Our Oriental Heritage

by Will Durant

  It was on the basis of this education that China established—first tentatively under the Han, then definitely under the T’ang, dynasties—its system of examinations for public office. It is an evil for the people, said China, that its rulers should learn to rule by ruling; as far as possible they should learn to rule before ruling. It is an evil for the people that they should have no access to office, and that government should be the privilege of an hereditary few; but it is good for the people that office should be confined to those who have been prepared for it by ability and training. To offer to all men democratically an equal opportunity for such training, and to restrict office aristocratically to those who proved themselves best, was the solution that China proposed for the ancient and insoluble problem of government.

  Therefore it periodically arranged, in each district, a public examination to which all males of any age were eligible. It tested the applicant in his memory and understanding of the writings of Confucius, in his knowledge of Chinese poetry and history, and in his capacity to write intelligently on the issues of moral and political life. Those who failed might study more and try again; those who succeeded received the degree of Hsiu ts’ai entitling them to membership in the literary class, and to possible appointment to minor local offices; but more important than this, they became eligible—either at once or after further preparation—for the triennial provincial examinations, which offered similar but harder tests. Those who failed here might try again, and many did, so that some men passed these tests after eighty years of living and studying, and not a few died in the midst of the examinations. Those who succeeded were eligible for appointment to minor positions in the national service; and at the same time they were admitted to a final and especially severe examination at Peking. There in the Examination Hall were ten thousand cells, in which the contestants, cribbed and confined, lived with their own food and bedding for three separate days, while they wrote essays or theses on subjects announced to them after their imprisonment. The cells were unheated, uncomfortable, ill-lighted and unsanitary; only the spirit mattered! Typical tests were the composition of a poem on the theme: “The sound of the oars, and the green of the hills and water”; and the writing of an essay on this passage from the Confucian Classics: “Tsang Tsze said, ‘To possess ability, and yet ask of those who do not; to know much, and yet inquire of those who know little; to possess, and yet appear not to possess; to be full, and yet appear empty.’” There was not a word in any of the tests about science, business or industry; the object was to reveal not knowledge but judgment and character. Those who survived the tests were at last eligible for the higher offices in the state.

  The defects of the plan grew in the course of time. Though dishonesty in taking or judging the tests was sometimes punished with death, dishonesty found a way. The purchase of appointments became frequent and flagrant in the nineteenth century;138 an inferior officer, for example, sold twenty thousand forged diplomas before he was exposed.139 The form of the trial essay came to be a matter of custom, and students prepared themselves for it mechanically. The curriculum of studies tended to formalize culture and impede the progress of thought, for the ideas that circulated in it had been standardized for hundreds of years. The graduates became an official and intellectual bureaucracy, naturally arrogant and humanly selfish, occasionally despotic and often corrupt, and yet immune to public recall or control except through the desperate resort of the boycott or the strike. In short, the system had the faults that might be expected of any governmental structure conceived and operated by men. The faults of the system belonged to the men, not to the system; and no other had less.*

  The merits of the system were abundant. Here were no manipulated nominations, no vulgar campaigns of misrepresentation and hypocrisy, no sham battles of twin parties, no noisy or corrupt elections, no ascent to office through a meretricious popularity. It was a democracy in the best sense of the term, as equality of opportunity for all in the competition for leadership and place; and it was an aristocracy in its finest form, as a government by the ablest men, democratically selected from every rank in every generation. By this system the national mind and ambition were turned in the direction of study, and the national heroes and models were men of culture rather than masters of wealth.* It was admirable that a society should make the experiment of being ruled, socially and politically, by men trained in philosophy and the humanities. It was an act of high tragedy when that system, and the entire civilization of which it formed the guiding part, were struck down and destroyed by the inexorable forces of evolution and history.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Revolution and Renewal

  I. THE WHITE PERIL

  The conflict of Asia and Europe—The Portuguese—The Spanish—The Dutch—The English—The opium trade—The Opium Wars—The T’ai-p’ing Rebellion—The War with Japan—The attempt to dismember China—The “Open Door”—The Empress Dowager—The reforms of Kuang Hsu—His removal from power—The “Boxers”—The Indemnity

