COE ET: 
 
 _ INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 
 
 PRO PATRIA PER ORBIS CONCORDIAM 
 
 = 
 Published monthly by the 
 American Association for International Conciliation 
 Entered as second class matter at New York, N. Y. 
 Postoffice, February 23, 1909, under act of July 16, 1894 
 
 THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA 
 
 
 
 BY 
 
 WEILCHING W. YEN 
 
 Second Secretary of the Imperial Chinese Legation 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 JUNE, 1909, No. 19 
 
 American Association for International Conciliation 
 Sub-station 84 (501 West 116th Street) 
 New York City 
 
There are many ways of reading Chinese thought 
 placed on record in the shape of words written or 
 spoken. The customary method even for the educated 
 among us has been to get hold of a Chinese term or a 
 short sentence, remove it from its context and trans- 
 late its syllables literally. The caricatures which re- 
 sult have been the basis of many of our prejudices 
 regarding the unfathomable nature of the Chinese soul. 
 These prejudices are being fast overcome by the 
 efforts now being made with serious good will to grasp 
 not the words, but the broad views of Chinese thought. 
 
 Dr. Wei-ching W. Yen’s paper is an excellent speci- 
 men of Chinese thought expressed in good English. 
 It has been written by a native accustomed to write 
 and to think in his own language. 
 
 FRIEDRICH HirTH 
 Columbia University 
 
THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA 
 
 The Hon. John W. Foster, in a magazine article on 
 China and her present conditions, asserts that ‘‘ proba- 
 bly in no previous period of the history of the human 
 race has there been awakened such concentrated at- 
 tention to one portion of the earth and its inhabitants.”’ 
 One might add to this dictum and declare that from 
 the very beginning of China’s intercourse with the 
 West, her people and her civilization have been a fruit- 
 ful and apparently interesting subject to contributors 
 to magazines and makers of books. She has been 
 lauded to the skies by some and picturesquely abused 
 by others. One author inscribes in a weighty volume 
 the distinctly peculiar and ridiculous phases of Chinese 
 life, and by his amusing stories adds to the gaiety of 
 the nations. Another, a distinguished statesman, con- 
 tents himself with an inventory of the mineral wealth 
 of the Empire, and hopes to rouse the interest of his 
 countrymen through the spirit of commercialism. Be- 
 tween the globe-trotter, who spends his week in each 
 of the principal treaty-ports, and the missionary, who 
 has lived in Chung Kuo so long that he actually be- 
 comes homesick when he visits his native land, there 
 has arisen a literature on things Chinese that is at once 
 bizarre and learned, 
 
 The singular feature of this outpour of printed mat- 
 ter is that it is almost entirely the result of the labors 
 of foreign writers. Until very recent years, there were 
 very few of our people who had mastered foreign 
 languages, and who could express their views of the 
 past and present of their country to the West. Nor 
 did the Government realize, and, indeed, has not yet 
 
 3 
 
realized, the tremendous advantages of inspiring and 
 paying for ‘‘ write-ups” to secure the goodwill and ap- 
 proval of the world. Whether she is praised or abused, 
 China has pursued the even tenor of her way, acting 
 according to her best light and to her sense of right 
 and wrong. 
 
 We have a saying that between right and wrong the 
 public is an equitable judge; or in the words of Sir 
 Robert Hart, ‘‘they (the Chinese) believe in right so 
 firmly that they scorn to think it requires to be sup- 
 ported or enforced by might.” That this saying is 
 based on a correct philosophical conception and that 
 our belief is also the guiding principle of the great 
 men of other nations is proved by the numerous foreign 
 statesmen and writers that have rushed to our defense 
 whenever the honor and fair name of China have been 
 unjustly assailed or her actions misconstrued. Noth- 
 ing in the history of the foreign relations of the Em- 
 pire has afforded us more gratification and filled us 
 with more pride and hope than the staunch friendship 
 and deep affection which so many foreigners, generally 
 the ones that know us best, have for China. 
 
