The New East | AdventAI

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jun 16, 1904

“The New East”

UNDER this title The Outlook (New York) prints an editorial which is suggestive of new elements which are entering into the far Eastern question. It will certainly stimulate serious thinking on the part of those who are considering these nations and their immediate future from the prophetic standpoint. We copy the following paragraphs:—

Without being able to define the changes which it will bring to the modern world, it is quite evident that the impression prevails throughout Europe that the war between Japan and Russia is almost certain to be epoch-making in its results. A significant change has already come over the discussion of the far Eastern situation by the English and Continental press. For many decades Europe has thought of the East as a territory to be opened up and exploited by the West. It has been taken for granted that the wish and power of the East might be left out of the account; they were not factors that needed to be dealt with. The only factors in the situation to be considered by statesmen and diplomatists were the feelings and attitude of the great powers toward one another in the acquisition either of influence or of territory. It has apparently not occurred to the directors of the great forces of Europe for many decades past that India, China, Japan, Persia, Afghanistan, or Burma had any rights which a Western nation was bound to respect. Certain duties almost every Western nation recognized. The English have felt the necessity of giving India and Egypt capable, effective, and honest administration, not because Egypt or India had a right to such government, but because the English conscience demanded it.

Wherever Russia has gone in the East, she has given precisely the kind of government which she thought best adapted for the people. Being herself semi-Oriental, she has been a kind of middle term between the East and the West, mediating in a certain sense between two radically different temperaments, and using either Eastern or Western methods as best suited her purposes; but it is doubtful whether it has ever occurred to any Russian statesman that China, Japan, or Afghanistan had any rights which Russia was bound to respect. Even at this moment, when a new idea in regard to the future condition of things in the East has begun to define itself in the minds of the Western world, newspaper discussion in England and on the Continent still concerns itself with the question of the readjustment of relations between the great powers; the prime problem being, apparently, not what will the East do or think or be, but how will Russia, Germany, and England stand related to one another in the inevitable changes which are already taking place.

It is too early, and it would be extremely hazardous, to venture any prediction as to the final results of the war; but if, as seems probable, Japan is to emerge from the struggle with greatly added prestige, is to keep Korea from falling into the hands of Russia, and to preserve in consequence the integrity of China, it is quite clear that new forces have entered in the field of world-politics, and that new powers must be reckoned with. Pitt is reported to have said, when the return of Napoleon from Elba was reported to him, “You may roll up the map of Europe;” it is quite certain that the present map of the East will, in the coming few years, receive very important modifications. The great powers will no longer be able to deal with the East as a passive body; they must reckon with it as they reckon with one another. This does not mean that China is to be at once an aggressive power, that India is to expel the English, that Tonquin is to rid itself of the French; but it does mean that the East is fast coming to a consciousness of a certain unity of interest between the different great sections of the Orient, and to a dim perception of its power, if that power can be trained and organized. In Japan, the protagonist in the present act of the great drama, the East has found an executive nation; the one people, so far, in the Orient who are able not only to think, but to act—not only to feel, but to do. Japan is to-day one of the most thoroughly and highly organized countries in the world; it is doubtful whether there is in any other country such unanimity of opinion, such passionate devotion to the ruler, such eagerness to die for the sake of the country. Every particle of power, every kind of resource which Japan contains, is at the hand of the government, ready for use in a struggle which the Japanese believe to be a life-and-death fight for their independence. Out of this war Japan is likely to emerge as a power of at least the second order, sufficiently strong to command respect and to compel considerate dealing on the part of other powers. That under her leadership China may be re-organized, and become a new force in the world, is highly probable.