  THOSE forces took the form of the Industrial Revolution. A Europe vitalized and rejuvenated by the discovery of mechanical power and its application to ever-multiplying machinery, found itself capable of producing goods more cheaply than any nation or continent that still relied on handicrafts; it was unable to dispose of all these machine products to its own population, because it paid its workers somewhat less than the full value of their labor; it was forced to seek foreign markets for the surplus, and was driven, by imperialist necessity, to conquer the world. Under the compulsions of invention and circumstance the nineteenth century became a world-wide drama of conflict between the old, mature and fatigued civilizations of handicraft Asia, and the young, jejune, and invigorated civilizations of industrial Europe.

  The Commercial Revolution of Columbus’ time cleared the routes and prepared the way for the Industrial Revolution. Discoverers refound old lands, opened up new ports, and brought to the ancient cultures the novel products and ideas of the West. Early in the sixteenth century the adventurous Portuguese, having established themselves in India, captured Malacca, sailed around the Malay Peninsula, and arrived with their picturesque ships and terrible guns at Canton (1517). “Truculent and lawless, regarding all Eastern peoples as legitimate prey, they were little if any better than . . . pirates”;1 and the natives treated them as such. Their representatives were imprisoned, their demands for free trade were refused, and their settlements were periodically cleansed with massacres by the frightened and infuriated Chinese. But in return for their aid against other pirates, the Portuguese were rewarded in 1557 by receiving from Peking full liberty to settle in Macao, and to govern it as their own. There they built great opium factories, employing men, women and children; one factory alone paid to the Portuguese provincial government a revenue of $1,560,000 per year.2

  Then came the Spanish, conquering the Philippines (1571), and setting themselves up in the Chinese island of Formosa; then the Dutch; then, in 1637, five English vessels sailed up the river to Canton, silenced with superior guns the batteries that opposed them, and disposed of their cargo.3 The Portuguese taught the Chinese to smoke and buy tobacco, and, early in the eighteenth century, began the importation of opium from India into China. The Chinese Government forbade its use by the people, but the habit became so widespread that the annual consumption of the drug in China had raised its import to 4,000 chests by the year 1795.* The Government prohibited its importation in that year, and reiterated the prohibition in 1800, appealing to importers and population alike against the weakening of national vitality by this powerful opiate. The trade proceeded briskly despite these discouragements; the Chinese were as anxious to buy as the Europeans were eager to sell, and the local officials gratefully pocketed the bribes connected with the trade.

  In 1838 the Peking Government ordered the strict enforcement of the edict against the importation of opium, and a vigorous official, Lin Tzehsü, commanded the foreign importers at Canton to surrender such quantities as the
y held in their stores. When they refused he surrounded the foreign quarters, forced them to turn over to him 20,000 chests of the drug, and, in a kind of Canton Opium Party, destroyed the contents completely. The British withdrew to Hong Kong, and began the First “Opium War.” They protested that it was not an opium war; that their anger was rather at the insolent pride with which the Chinese Government had received—or refused to receive—their representatives, and at the impediments, in the form of severe taxation and corrupt courts, which Chinese law and custom had raised against an orderly import trade. They bombarded those cities of China which they could reach from the coast, and compelled peace by capturing control, at Chinkiang, of the Grand Canal. The Treaty of Nanking avoided all mention of opium, ceded the island of Hong Kong to the British, forced Chinese tariffs down to five per cent, opened five “treaty ports” (Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai) to foreign trade, levied upon China an indemnity to cover the cost of the war and the destroyed opium, and stipulated that British citizens in China, when accused of violating laws, should be tried and judged only by British courts.5 Other countries, including the United States and France, asked and obtained the application of these “extra-territorial rights” to their traders and nationals in China.