 It is hardly possible to restrain a smile when we read 
 that ‘‘no one knows or ever will know the Chinese, 
 the most comprehensible, inscrutable, contradictory, 
 logical, illogical people on earth.” ‘This sounds some- 
 thing like a characterization, in a comic paper, of 
 woman, and is not to be taken seriously. The fact is, 
 we are very much like other human beings, with to be 
 sure some peculiarities, due to centuries of segregation 
 from other nations. But we have essentially ‘‘the 
 same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows, the 
 same susceptibility to pain and the same capacity for 
 happiness.” With increased and better acquaintance 
 
 4 
 
of the world through travel abroad and reading at 
 home, the representative men of our country will lose 
 many of the traits and discard many of the customs 
 that seem peculiar to Westerners. Indeed, we have 
 already a class of cosmopolitans, men who have en- 
 joyed educational facilities abroad and who are as 
 much at home in London or New York as in Peking. 
 In recent years, a revolution has taken place in our 
 world of thought. Always a nation that delighted in 
 books and worshipped literary talent, we have hada 
 literature equal in extent and quality to that of Greece 
 or Rome. Very few Westerners who have mastered 
 our language have not echoed and re-echoed the senti- 
 meat that ‘‘untold treasures lie hidden in the rich 
 lodes of Chinese literature.” ‘This mine of intellectual 
 wealth has been enriched by the translation of the best 
 works of the West. John Stuart Mill, Huxley, 
 Spencer, Darwin and Henry George, just to mention 
 a few of the leading scholars of the modern age, are 
 as well known in China as in this country. The 
 doctrine of the survival of the fittest is on the lips of 
 every thinking Chinese, and its grim significance is 
 not iost on a nation that seems to be the center of the 
 struggle in the Far East. Western knowledge is being 
 absorbed by our young men at home or abroad at a 
 rapid rate, and the mental power of a large part of 
 four hundred millions of people, formerly concentrated 
 on the Confucian classics, is being turned in a new 
 direction—the study of the civilization of the West. 
 Socially, an agricultural people is being transformed 
 in a sudden into a manufacturing and industrial na- 
 tion. New desires have given birth to new wants: the 
 railway and the steamship must take the place of the 
 mule cart, the sedan chair and the houseboat; gas and 
 
 5 
 
electricity supplant the paper lantern and the oil lamp; 
 the roar of the loom bewilders the factory girl who has 
 been used to the hand-weaving machine; and the 
 smoke of factories and arsenals threatens to soil the 
 blue of our skies and make hideous the exterior form 
 of nature as it has done in the West. The foreign 
 trade of Shanghai is already greater than that of 
 Boston, while the greatest sea-port in the world, 
 measured by the tonnage of its vessels, is the island 
 of Hongkong, a stone’s throw from Canton. 
 
 There is a public opinion in China now that makes 
 itself heard and obeyed. No longer is it possible to 
 hold to the conception that China stands for a few 
 men in power and that their will ic the law of the land. 
 As Mr. Elihu Root has recently expressed it, ‘‘ The 
 people now, not Governments, make friendship or dis- 
 like, sympathy or discord, peace or war between na- 
 tions.” The people of China are gradually coming to 
 their own, and with the elaborate preparations now 
 being made for a constitutional government, it is only 
 a question of a few years when a Chinese parliament 
 becomes an established fact, and another member of the 
 human family added to the ranks of liberal government. 
 
 There are many reasons why China and the United 
 States of America should be the best of friends. Geo- 
 graphically, we are the two continental countries 
 situated on the opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean. 
 With the annexation and the acquisition by the United 
 States of the Hawaiian and the Philippine Islands, we 
 have become next-door neighbors. The completion 
 of the Isthmian Canal, an event looked forward to 
 with great interest by the whole world, will bring the 
 Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi Valley weeks 
 nearer the trade of the Orient. It is a logical conse- 
 
 6 
 
quence and a consummation devoutly to be wished 
 that the relations between the ancient Empire and the 
 young Republic should grow more intimate every day. 
 
