Nevertheless, the Circular may not mean peace. As we have
repeatedly pointed out, the capture of Pekin is not the conquest of China, and the Empress and her advisers may think it safest, as well as least humiliating, to resist. This appears to be the decision of Prince Ching, who tells the Ambassadors that the international troops should leave Pekin, since while they are there the negotiations are "unfairly weighted." Li Hung Chang has always said that the originators of the outrage could not be punished, and, it is believed, repeated the statement just before he left Shanghai. If this is the general idea of the ruling officials, the war must go on till Chinese arrogance is broken, and some means of coercing the Court must be discovered. Count von Waldersee, who has reached China, though not Pekin, will probably sug- gest some plan, and we are by no means sure that the Courts shrink from an expedition to Segan as completely as the public does. Already a "punitive force" has been sent from Pekin to Pao-ting-fu, and that is a hundred and twenty miles along the Segan road. We shall see, however. The Chinese know how to recede from a blank refusal, and there are forces in China which are not friendly to the Empress.
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