A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Elizabeth - "Elizabeth and her German Garden*"

Jane Austen - "Emma, by Jane Austen"

F. Max Muller - "The Dhammapada"

Various Authors of Some Repute - "Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis"

New Forces in Old China

A >> ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN >> New Forces in Old China



Scanned by Charles Keller for Sarah with OmniPage Professional OCR software





New Forces in Old China

An Inevitable Awakening


by ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN




To my Friends in China



Preface

THE object of this book is to describe the operation
upon and within old, conservative, exclusive China
of the three great transforming forces of the modern
world--Western trade, Western politics and Western religion.
These forces are producing stupendous changes in that hitherto
sluggish mass of humanity. The full significance of these
changes both to China and to the world cannot be comprehended
now. There is something fascinating and at the same
time something appalling in the spectacle of a nation numbering
nearly one-third of the human race slowly and majestically
rousing itself from the torpor of ages under the influence of
new and powerful revolutionary forces. No other movement
of our age is so colossal, no other is more pregnant with
meaning. In the words of D. C. Bougler, ``The grip of the outer
world has tightened round China. It will either strangle her
or galvanize her into fresh life.''

The immediate occasion of this volume was the invitation of
the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary to deliver a
series of lectures on China on the Student Lectureship Foundation
and to publish them in book form. This will account in
part for the style of some passages. I have, however, added
considerable material which was not included in the lectures,
while some articles that were contributed to the Century Magazine,
the American Monthly Review of Reviews and other
magazines have been inserted in their proper place in the
discussion. The materials were gathered not only in study and
correspondence but in an extended tour of Asia in the years
1901 and 1902. In that tour, advantage was taken of every
opportunity to confer with Chinese of all classes, foreign
consuls, editors, business men and American, German and British
officials, as well as with missionaries of all denominations.
Everywhere I was cordially received, and, as I look at my
voluminous note-books, I am very grateful to the men of all
faiths and nationalities who so generously aided me in my
search for information.

No one system of spelling Chinese names has been followed
for the simple reason that no one has been generally accepted.
The Chinese characters represent words and ideas rather than
letters and can only be phonetically reproduced in English.
Unfortunately, scholars differ widely as to this phonetic spelling,
while each nationality works in its own peculiarities wherever
practicable. And so we have Manchuria, Mantchuria and
Manchouria; Kiao-chou, Kiau-Tshou, Kiao-Chau, Kiau-
tschou and Kiao-chow; Chinan and Tsi-nan; Ychou, Ichow
and I-chou; Tsing-tau and Ching-Dao; while Mukden is confusingly
known as Moukden , Shen-Yang, Feng-tien-fu and Sheng-
king. As some authors follow one system, some another and some
none at all, and as usage varies in different parts of the Empire,
an attempt at uniformity would have involved the correction
of quotations and the changing of forms that have the sanction
of established usage as, for example, the alteration of
Chefoo to Chi-fu or Tshi-fu. I have deemed it wise, as a rule,
to omit the aspirate (e. g, Tai-shan instead of T'ai-shan) as
unintelligible to one who does not speak Chinese. Few
foreigners except missionaries can pronounce Chinese names
correctly anyway. Besides, no matter what the system of spelling,
the pronunciation differs, the Chinese themselves in various
parts of the Empire pronouncing the name of the Imperial
City Beh-ging, Bay-ging, Bai-ging and Bei-jing, while most
foreigners pronounce it Pe-kin or Pi-king. I have followed the
best obtainable advice in using the hyphen between the different
parts of many proper names. For the rest I join the
perplexed reader who devoutly hopes that the various commit-
tees that are at work on the Romanization of the Chinese language
may in time agree among themselves and evolve a system
that a plain, wayfaring man can understand without provocation
to wrath.
156 Fifth Avenue,
New York City.



Preface to the Second Edition

THE author gratefully acknowledges the kindness with
which his book has been received not only in this
country but in England and China. In this edition
he has corrected a number of errors that appeared in the first
edition and has availed himself of later statistical information.
He is under special obligations to the Rev. W. A. P. Martin,
D. D., LL. D., of Wuchang, and the Rev. Arthur H. Smith,
D. D. LL. D., of Pang-chwang, for valuable counsel. These
distinguished authorities on China have been so kind as to
study the book with painstaking care and to give the author
the benefit of their suggestions. All these suggestions have
been incorporated in this edition to the great improvement of
its accuracy.

