AN ASIATIC WAR.
IF happily war has not yet broken out between China and Japan, yet that event is quite near enough to make it not out of place to consider what would be the results of the conflict, provided that the European Powers make a ring and allow the combatants to fight it out. It is long since the world has had any experience of an Asiatic war,—i.e., a war not between a European and an Asiatic Power, but between two Asiatic States. Circumstances have made it very difficult for the nations of the East to come to blows. For nearly seventy years, the Pas Britannica has forbidden war in India and on its borders, and has deprived the native Princes of the right to appeal to the sword. The other Asiatic Powers have had little or no opportunity to fight with each other, for circum- stances have made them " march " rather with European Powers than with each other. Persia and Turkey, it is true, join frontiers, but the fear of the Russians has in their case acted as a, strong deterrent against war. China, on the other hand, is either bordered by Russian or Eng- lish territory, or else by petty States which admit the claims of Suzerainty urged by the Government of Pekin. With the best intentions, then, the Asiatic Powers have hitherto found it difficult to get at each others' throats. The development of Japan under European influences has, however, introduced a new element into the poli- tics of the Far East. A generation ago, the Japanese were in effect "prisoners to their isles." Now, how- ever, that they have made themselves a Navy as well as an Army, and understand the art of using a fleet of merchant-steamers as transports, their political isolation has become a thing of the past. The Japanese Fleet has made them the neighbours of Cores and of China, and has once more given an opportunity for a real Asiatic war.
If the war between China and Japan once gets fairly established, Europe will, unless we are mistaken, be not a little surprised. She will witness a spectacle to which she has not hitherto been accustomed. An Asiatic war is something very different from a European war. In the first place, it is not a war with limited liability. The normal European war means a war lasting at the most two or three years, and ending with a treaty which in essentials leaves the combatants pretty much as they were. One of them may lose a province, or have to pay a large indemnity ; but there is no blotting out of kingdoms on • the map, no national destruction, no leading of countries captive. An Asiatic war, on the other hand, is essentially a war in which there is no limit to the liability of the combatants. The avowed intention of those who wage it is to eat each other up. Asiatics, if they fight, fight not for the balance of power, or for predominance in the counsels of the world, or for this or that veiled form of dominion, but for conquest, and nothing else. The object is to conquer your enemy, lay waste his territory, and make slaves of its inhabitants. There is no sparing the Vallquished , no thought of not pushing an advantage too far, no dread of the public opinion of the civilised world. The Asiatic is logical, and he does not see the fun of fighting in order to get a good ?basis for Protocols and definitive treaties. Just as he drinks for " drunky," he fights to destroy. If, then, Japan and China once get thoroughly engaged and are left alone, they are not unlikely to fight till Mr. Stan- ford has to " roll up the map of Asia " and publish a new and recoloured edition. There will be no quarter given, either politically or physically, and the winner will con- sider the vanquished entirely at his disposal. "But," it may be said, " this is all very well in theory, but in the present case the physical conditions forbid any such result. If Japan wins, she will not be able to do more, at the very most, than conquer Corea. The idea of a country with only forty millions of people conquering one with four hundred millions is absurd. If, on the other hand, Japan fails and is beaten in Corea she will be in no danger of destruction, for China has not the money, the energy, or the power of organisation which would enable her to conquer and swallow up Japan." Such arguments are certainly plausible, but we doubt their soundness. Take, first, the case of a, Japanese success. If Japan beats China in Corea, after the Imperial Government has, as it assuredly will have to do, put out all its strength, the road will lie or en to Pekin. Are the Japanese, unless forbidden by Russia or England, likely to resist the temptation of taking the city and paying for the war out of the plunder ? Most assuredly they are not. But if the Japanese took Pekin it is a hundred chances to one that the Manchu dynasty would collapse before a rebellion such as that which was crushed with such difficulty thirty years ago. The true Chinese hate the Tartars, and the Secret Societies, which keep alive, in the most active form, the desire to expel the Manchus and restore the authentic rulers of the Empire, would be certain to move in case of such a disaster as we have fore- shadowed. The result would be that the Chinese Empire would blow up, as powder-magazines so often blow up, at the end of a day of defeat. Japan would not, of course, be able to absorb China, but she might lop away a province. The outlying dependencies again would drop off by themselves, and China proper would, for a time at any rate, fall into anarchy. The victory of Japan in Corea, after a well-contested fight might, in fact, mean that China, as we know it now, would be transformed.
The result of a Chinese victory would be much more momentous. If China wins in Corea, she will win largely through the use of her Fleet. Such a victory might easily suggest to her the possibility of conquering Japan. It is true that China has not more than one General capable of attempting such an undertaking, and he is more than seventy years of age. But suppose a year or two's hard fighting in Corea produced a Tartar General of ability and a Tartar Army of one hundred thousand troops of good quality, there is nothing fantastic in supposing that such a General might insist on crossing the one hundred and forty miles that separate Corea from, Nagasaki. And when once in Japan, our hypothetical General might gradually conquer the whole country. Such a feat might be impossible in Europe because of the national opposition, but in Asia such national feeling hardly exists. The Japanese could not be got to fight against the Chinese as the Spaniards fought against the French. The ideal of nationality is not an Asiatic product. Men there, as in the rest of the world, will fight to save their hearths and homes, but a national uprising cannot be counted on to defeat the plans of the great conquerors. A Chinese conquest of Japan would then be in no sort of way an impossible outcome of the situation. But though we believe that a war between China and Japan, if left to burn itself out, might change the face of Asia, we do not think that such a result will actually take place. The Powers may not be able to agree as to what to do in Corea—we certainly cannot force the Chinese, who are our best friends in Asia, to give up their claims on the Peninsula—but they might easily come to an under- standing to prevent the war spreading beyond. They might, that is, insist upon the European principle of limited liability. Fortunately their command of the sea would make intervention comparatively easy, and need not involve the landing of any joint force. That is, if Japan wins in Corea, they could forbid Japan to march into China; and if China wins, they could forbid any attempt at invading Japan. The time for thus limiting the result of the war has, however, not yet arrived, even if the war has really broken out. Till it does, the Powers can only do their best by pacific action to stop hostilities at the eleventh hour. If these endeavours have already proved vain, and if the forces of the two countries are already engaged, there is nothing for it but to form a temporary ring round the combatants, and agree that the flames shall not be allowed to spread outside Corea. Of course it would be more logical to stop the war altogether, but in politics you must do what you can, and not what you would.
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