Foreign Troops and China’s Awakening
According to reports, Pekin, China, is practically held by foreign troops, and it is not at all pleasing to the Chinese Government. For instance, there are belonging to the governments of Japan, England, France, Russia, Germany, United States, Italy, Austria, Belgium, and Holland, 303 officers and 5,698 men stationed in Pekin. This has been the case since the boxer rebellion in 1900. One of the great questions is how China can cast off this incubus of disciplined foreigners who hold her by the throat. A Japanese paper published in China intimates that no one knows how soon a revolution may break out. It declares: “The winter of the reaction seems to be nearing an end, but the summer of reform is not yet at hand. To-day we are enjoying peace, and yet no one knows what may happen to-morrow;” so great is the apprehension of the foreign population in China whose memory of the terrible massacre of 1900 is still fresh in their minds; but China is awakening. There probably will be no more Boxer revolutions, but the revolution going on will sweep in the whole of the Celestial Empire, and China will take command of her own.