THE CHINESE SITUATION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 26, 1900

THE CHINESE SITUATION.

New York Times, June 15, 1900.

There is a curious analogy between the situation now existing at Peking and that which for twenty years has existed at Constantinople. The Turkish situation is chronic, and at intervals becomes acute. It is not to the interest of civilization that the Chinese situation should become chronic. But, curiously enough, here is the same power offering to put an end to the Chinese entanglement which has been all these years offering to put an end to the Turkish entanglement; but now, as before, “for a consideration.”

Russia is the power. She will suppress Armenian massacres. She will equally suppress the interference of the Boxers with foreigners. The consideration in the former case was the possession of Constantinople, which has been the prime object of Russia in Europe since Russia began to be. The European concert has always answered No. The price was too high. What the price is now in China is not known; but it is whatever Russia wants, and Russia’s requirements are large. Happily or unhappily, we are now, and in China, members of the European concert, and it behoves us to have an opinion on the pretensions and promises of Russia. The State Department is trying to postpone the evil day when we must take sides, by pretending that we are acting in China “independently.” This is of course practically nonsense, and the State Department knows it. But it saves time.

There is a suspicion that Russia’s concession to us was coupled with conditions which will enable her to nullify it when it may be to her advantage to do so. In other words, as has lately been suggested, the Russian “open door” is a door with a string to it, whereby it may be closed. There is another suspicion that Russia has created the present situation in China, or fostered it, for her own purposes—her purpose being to create the same situation as that of Constantinople. Neither suspicion will be incredible to a world which will believe anything of the Machiavellian character of Russian diplomacy. The lesson for us is that when we are forced, as we shall shortly be forced, to choose, we should choose Great Britain and Japan, which have the same objects in China that we have, against Russia, which has an object very different from, and indeed incompatible with, ours. And if it is necessary to call in a considerable force of troops of one nation to keep the peace in China, it is to our interest that those troops shall be the troops of Japan rather than of Russia.