the peace-making rôle of the United States in Asia. When the foreign powers appeared in the Far East in force after the Crimean War, Eastern Asia was, politically, in a nebulous state which might be compared to that of a solar system before the orbits of the planets had become fixed or the

satellites properly distributed. There were certain central masses with a moderate degree of specific gravity, and there were also smaller masses which swung on irregular orbits in between the larger spheres, influenced in their movements by each of the larger masses, but still not wholly attached to any larger neighbor. The large spheres were China, Russia in Asia, England in Asia, and Japan. The potential satellites were the islands off the coast of Asia-Sakhalin, Yesso, Tsushima, the Bonin Islands, the Lew Chew group, Formosa-and, the so-called tributary states surrounding China-Burmah, Annam and the regions near it, Tibet and Korea. Before the Europeans came and attempted to apply the rules of international law, these regions and islands had given to the larger Asiatic states only a moderate degree of trouble. Communications were difficult before the arrival of the steamship and the cable and both China and Japan were quite content with the political status quo. But the entrance of the Europeans and their modern contrivances radically changed the situation. Immediate reasons appeared for a closer organization of the politically nebulous East. The result was a consolidation of Japan and China, respectively, and then a proportionate increase in the power of gravitation by which these masses pulled upon the intervening islands and the outlying regions. The laws of physics operated in international matters. The pull upon Formosa, the Lew Chews,17 Korea, Burmah, Annam, etc., was in direct ratio to the specific gravity of the neighboring masses, and in inverse ratio to the distance. In this process of organization, China fared badly because, while its mass was great, it was also nebulous and loosely organized, whereas Japan, Russia in Asia, England in Asia, and France in Asia, although relatively small, were more compact and of greater political specific gravity. It was, of course, inevitable that between these pulls and counter-pulls collisions would be inevitable. In these collisions the interests of the United States were seldom benefited. War of any sort meant the impoverishing of peoples, the sequestration of territory, the upsetting of markets, and presumably the closing of doors. While it is undeniable that the United States has received some benefits from some of the wars in Asia since 1839, it seems more reasonable to believe that the best interests of the United States in every case where there has been a conflict of arms would have been better served by peace. At any rate, the assumption that this would be true underlay American policy in the Far East from the very beginning.

FORMOSA, 1874

In 1874, Japan and China came into collision over the Island of Formosa. Many Japanese had already ear-marked the island for Nippon, for it commanded one avenue of the trade route to north China and Japan. Indeed, Japanese had already laid out, somewhat informally, a plan of

17 Also spelled Loo Choo, Liu Chiu; Japanese, Riu Kiu.

annexation or conquest of territory from the mouth of the Amur southward, which included practically all that has in the last fifty years been obtained.18

In 1874, Japan finding it necessary to make war to avert a revolution chose between Korea and Formosa and preferred the latter because of its warmer climate and its sugar cane. Japan confronted China with the principle of international law that sovereignty over territory was not to be recognized where the power claiming sovereignty did not exercise the functions of government. To this claim China replied with a quotation from her classics which she understood better than international law. Thus wrote Prince Kung to the Ministers of the Japanese Department of Foreign Affairs, May 14, 1874:

Formosa is an island lying far off amidst the sea and we have never restrained the savages living there by any legislation, nor have we established any government over them, following in this a maxim mentioned in the Rei Ri: "Do not change the usages of a people, but allow them to keep their good ones." But the territories inhabited by these savages are truly within the jurisdiction of China.1

19

Japan found a pretext for her war on Formosa in the murder by the aboriginal inhabitants of the island of some ship-wrecked Lew Chew Island sailors. Unfortunately, the American Minister in Japan, who greatly sympathized with the Japanese in their aspirations, was sufficiently compromised in the planning of the expedition so that his recall became necessary. Three Americans were engaged by the Japanese to assist in the expedition and an American steamer was chartered as a transport. However, before the expedition left Nagasaki the Americans were ordered to be detached from the party, and the American steamer was returned to its owners. The action of the American government was somewhat embarrassed by the fact that no formal declaration of war existed, but the Chinese government expressed satisfaction at the measures taken to restrain American citizens from assisting Japan.

In October, 1874, a Japanese envoy arrived in Peking to settle the Formosan dispute. There was a war of words and then a rupture of the negotiations. As the Japanese envoy was about to leave Peking, Dr. S. Wells Williams, suggested arbitration but the envoy stated that the matter was "too complicated" for arbitration and was very unlike the Maria Luz affair.20

But the Japanese were not to be permitted to settle the Formosan affair in their own way. Sir Thomas Wade, the British Minister, had already, so it is believed, intimated to the Japanese that Great Britain would not view 18 The evidence for this statement is to be found in Walter Wallace McLaren, A Political History of the Meiji Era, p. 195 ff.; Stead, op. cit., Chap. XI.

19 China Despatches, Vol. 36, No. 55, Aug. 22, 1874, Williams to Fish. 20 China Despatches, Vol. 37, No. 70, Oct. 29, 1874, Williams to Fish.

« PreviousContinue »