Some Facts About China To-Day

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1908

Some Facts About China To-Day

CHANGES are coming so thick and fast in China that it is impossible even to note them all. No other nation on the earth is witnessing so many real innovations, affecting the welfare of her people, as is China. Dr. Arthur H. Smith says that we are confronted with the indisputable fact that parts of the Orient are undergoing greater changes, and are making more progress, than any other part of the world. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, another veteran student of the East, regards China as the theater of the greatest movement now taking place on the face of the globe. He says that “the Chinese are united in a firm resolve to break with the past, and to seek new life by adopting the essentials of Western civilization.” Old conservative China is indeed changing to new progressive China.

Railroads

Railroads are becoming a real factor in the great empire’s progress. The Canton-Hankow-Peking Railroad, which is to cut through the very center of the empire, is slowly but surely being built. Last month the new line was opened from Shanghai to Chin Kiang. For the first time in history, newspapers published

in Shanghai were read in Chin Kiang on the same day. Only forty-four miles remain to be completed before the road reached Nanking, the southern capital. This was to be accomplished this month. In the north the railroad has already climbed up to the Great Wall. When this Peking-Siberian line is completed, the trip from Peking to Paris can be made in twelve days or even less. China, the oldest and the youngest of the nations, is becoming more like the other nations of the world.

Post-office service and the telegraph have now been extended from Peking to Tibet, and the most distant provinces are being brought into touch with the capital and with one another.

New Finance

Plans for financial reforms are being made in Peking. Some things proposed are:—

Reorganization of the currency.
The accumulation of gold, to prepare for a gold standard.
The issue of government bank notes.
New coinage of China’s own taels, to prevent the coming of so many foreign dollars.
Sending of officials to study Japan’s financial system.
The appointment of Chinese financial experts in place of foreigners.

Reforms of the finances of the country will lead to the development of business and manufacturing enterprises. A memorial, from the governors of four provinces, has recently been sanctioned by imperial rescript. This calls for the establishment of new iron works at Wuchang, to supply railroad materials needed in the four provinces. China is soon to open her own mines, use her own coal and iron, and build her own railroads.

New Education

Perhaps nothing is having so great an effect on China to-day as the new education. Not only are there new schools for boys and young men all over the empire, but the education of women is coming to the front. Girls’ schools are being opened in the large cities, and high officials are encouraging this education of girls. The Chinese government has lately sent ten young men and six girls to study in America, and the girl students are expected to secure scholarships offered by Wellesley College. In the near future many more of China’s bright young students will be seeking an education in the Occident.

It is a great opportunity for Christian America to open her schools and colleges to some of these sons and daughters of the East. Honorable Wm. H. Taft said, in his recent speech at Shanghai, “It is pleasant to know that the education of the Chinese in America has had much to do with the present steps toward reform in China.” Numbers of the well-educated young Chinese of the United States and Hawaii are even now returning to their fatherland to act as teachers and leaders in China.

Western methods of teaching, and new educational books, printed by the hundreds of thousands, are being used everywhere in China. The people are becoming enlightened, and in many cases are giving up their superstitions. Temples are turned into schools. Idols are destroyed. At one new school, the teacher allowed the schoolboys to break up the idols in an adjoining temple.

The effect of the new ideas on the girls and women is remarkable. They are taking an interest in the affairs of their country. Old customs are giving way. At one place, far in the interior, where it was not thought proper for girls to go on the street to school, a number of the young lady students adopted the student dress of the boys, having the name “woman” embroidered on their coat collars. Many of the mothers of New China are giving better names to their little girls. In place of names indicating dislike, or the wish for male offspring, now many are beginning to see that the girls are just as good as the boys, so they name them “Little Love,” “Little Peace,” “Little Joy,” “Darling,” “Little Precious,” and other such names, indicating a tender feeling toward them.

The Gospel Opportunity

To-day China presents the grandest opportunity for gospel preaching the world has ever known. In all the provinces the doors are standing wide open. For many years the missionary has been asking the Chinese to come and hear. To-day the Chinese are asking the missionary to come and speak. Now is the time to go forward. In every Christian land the church of Christ should put forth special effort to bring the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Chinese to-day. Christians have been long praying for the opening of the great empire to the preaching of the gospel. China is open to-day as never before. The work now done will bring forth fruit a hundredfold in the near future.

Good News From the Famine District

After China’s terrible famine of last year, it is good to learn that conditions are much improved. Never have they had a better autumn crop than that recently gathered. The great flood has brought new soil and enriched the land, as in Egypt after the overflow of the Nile. The Christians, who have so generously sent bread for the starving, have now a rich opportunity of bringing the gospel truth, the “bread of life,” to many of these people who will gladly receive it. O, that the church might be fully awake, and alive to all these marvelous doors of opportunity to be seen at present in China!

China to-day is not the China of yesterday. And the China of to-morrow depends much upon the faithful and earnest efforts of the church at home, to send out many more messengers, to bear the glad tidings to those now ready and waiting in this mighty empire of the Orient.—Rev. E. W. Thwing, in the Missionary Review of the World for May, 1908.