China Waking Up

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · Jun 14, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 24.

A RECENT issue of the New York Weekly Witness contained an article under the above heading, based upon the projected sending of 6,000 Chinese students to France to study western methods and western ideas in the schools and colleges of France. When Japan began to wake up, she looked to Germany for the inspiration which was to guide her in her aspirations toward national greatness. China has turned to America and now to France. She is truly waking up; and in the waking-up process of these two oriental nations we have transferred to eastern Asia the military proclivities and military methods of Germany and France. With the inspiration of Germany behind Japan and the inspiration of France behind China, is it too much to expect that we shall see developments in the East similar to those which we have seen in the West? The Witness says:—

The sleeping giant of the East has been waking up gradually for a good many years, but his bulk is so vast, and his sleep so sound that the waking up process has been very slow. It will undoubtedly be more rapid after this, and when China does get fully waked up, and into line with the progress of Christian civilisation, we shall have a new world, because this nation, which constitutes almost one-quarter of the human race, will inevitably become the most important of all nations, from a commercial point of view at least. There is no race that can produce more, or more skilfully than the Chinese can when they are in a position to compete on equal terms.

And thus are the “kings of the East” preparing to play their part in the final argument of arms on the field of Armageddon. It is true, as the Witness says, that to these students indoctrinated with western ideas and ideals “the mass of the Chinese people will turn for the leadership which will bring China to a point where it can throw off the shackles of political slavery. A China conscious of its national greatness, self-reliant and self-sufficient, need no longer fear either aggression from her Asiatic neighbours or the menace of European imperialism.” And it will be her sudden rise to that conviction that will prompt her to accept the challenge of the aggressor. When that vast mass moves into the world’s arena, we shall see the clash which ends at Armageddon.