A Dark Cloud in the East
By L. A. S.
FOR some months the press has had much to say about the Chinese boycott against American goods, with the accompanying Chinese sentiment against foreigners of all nationalities, but especially citizens of the United States. The boycott has not been removed, and the anti-American sentiment has not lessened. On the contrary, the situation has grown steadily worse, until it is now said that Americans in China are in greater danger than were those who faced the Boxer uprising. An official of the State Department is quoted as saying that not for a long time has the United States had any complication in its foreign affairs worthy of being compared with the present one in China, and that the United States must soon decide either to let go its trade in the vast Oriental market or to insist upon trade relations by force of arms. This official believes that Japanese influence, and to some extent German and British influence, is being exerted against American interests in China. “The time is fast coming,” he is quoted as saying, “when to make good the position the government’s representatives have assumed, the ‘big financial stick’ or something like it will have to go into action.” That this official is not alone in holding such views is evidenced by the fact that men and munitions of war are being rushed to the Philippines very rapidly. The Washington Post states that large quantities of winter clothing are being hurriedly made up at Omaha and San Francisco, evidently not intended to be worn by the troops in the tropical Philippines. A prominent Chinese merchant in this country, a former secretary of the “Six Companies” in San Francisco, is quoted as saying that the anti-foreign troubles in China are about to culminate in the greatest massacre of modern times. To American friends in several cities he is reported to have sent warnings, directing them to cable their friends in China to leave that country before February 24, as he had received word that “the order had been sent out to the subordinate circles of the Chinese Reform Association to throw off all the foreign elements in our country, starting February 25.” Armed intervention in China will not again be the comparatively easy matter that it has been in the past. On this point the Post says:— Officials are one in saying that it would be much more difficult to subdue an anti-foreign uprising in China now than it was to suppress the Boxer insurrection of 1900. During the maneuvers of the Chinese troops recently, visiting officers were astounded at the progress China had made in the science of modern warfare. “They have quit carrying parasols in the Chinese army now,” said a prominent official yesterday, “and have learned how to carry a rifle, and to carry it pretty well, too.” In addition to the fact that the army is better drilled than in 1900, another important consideration is that it has been increased until there are now two hundred and fifty thousand men in the field. Thus there is a possibility, if not a probability, that the United States may soon, for the first time in its history, be drawn into a dubious conflict upon the shores of the Old World. There is a possibility that this nation may find itself under the necessity of defending its Asiatic possessions against one of the great powers; for who can say how far the sentiment, “Asia for the Asiatics,” may have influenced the purposes of Japan. It is almost a certainty that Japan and China are to stand together in maintenance of an Asiatic “Monroe doctrine.” Should the latter contingency arise, the position of the United States would be by no means an enviable one, and the recently adopted colonial policy of this country would bear most undesirable fruit. L. A. S.