The result of the Russia-Japan War is noticeably accelerating
the new movement in China. The Chinese have been as
much startled and impressed by the Japanese victory as the
rest of the world and they are more and more disposed to follow
the path which the Japanese have so successfully marked
out. The considerations presented in this book are therefore
even more true to-day than when they were first published.
The problem of the future is plainly the problem of China and
no thoughtful person can afford to be indifferent to the vast
transformation which is taking place as the result of the operation
of the great formative forces of the modern world.

156 Fifth Avenue,
New York City.



Contents

PART I

OLD CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE

I. THE ANCIENT EMPIRE . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
II. DO WE RIGHTLY VIEW THE CHINESE . . . . . . 25
III. ATTITUDE TOWARDS FOREIGNERS-CHARACTER AND
ACHIEVEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
IV. A TYPICAL PROVINCE . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
V. A SHENDZA IN SHANTUNG. . . . . . . . . . . 52
VI. AT THE GRAVE OF CONFUCIUS. . . . . . . . . 65
VII. SOME EXPERIENCES OF A TRAVELLER-FEASTS, INNS
AND SOLDIERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

PART II

THE COMMERCIAL FORCE AND THE ECONOMIC
REVOLUTION

VIII. WORLD CONDITIONS THAT ARE AFFECTING CHINA101
IX. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION IN ASIA. . . . . .111
X. FOREIGN TRADE AND FOREIGN VICES. . . . . .121
XI. THE BUILDING OF RAILWAYS . . . . . . . . .130

PART III

THE POLITICAL FORCE AND THE NATIONAL
PROTEST

XII. THE AGGRESSIONS OF EUROPEAN POWERS . . . .145
XIII. THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA. . . . . . .154
XIV. DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS-TREATIES. . . . . . .165
XV. RENEWED AGGRESSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . .174
XVI. GROWING IRRITATION OF THE CHINESE--THE
REFORM PARTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184
XVII. THE BOXER UPRISING . . . . . . . . . . .193

PART IV

THE MISSIONARY FORCE AND THE CHINESE
CHURCH

XVIII. BEGINNINGS OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE--THE
TAI-PING REBELLION AND THE LATER
DEVELOPMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217
XIX. MISSIONARIES AND NATIVE LAWSUITS . . . . .228
XX. MISSIONARIES AND THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS . .236
XXI. RESPONSIBILITY OF MISSIONARIES FOR THE BOXER
UPRISING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249
XXII. THE CHINESE CHRISTIANS . . . . . . . . .268
XXIII. THE STRAIN OF READJUSTMENT TO CHANGED
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. . . . . . . . . . . .280
XXIV. COMITY AND COOPERATION . . . . . . . . .290

PART V

THE FUTURE OF CHINA AND OUR RELATION
TO IT

XXV. IS THERE A YELLOW PERIL. . . . . . . . . .305
XXVI. FRESH REASON TO HATE THE FOREIGNER . . .320
XXVII. HOPEFUL SIGNS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .333
XXVIII. THE PARAMOUNT DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM. . . . .351
INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .371



List of Illustrations
Facing Page
Railway Station, Paoting-fu. . . . . . . . . .Title
View of Canton, Showing House Boats. . . . . . . . 22
H. I. H. Prince Su and Attendants. . . . . . . . . 32
A Rut in the Loess Region. . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Germans Building Railway Bridge in Shantung. . . . 56
A Shendza in Shantung. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Climbing Tai-shan, the Sacred Mountain . . . . . . 70
The Grave of Confucius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Part of the Author's Escort of Chinese Cavalrymen. 92
Watching the Author writing in his Diary at a noon stop
A Snap Shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Bund, Shanghai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112
American Cigarette Posters on a Chinese Bridge . .112
The Chinese Cart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
The Old and The New. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
French Military Post, Saigon . . . . . . . . . . .150
German Soldiers on the Bund, Tien-tsin . . . . . .150
The British Legation Guard, Peking . . . . . . . .174
The Temple of Heaven, Peking . . . . . . . . . . .198
Memorial Arch, Hall of the Classics, Peking. . . .228
Graduating Class, Presbyterian Theological Seminary,
Canton, 1904. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268
Approach to the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City,
Peking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .320
Two of China's Great Men Yuan Shih Kai and Chang
Chih-tung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .344
Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .370