 From the time of Caleb Cushing, the American 
 Minister who arrived in China in 1844, bearing a letter 
 from President Tyler to the Emperor Taokuang, Sino- 
 American relations have always been friendly. If, as 
 the Emperor Taokuang used to command his ministers 
 of state to impress on the foreign representatives, the 
 Celestial Empire prides itself on keeping good faith in 
 its promises and agreements, the United States has 
 also taught China to believe through experience that 
 it may be trusted to do what is right and just. The 
 several treaties concluded between the two nations 
 have been on the one hand honorable to the United 
 States and on the other fair to China. When China 
 desired to establish diplomatic relations with the 
 Powers, it was also an American, the Hon. Anson 
 Burlingame, that was given the coveted position of an 
 envoy. The refusal of the United States of America 
 to participate in the opium traffic, or in the caolie 
 trade, the absence on her part of any desire to en- 
 croach on the territorial rights of China, her action in 
 contending for the integrity of China, the recent re- 
 mission of a part of the Boxer indemnity, and her 
 willingness, in general, to give China a square deal, 
 have not failed to make a very favorable impression 
 on our people. If there is one commendable quality 
 in our people conspicuous by its presence, it is that of 
 not forgetting a good turn, and the good offices of this 
 country are and will be appreciated by us for many 
 years to come. 
 
 The twentieth century is pre-eminently the century 
 of international commerce. The struggle for fresh 
 
 7 
 
markets, to dispose of the surplus products of the field 
 and the factory after the full supply of home con- 
 sumption, is a very keen one. China, with her teem- 
 ing population gradually being infected with the desires 
 and wants of the twentieth century but possessing only 
 the facilities of an agricultural people to gratify them, 
 will become the biggest buyer of the world in the near 
 future. A large share of this trade will come to 
 America, if the statesmen and merchants of America 
 are wise enough to seek forit. Ultimately, the national 
 welfare and prosperity of the United States must de- 
 pend on foreign markets and the securing of the com- 
 mercial prize of the Orient is a coup worthy the 
 attention and thought of all patriotic Americans. In 
 this competition for commercial supremacy, the good 
 will of our people is an asset not to be despised by this 
 nation. 
 
 It would be a reflection on the intelligence and 
 character of the people of the United States, however, 
 were an appeal for closer relations between the vener- 
 able Empire and the young Republic to attract atten- 
 tion and derive interest simply through the spirit of 
 commercialism. The present century is the century of 
 internationalism, remarkable for the growth of ex- 
 change of ideas and ideals as well as of merchandise 
 and commodities. In no former age has the civilization 
 of the East come into such close contact with that of 
 the West. The East has made and is making an 
 honest effort to study the thought and the institutions 
 of Europe and America, while this country in particular 
 of the nations of the West is endeavoring to under- 
 stand the spirit of the East. China has had a civiliza- 
 tion of four thousand years and has contributed much 
 to the progress of the world. Scores of discoveries, 
 
 8 
 
which have helped to increase the happiness and wel- 
 fare of mankind, must be credited to us. But best of 
 all, the Confucian school has evolved a type of man- 
 hood with many virtues to commend and deserving 
 the serious study and imitation of other nations. 
 Chinese civilization, being based on a moral order, has 
 imbued its exponents with a profound respect and love 
 for the moral relations. It is true very often the spirit 
 of the teachings of Confucius is lost in the empty 
 forms of ceremony and idle phrases of etiquette, but 
 the centuries of discipline could not but leave its im- 
 print on our people. We find, therefore, often a spirit 
 of ministerial loyalty to the Emperor, of filial piety to 
 one’s parent, of devotion on the part of wives to their 
 husbands, of affection between brother and brother 
 and of constancy to friends that are not emphasized 
 in other civilizations. Simplicity of living, patience 
 under suffering, industry, contentment and an opti- 
 mistic spirit, persistence in one’s undertaking and the 
 power to endure are some of the virtues which have 
 made Chinese civilization so stable and so venerable. 
 Then there is the devotion to and worship of letters, 
 politeness towards all, respect for and obedience to the 
 law, and last but not least the love for peace and tran- 
 quillity. If, therefore, Chinais poor in mechanical ap- 
 pliances and scientific knowledge, she may be wealthy 
 in those virtues which add to the happiness and 
 quality of the life that is lived. In the words of an 
 eloquent writer, Europe and America, looking across 
 the ocean to the Far East, should be anxious, ‘‘not 
 indeed to imitate the forms, but to appropriate the 
 inspiration of that ancient world which created man- 
 ners, laws, religions, art, whose history is the record 
 not merely of the body, but of the soul of mankind, 
 
 9 
 
and whose spirit, already escaping from the forces in 
 which it has found partial embodiment is hovering 
 even now at your gates in quest of a new and more 
 perfect incarnation.” 
 