  This war was the beginning of the disintegration of the ancient regime. The Government had lost “face” in its dealings with Europeans; it had first scorned, then defied, then yielded; and no courtly phrases could conceal the facts from educated natives or gloating foreigners. At once the authority of the Government was weakened wherever the news of its defeat penetrated, and forces that might have held their peace broke out now in open rebellion against Peking. In 1843 an enthusiast named Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, after a brief acquaintance with Protestantism, and some visions, came to the conclusion that he had been chosen by God to rid China of idolatry and convert it to Christianity. Beginning with this modest purpose, Hung finally led a movement to overthrow the Manchus and establish a new dynasty—the T’ai P’ing, or Great Peace. His followers, actuated partly by religious fanaticism, partly by desire to reform China on Western lines, fought valiantly, smashed idols, slaughtered Chinese, destroyed many old libraries and academies and the porcelain works at Ching-te-chen, captured Nanking, held it for twelve years (1853-65), marched on Peking while their leader wallowed in luxury and safety behind them, broke into disorder because of incompetent generalship, were defeated, and fell back into the indiscriminate ocean of Chinese humanity.6

  In the midst of this dangerous T’ai-p’ing Rebellion the Government was called upon to defend itself against Europe in the Second “Opium War” (1856-60). Great Britain, supported in varying degrees by France and the United States, demanded the legalization of the opium traffic (which had continued, despite prohibitions, between the wars), access to more cities, and the honorable admission of Western envoys to the court at Peking. When the Chinese refused, the French and English captured Canton, sent its Viceroy in chains to India, took the forts at Tientsin, advanced upon the capital, and destroyed the Summer Palace in revenge for the torture and execution of Allied emissaries in Peking. The victors forced upon the defeated a treaty that opened ten new ports and the Yangtze River to foreign trade, arranged for the reception of European and American ministers and ambassadors on terms of equality with China, guaranteed toleration of missionaries and traders in every part of the country, removed missionaries from the jurisdiction of Chinese officials, further freed Western nationals from the operation of Chinese laws, ceded to Great Britain a strip of the mainland opposite Hong Kong, legalized the importation of opium, and charged China with an indemnity to pay for the cost of her tuition in Occidental ways.

  Encouraged by their easy victories, the European nations proceeded to help themselves to one piece of China after another. Russia took the territory north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri River (1860); the French revenged the death of a missionary by appropriating Indo-China (1885); Japan pounced upon her neighbor and civilizer in a sudden war (1894), defeated her in a year, took Formosa, liberated Korea from China for later (1910) absorption by Japan, and charged China an indemnity of $170,-000,000 for causing so much trouble7 On condition that China pay an additional indemnity to Japan, Russia prevented Japan from also taking the Liaotung Peninsula, which three years later Russia took over and fortified as her own. The murder of two missionaries by Chinese enabled Germany to seize the peninsula of Shantung (1898). The realm of the once powerful government was divided into “spheres of influence,” in which one or another European power secured special privileges for mining and trade. Alarmed by the prospects of an actual partition, Japan, foreseeing her own later need of China, joined with America in a demand for an “Open Door”: that is, that while certain “spheres of interest” might be recognized, all nations should be allowed to trade in China on equal terms—tariffs and transport charges to be the same for all. To put herself in a proper position for bargaining in these matters, the United States took over the Philippines (1898), and declared by this act her intention to share in the struggle for Chinese trade.