PART I

Old China and its People


I

THE ANCIENT EMPIRE

HE must be dead to all noble thoughts who can tread
the venerable continent of Asia without profound
emotion. Beyond any other part of the earth, its
soil teems with historic associations. Here was the birthplace
of the human race. Here first appeared civilization. Here
were born art and science, learning and philosophy. Here man
first engaged in commerce and manufacture. And here
emerged all the religious teachers who have most powerfully
influenced mankind, for it was in Asia in an unknown antiquity
that the Persian Zoroaster taught the dualism of good and
evil; that the Indian Gautama 600 years before Christ declared
that self-abnegation was the path to a dreamless Nirvana; that
less than a century later the Chinese Lao-tse enunciated the
mysteries of Taoism and Confucius uttered his maxims
regarding the five earthly relations of man, to be followed within
another century by the bold teaching of Mencius that kings
should rule in righteousness. In Asia it was 1,000 years
afterwards that the Arabian Mohammed proclaimed himself as the
authoritative prophet. There the God and Father of us all
revealed Himself to Hebrew sage and prophet in the night vision
and the angelic form and the still, small voice; and in Asia are
the village in which was cradled and the great altar of the
world on which was crucified the Son of God.

We of the West boast of our national history. But how brief
is our day compared with the succession of world powers which
Asia has seen.

Chaldea began the march of kingdoms 2,200 years before
Christ. Its proud king, Chedor-laomer, ruled from the Persian
Gulf to the sources of the Euphrates, and from the Zagros
Mountains to the Mediterranean. Then Egypt arose to rule
not only over the northeastern part of Africa, but over half of
Arabia and all of the preceding territory of Chaldea. Assyria
followed, stretching from the Black Sea nearly half-way down
the Persian Gulf and from the Mediterranean to the eastern
boundary of modern Persia. Babylon, too, was once a world
power whose monarch sat

``High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind.''[1]


[1] Milton, ``Paradise Lost,'' Book II.

Persia was mightier still. Two thousand years before America
was heard of, while France and Germany, England and Spain,
were savage wildernesses, Persia was the abode of civilization
and culture, of learning and eloquence. Her empire extended
from the Indus to the Danube and from the Oxus to the Nile,
embracing twenty satrapies each one of whose governors was
well-nigh a king. Alexander the Great, too, at the head of
his invincible army, swept over vast areas of Asia, capturing
cities, unseating rulers, and bringing well-nigh all the civilized
world under his dominion. And was not Rome also an Asiatic
power, for it stretched not only from the firths of Scotland
on the north to the deserts of Africa on the south, but
from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to the River Euphrates on
the east.

Altogether it is a majestic but awful procession, overwhelming
us by its grandeur and yet no less by its horror. It is
a kaleidoscope on a colossal scale, whose pieces appear like
fragments of a broken universe. Empires rise and fall.
Thrones are erected and overturned. The mightiest creations
of man vanish. Yea, they have all waxed ``old as doth a garment,''
and ``as a vesture'' are they ``changed.''

But were these ancient nations the last of Asia? Has that
mighty continent nothing more to contribute to the world than
the memories of a mighty past? It is impossible to believe
that this is all. The historic review gives a momentum which
the mind cannot easily overcome. As we look towards the Far
East, we can plainly see that the evolution is incomplete.
Whatever purpose the Creator had in mind has certainly not yet been
accomplished. More than two-thirds of those innumerable
myriads have as yet never heard of those high ideals of life and
destiny which God Himself revealed to men. It is incredible
that a wise God should have made such a large part of the
world only to arrest its development at its present unfinished
stage, inconceivable that He should have made and preserved
so large a part of the human race for no other and higher purpose
than has yet been achieved.

Within this generation, a new Asiatic power has suddenly
appeared in a part of Asia far removed from the region in which
the wise men of old lived and studied, and the might of
that nation is even now checking the progress of huge and
haughty Russia. But brilliant as has been the meteoric career
of Japan, there is another race in Asia, which, though now
moving more sluggishly, has possibilities of development that
may in time make it a dominant factor in the future of the
world. Great forces are now operating on that race and it is
the purpose of this book to give some account of those forces
and to indicate the stupendous transformation which they are
slowly but surely producing.