 In the hundreds of Chinese students in this country 
 that are earnestly and industriously absorbing the best 
 the colleges and universities can impart to them, there 
 exists a mighty bond of union and an unwritten alli- 
 ance between China and America. These young men, 
 as one of them strikingly expressed it, form a bridge 
 across the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean, on 
 which American learning, American ideals, American 
 institutions, American inventions, and American manu- 
 factures are and will be conveyed to China. The in- 
 fluence of such young men, the future leaders of 
 China, over their country’s predilections and policies 
 will be enormous. Having been fully saturated with 
 American ideas and ideals they will transport them to 
 and distribute them among their own countrymen. 
 ‘They will be able to modify the public opinion of 
 their countrymen that half a century of ordinary con- 
 tact with the Occident cannot modify. They will be 
 able to insure a peace and trade in the Far East that 
 treaties and military forces cannot insure. In one 
 word, these students will be the most effective instru- 
 ments through and with which American civilization 
 or rather American university education can exert it: 
 wonderful influence on the new China.” 
 
 WEI-CHING W. YEN 
 
 10 
 
The Executive Committee of the Association for International 
 Conciliation wish to arouse the interest of the American people 
 in the progress of the movement for promoting international peace 
 and relations of comity and. good fellowship between nations. 
 To this end they print and circulate documents giving information 
 as to the progress of these movements, in order that individual 
 citizens, the newspaper press, and organizations of various kinds 
 may have readily available accurate information on these subjects. 
 
 For the information of those who are not familiar with the work 
 of the Association for International Conciliation, a list of its pub- 
 lications is subjoined. 
 
 x. Program of the Association, by Baron d}Estournelles de Constant. April, 
 1907. 
 
 2. Results of the National Arbitration and Peace Congress, by Andrew Car- 
 negie. April, 1907. 
 
 3. A League of Peace, by Andrew Carnegie. November, 1907. 
 
 4. The results of the Second Hague Conference, by Baron d’Estournelles de 
 Constant and Hon, David Jayne Hill. January, 1908. 
 
 5. The Work of the Second Hague Conference, by James Brown Scott. Jan- 
 uary, 1908, 
 
 6. Possibilities of Intellectual Co-operation Between North and South America, 
 by L. S. Rowe. April, 1908. 
 
 7. America and Japan, by George Trumbull Ladd. June, 1908. 
 8. The Sanction of International Law, by Elihu Root. July, 1908. 
 g. The United States and France, by Barrett Wendell. August, 1908, 
 
 to. The Approach of the Two Americas, by Joaquim Nabuco, September, 
 1908, 
 
 11, The United States and Canada, by J. S. Willison. October, 1908. 
 
 12. The Policy of the United States and Japan in the Far East. November, 
 1908, 
 
 13. European Sobriety in the Presence of the Balkan Crisis, by Charles Austin 
 Beard. December, 1908. 
 
 14. The Logic of International Co-operation, by F. W. Hirst. January, rgo9. 
 
 15. American Ignorance of Oriental Languages, by J. H. DeForest. Feb- 
 ruary, 1909. 
 
 16, America and the New Diplomacy, by James Brown Scott. March, rgog. 
 17. The Delusion of Militarism, by Charles E. Jefferson. April, 1909. 
 
 18, Address by Elihu Root. May, 1909. 
 
 19. The United States and China, by Wei-ching Yen. June, 1909. 
 
 A small edition of a monthly bibliography of articles having to 
 do with international matters is also published and distributed to 
 libraries, magazines and newspapers. 
 
 Up to the limit of the editions printed, any one of the above will 
 be sent postpaid upon receipt of a request addressed to the Secretary 
 of the American Association for International Conciliation, Post 
 Office Sub-Station 84, New York, N. Y. 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
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 RicHARD BARTHOLDT STEPHEN Henry OLIN 
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COUNCIL OF DIRECTION OF THE 
 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 
 
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 CONCILIATION INTERNATIONALE 
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