  Meanwhile another and simultaneous act of the drama was being played behind palace walls in Peking. When the Allies entered the capital in triumph at the close of the Second “Opium War” (1860), the young emperor, Hsien Feng, fled to Jehol; there, a year later, he died, leaving the throne to his five-year-old son. The secondary wife who had been the mother of this boy took the reins of empire in her own hands, and as Tz’u Hsi—known to the world as the “Dowager Empress”*—governed China ruthlessly, cynically and well for a generation. In her youth she had ruled by beauty; now she ruled by her wits and her will. When the son conveniently died on approaching his majority (1875), the Empress, careless of precedent and objection, placed another minor—Kuang Hsu—on the throne, and continued to rule. For a generation, with the help of clever statesmen like Li Hung-chang, the doughty Empress kept China at peace and won for it a certain respect from the predatory Powers. But the sudden invasion of China by Japan, and the rapid series of renewed spoliations by Europe after the triumph of the Japanese, caused a strong movement to rise in the capital in favor of imitating Japan’s imitation of the West—i.e., for organizing a large army, building railroads and factories, and striving to acquire the industrial wealth with which Japan and Europe had financed their victories. The Empress and her advisers opposed this tendency with all their influence, but it secretly won the adherence of Kuang Hsu, who had now been permitted to ascend the throne as emperor in his own right. Suddenly Kuang, without consulting “Old Buddha” (as her court called the Empress), issued to the Chinese people (1898) a series of astonishing decrees which, if they could have been accepted and enforced, would have advanced China vigorously and yet peaceably on the road to Westernization, and might have averted the fall of the dynasty and the collapse of the nation into chaos and misery. The young emperor ordered the establishment of a new system of schools, to teach not only the old Confucian Classics, but the scientific culture of the West; the translation into Chinese of all the important works of Occidental science, literature and technology; the encouragement of railroad building; and the reform of the army and the navy with a definite view to meeting the “crisis,” as he put it, “where we are beset on all sides by powerful neighbors who craftily seek advantage from us, and who are trying to combine together in overpowering us.”8 The Dowager Empress, shocked by what seemed to her the precipitate radicalism of these edicts, imprisoned Kuang Hsu in one of the imperial palaces, annulled his decrees, and made herself again the government of China.

  A reaction now set in against all Western ideas, and the subtle Dowager diverted it amiably to her purposes. An organization known as the I Ho Ch’uan—literally “Righteous Harmony Fists,” historically the “Boxers”—had been formed by some rebels who wished to overthrow the Empress and her dynasty. She persuaded its leaders to turn the fury of their movement against invading foreigners rather than against herself. The Boxers accepted the mission, called
for the expulsion of all aliens from China, and, in a frenzy of patriotic virtue, began to kill Christians indiscriminately in many sections of the country (1900). Allied soldiers again marched on Peking, this time to protect their nationals hiding in terror in the narrow quarters of the foreign Legations. The Empress and her court fled to Hsianfu, and the troops of England, France, Russia, Germany, Japan and the United States sacked the city, killed many Chinese in revenge, and looted or ruined valuable property.* The Allies imposed upon the broken Leviathan an indemnity of $330,000,000, to be collected by European control of Chinese import customs and the salt monopoly. Considerable portions of this indemnity were later remitted to China by the United States, Great Britain, Russia and Japan, usually with the stipulation that the remitted sums be spent in educating students from China in the universities of the remitting nation. It was a gesture of generosity, which proved more effective in the undoing of old China than almost any other single factor in this historic and tragic conflict of East and West.

  II. THE DEATH OF A CIVILIZATION

  The Indemnity students—Their Westernization—Their disintegrative effect in China—The rôle of the missionary—Sun Yat-sen, the Christian—His youthful adventures—His meeting with Li Hung-chang—His plans for a revolution—Their success—Yuan Shi-k’ai—The death of Sun Yat-sen—Chaos and pillage—Communism—“The north pacified”—Chiang Kai-shek—Japan in Manchuria—At Shanghai

  These “indemnity students” and thousands of others now left China to explore the civilization of its conquerors. Many went to England, more to Germany, more to America, more to Japan; every year hundreds of them were graduated from the universities of America alone. They came at an early and impressionable age, before they had matured to the point of understanding the depth and values of their own national culture. They drank in with gratitude and admiration the novel education given in the science, methods, history and ideas of the West; they were amazed at the comforts and vigorous life they saw about them, the freedom of the Western individual, and the enfranchisement of the people. They studied Western philosophy, lost faith in the religion of their fathers, and enjoyed the position of respectable radicals encouraged by their educators and their new environment in their rebellion against all the elements in the civilization of their native land. Year by year thousands of such deracinated youths returned to China, fretted against the slow tempo and material backwardness of their country, and sowed in every city the seeds of inquiry and revolt.