The magnitude of China is almost overwhelming. In spite
of all that I had read, I was amazed by what I saw. To say
that the Empire has an area of 4,218,401 square miles is almost
like saying that it is 255,000,000,000 miles to the North Star;
the statement conveys no intelligible idea. The mind is only
confused by such enormous figures. But it may help us to remember
that China is one-third larger than all Europe, and that if the
United States and Alaska could be laid upon China there
would be room left for several Great Britains. Extending from
the fifty-fourth parallel of latitude southward to the eighteenth,
the Empire has every variety of climate from arctic cold to
tropic heat. It is a land of vast forests, of fertile soil, of rich
minerals, of navigable rivers. The very fact that it has so long
sustained such a vast population suggests the richness of its
resources. There are said to be 600,000,000 acres of arable soil,
and so thriftily is it cultivated that many parts of the Empire
are almost continuous gardens and fields. Four hundred and
nineteen thousand square miles are believed to be underlaid
with coal. Baron von Richthofen thinks that 600,000,000,000
tons of it are anthracite, and that the single Province of Shen-si
could supply the entire world for a thousand years. When we
add to this supply of coal the apparently inexhaustible deposits
of iron ore, we have the two products on which material greatness
largely depends.

The population proves to be even greater than was supposed,
for while 400,000,000 was formerly believed to be a maximum
estimate, the general census recently taken by the Chinese
Government for the purpose of assessing the war tax places the
population of the Empire at 426,000,000. This, however,
includes 8,500,000 in Manchuria, 2,580,000 in Mongolia,
6,430,020 in Tibet and 1,200,000 in Chinese Turkestan.
Some of these regions are only nominally Chinese. Those on
the western frontier were until comparatively recent years
almost as unknown as the poles. Sven Hedin's description of
those that he traversed is wonderfully fascinating. Only a
daring spirit, the explorer of the type that is born, not made,
could have pierced those vast solitudes and wrested from them
the secret of their existence. That Hedin had no money for
such a costly quest could not deter this Viking of the Northland.
Kings headed the subscription and others so eagerly followed
that ample funds were soon in hand. Princes helped with
equipment and counsel. The Czar made all Russian railways
free highways, and every local official and nomad chieftain
exerted himself to aid the expedition. Hedin does not claim
to give anything more than an ordered diary of his travels,
together with a description of the lands he explored and the
peoples he found. But what a diary it is! It takes the reader
away from the whirl of crowded cities and clanging trolley-cars
into the boundless, wind-swept desert and the solitude of
majestic mountains where the lonely traveller wanders with his
camels through untrodden wildernesses or floats down the
interminable stretches of unknown rivers, while night after
night he sleeps in his tiny tent or under the open sky. The
author failed to reach the long-sought Lassa, the suspicious
Dalai Lama refusing to be deceived or cajoled and sternly sending
the inquisitive traveller out of the country. But the expedition
of three years and three days was rich in other disclosures of
ruined cities and great watercourses and lofty plateaus and
majestic mountain ranges. The population is sparse in those
desolate wastes, and the scattered inhabitants are wild and
uncouth and free.

Manchuria, however, is far from being the barren country
that so many imagine it to be. It is, in many respects, like
Canada, a region embracing about 370,000 square miles and of
almost boundless agricultural and mineral wealth. The
population, save in the southern parts, is not yet dense but it is
rapidly increasing.

But in central and eastern China, the conditions are very
different. Here the population can only be indicated by a
figure so large that it is almost impossible for us to comprehend
it. Consider that the eighteen provinces alone, with an
area about equal to that part of the United States east of the
Mississippi River, have eight times the population of that
part of our country.


``There are twice as many people in China as on the four continents--
Africa, North and South America and Oceanica. Every third person
who toils under the sun and sleeps under God's stars is a Chinese.
Every third child born into the world looks into the face of a Chinese
mother. Every third pair given in marriage plight their troth in a
Chinese cup of wine. Every third orphan weeping through the day
every third widow wailing through the night are in China. Put them in
rank, joining hands, and they will girdle the globe ten times at the
equator with living, beating human hearts. Constitute them pilgrims and let
two thousand go past every day and night under the sunlight and
under the solemn stars, and you must hear the ceaseless tramp, tramp, of
the weary, pressing, throbbing throng for five hundred years.''[2]


[2] The Rev. J. T. Gracey, D. D., ``China in Outline,'' p. 10.



