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The Problem of China
The Problem of China
Bertrand Russell
The Problem of China
Table of Contents
The Problem of China. .......................................................................................................................................1
Bertrand Russel. ......................................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER I. QUESTIONS. ....................................................................................................................2
CHAPTER II. CHINA BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. .....................................................6
CHAPTER III. CHINA AND THE WESTERN POWERS. .................................................................19
CHAPTER IV. MODERN CHINA. ......................................................................................................25
CHAPTER V. JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION. ....................................................................34
CHAPTER VI. MODERN JAPAN. ......................................................................................................38
CHAPTER VII. JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914. .......................................................................48
CHAPTER VIII. JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR. ...........................................................53
CHAPTER IX. THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE. ......................................................................61
CHAPTER XII. THE CHINESE CHARACTER. .................................................................................81
CHAPTER XIII. HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA. ........................................................................86
CHAPTER XIV. INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA. ................................................................................91
CHAPTER XV. THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA. .................................................................................97
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The Problem of China
Bertrand Russell
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THE PROBLEM OF CHINA
BY
BERTRAND RUSSELL
O.M., F.K.S.
London GEORGE ALLEN &UNWIN LTD RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET FIRST PUBLISHED IN
1922 SECOND IMPRESSION 1966
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED WOKING
AND LONDON
The Ruler of the Southern Ocean was Shu (Heedless), the Ruler of
the Northern Ocean was Hu (Sudden), and the Ruler of the Centre
was Chaos. Shu and Hu were continually meeting in the land of
Chaos, who treated them very well. They consulted together how
they might repay his kindness, and said, “Men all have seven
orifices for the purpose of seeing, hearing, eating, and
breathing, while this poor Ruler alone has not one. Let us try
and make them for him.” Accordingly they dug one orifice in him
every day; and at the end of seven days Chaos died.—[ Chuang
The Problem of China
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The Problem of China
Tze , Legge's translation.]
The Problem of China
CHAPTER I. QUESTIONS
A European lately arrived in China, if he is of a receptive and reflective disposition, finds himself confronted
with a number of very puzzling questions, for many of which the problems of Western Europe will not have
prepared him. Russian problems, it is true, have important affinities with those of China, but they have also
important differences; moreover they are decidedly less complex. Chinese problems, even if they affected no
one outside China, would be of vast importance, since the Chinese are estimated to constitute about a quarter
of the human race. In fact, however, all the world will be vitally affected by the development of Chinese
affairs, which may well prove a decisive factor, for good or evil, during the next two centuries. This makes it
important, to Europe and America almost as much as to Asia, that there should be an intelligent understanding
of the questions raised by China, even if, as yet, definite answers are difficult to give.
The questions raised by the present condition of China fall naturally into three groups, economic, political,
and cultural. No one of these groups, however, can be considered in isolation, because each is intimately
bound up with the other two. For my part, I think the cultural questions are the most important, both for China
and for mankind; if these could be solved, I would accept, with more or less equanimity, any political or
economic system which ministered to that end. Unfortunately, however, cultural questions have little interest
for practical men, who regard money and power as the proper ends for nations as for individuals. The
helplessness of the artist in a hard−headed business community has long been a commonplace of novelists and
moralizers, and has made collectors feel virtuous when they bought up the pictures of painters who had died
in penury. China may be regarded as an artist nation, with the virtues and vices to be expected of the artist:
virtues chiefly useful to others, and vices chiefly harmful to oneself. Can Chinese virtues be preserved? Or
must China, in order to survive, acquire, instead, the vices which make for success and cause misery to others
only? And if China does copy the model set by all foreign nations with which she has dealings, what will
become of all of us?
China has an ancient civilization which is now undergoing a very rapid process of change. The traditional
civilization of China had developed in almost complete independence of Europe, and had merits and demerits
quite different from those of the West. It would be futile to attempt to strike a balance; whether our present
culture is better or worse, on the whole, than that which seventeenth−century missionaries found in the
Celestial Empire is a question as to which no prudent person would venture to pronounce. But it is easy to
point to certain respects in which we are better than old China, and to other respects in which we are worse. If
intercourse between Western nations and China is to be fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as
missionaries of a superior civilization, or, worse still, as men who have a right to exploit, oppress, and swindle
the Chinese because they are an “inferior” race. I do not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are inferior
to ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who have any intimate knowledge of China, would take the same
view.