There is something amazing in the immensity of the population.
Great cities are surprisingly numerous. In America, a
city of nearly a million inhabitants is a wonderful place and all
the world is supposed to know about it. But while Canton and
Tien-tsin are tolerably familiar names, how many in the United
States ever heard of Hsiang-tan-hsien ? Yet Hsiang-tan-
hsien is said to have 1,000,000 inhabitants, while within comparatively
short distances are other great cities and innumerable
villages. In the Swatow region, within a territory a
hundred and fifty miles long and fifty miles wide, there are no
less than ten walled cities of from 40,000 to 250,000 inhabitants,
besides hundreds of towns and villages ranging from a few
hundred to 25,000 or 30,000 people. Men never tire of writing
about the population adjacent to New York, Boston and
Chicago. But in five weeks' constant journeying through the
interior of the Shantung Province, there was hardly an hour in
which multitudes were not in sight. There are no scattered
farmhouses as in America, but the people live in villages and
towns, the latter strongly walled and even the former often have
a mud wall. As the country is comparatively level, it was easy
to count them, and as a rule there were a dozen or more in
plain view. I recall a memorable morning. It was Friday,
June 28, 1901. We had risen early, and by daylight we had
breakfasted, and started our carts and litters. In our enjoyment
of the cool, delicious morning air, we walked for several
li. Just before the sun rose, we crossed a low ridge and from
its crest, I counted no less than thirty villages in front of us,
while behind there were about as many more, the average
population being apparently about 500 each. For days at a time,
my road lay through the narrow, crowded street of what seemed
to be an almost continuous village, the intervening farms being
often hardly more than a mile in width.

Imagine half the population of the United States packed into
the single state of Missouri and an idea of the situation will be
obtained, for with an area almost equal to that of Missouri,
Shantung has no less than 38,247,900 inhabitants. It is the
most densely populated part of China. But the Province of
Shan-si is as thickly settled as Hungary. Fukien and Hupeh
have about as many inhabitants to the square mile as England.
Chih-li is as populous as France and Yun-nan as Bulgaria.

The density of China's population may be better realized by
a glance at the following detailed comparison between the
population of Chinese provinces and the population of similar
areas in the United States:

{FIX THIS TABLE}
Area
Provinces Square miles Population
Hupeh, 71,410 35,280,685
Ohio and Indiana 76,670 5,864,720
Honan, 67,940 35,316,800
Cheh-kiang, 36,670 1
Kentucky, 40,000 1,858,635
Kiang-si, 6819,47580 26 532,125
Virginia and West Virginia, 64}776oo 7,fi50S282
Michigan and Wisconsin, 111,880 22,876 340
Georgia, 50,g80 1,837 353
Shantung, 62 ooo 4 7øø 945
Shan-si, 81 830 12 200 456
Illinois, S6,ooo 3,826,8S l
Shen-si, 776 8240 1 058,910
Ran-su, Icc.q80 10~385~376
California, 155,9 1,208,130
Sze-chuen, 218,480 68 724,890
Ohio, Ind., Ill., Ky., 173s430 11 350,219
Ngan-hwei, 54,810 23,670,314
New York, 47,600 5,997,853
Klang-su, 38,600 13,980,235
Pennsylvania, 44,985 5,258,014
Kwan-tung and Hainan, gg,g70 31,865,251
Kansas, 81,700 I,427,o96
Kwang-si, 77,200 5,142,330
Minnesota, 79,205 x ,301,826
Hunan, 83,380 22,169,673
Louisiana, 45,ooo Iw1


Perhaps the most thoroughly typical city in China is Canton.
The approach by way of the West River from Hongkong
gives the traveller a view of some of the finest scenery in China.
The green rice-fields, the villages nestling beneath the groves,
the stately palm-trees, the quaint pagodas, the broad, smooth
reaches of the river reflecting the glories of sunset and moon-
rises and the noble hills in the background combine to form a
scene worth journeying far to see.

But Canton itself is unique among the world's great cities,
and the most sated traveller cannot fail to find much that will
interest him. After much journeying in China, we thought we
had seen its typical places, but no one has seen China until he
has visited Canton. With an estimated population of 1,800,000,
it is the metropolis of the Empire. The number of people
per acre may be less than in some parts of the East Side in New
York, for the houses are only one story in height. But the
crowding is amazing. The streets are mere alleys from four to
eight feet wide, lined with open-front shops, so filled overhead
with perpendicular signs and cross coverings of bamboo poles
and mattings that they are in as perpetual shade as an African
forest, and so choked with people that men often had to back
into a shop to let our chairs pass. No wheeled vehicle can
enter those corkscrew streets and we saw no animal of any kind
save two cows that were being led to slaughter.

And the hubbub! Such shouting and yelling cannot be
heard anywhere else in the world. Our chair coolies were in a
constant state of objurgation in clearing a way. Everybody
seemed to be bellowing to everybody else and when two chairs
met, the din shattered the atmosphere. A foreigner excites a
surprising amount of curiosity, considering the number that
visit Canton. Troops of boys followed us and there was a good
deal of what sounded like cat-calling. But it was all good-
natured, or appeared to be.

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.