In comparing an alien culture with one's own, one is forced to ask oneself questions more fundamental than
any that usually arise in regard to home affairs. One is forced to ask: What are the things that I ultimately
value? What would make me judge one sort of society more desirable than another sort? What sort of ends
should I most wish to see realized in the world? Different people will answer these questions differently, and I
do not know of any argument by which I could persuade a man who gave an answer different from my own. I
must therefore be content merely to state the answer which appeals to me, in the hope that the reader may feel
likewise.
CHAPTER I. QUESTIONS
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The Problem of China
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things,
are: knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection. When I speak of
knowledge, I do not mean all knowledge; there is much in the way of dry lists of facts that is merely useful,
and still more that has no appreciable value of any kind. But the understanding of Nature, incomplete as it is,
which is to be derived from science, I hold to be a thing which is good and delightful on its own account. The
same may be said, I think, of some biographies and parts of history. To enlarge on this topic would, however,
take me too far from my theme. When I speak of art as one of the things that have value on their own account,
I do not mean only the deliberate productions of trained artists, though of course these, at their best, deserve
the highest place. I mean also the almost unconscious effort after beauty which one finds among Russian
peasants and Chinese coolies, the sort of impulse that creates folk−songs, that existed among ourselves before
the time of the Puritans, and survives in cottage gardens. Instinctive happiness, or joy of life, is one of the
most important widespread popular goods that we have lost through industrialism and the high pressure at
which most of us live; its commonness in China is a strong reason for thinking well of Chinese civilization.
In judging of a community, we have to consider, not only how much of good or evil there is within the
community, but also what effects it has in promoting good or evil in other communities, and how far the good
things which it enjoys depend upon evils elsewhere. In this respect, also, China is better than we are. Our
prosperity, and most of what we endeavour to secure for ourselves, can only be obtained by widespread
oppression and exploitation of weaker nations, while the Chinese are not strong enough to injure other
countries, and secure whatever they enjoy by means of their own merits and exertions alone.
These general ethical considerations are by no means irrelevant in considering the practical problems of
China. Our industrial and commercial civilization has been both the effect and the cause of certain more or
less unconscious beliefs as to what is worth while; in China one becomes conscious of these beliefs through
the spectacle of a society which challenges them by being built, just as unconsciously, upon a different
standard of values. Progress and efficiency, for example, make no appeal to the Chinese, except to those who
have come under Western influence. By valuing progress and efficiency, we have secured power and wealth;
by ignoring them, the Chinese, until we brought disturbance, secured on the whole a peaceable existence and a
life full of enjoyment. It is difficult to compare these opposite achievements unless we have some standard of
values in our minds; and unless it is a more or less conscious standard, we shall undervalue the less familiar
civilization, because evils to which we are not accustomed always make a stronger impression than those that
we have learned to take as a matter of course.
The culture of China is changing rapidly, and undoubtedly rapid change is needed. The change that has
hitherto taken place is traceable ultimately to the military superiority of the West; but in future our economic
superiority is likely to be quite as potent. I believe that, if the Chinese are left free to assimilate what they
want of our civilization, and to reject what strikes them as bad, they will be able to achieve an organic growth
from their own tradition, and to produce a very splendid result, combining our merits with theirs. There are,
however, two opposite dangers to be avoided if this is to happen. The first danger is that they may become
completely Westernized, retaining nothing of what has hitherto distinguished them, adding merely one more
to the restless, intelligent, industrial, and militaristic nations which now afflict this unfortunate planet. The
second danger is that they may be driven, in the course of resistance to foreign aggression, into an intense
anti−foreign conservatism as regards everything except armaments. This has happened in Japan, and it may
easily happen in China. The future of Chinese culture is intimately bound up with political and economic
questions; and it is through their influence that dangers arise.
China is confronted with two very different groups of foreign Powers, on the one hand the white nations, on
the other hand Japan. In considering the effect of the white races on the Far East as a whole, modern Japan
must count as a Western product; therefore the responsibility for Japan's doings in China rests ultimately with
her white teachers. Nevertheless, Japan remains very unlike Europe and America, and has ambitions different
from theirs as regards China. We must therefore distinguish three possibilities: (1) China may become
CHAPTER I. QUESTIONS
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