Page:Stanley Kuhl Hornbeck - The Situation in China (1927).djvu/10

 ing, more and more, a solidarity of sentiment which has manifested itself for two decades in defensive effort to resist foreign influence and which is now manifesting itself in thought and action directed toward the destruction of the privileged position which has been accorded to or acquired by foreign nations and foreign nationals in China.

The Chinese "Nationalists" are taking advantage of every evidence and opportunity to proclaim aloud to their own people and to the world that China has been and is being oppressed by the foreign Powers; that China is bound down by "unequal treaties"; that Chinese laws, customs, and manners are being corrupted by foreigners; and that foreign domination must be shaken off. The present antipathy of the Chinese people appears to be not against foreigners as individuals or as alien persons but against the forces, the system, the theories and practices of government of the foreign nations as manifested in relationships with China.

The Occident went to the Orient uninvited and unwanted. Navigators, merchants, missionaries and soldiers from the Occident forced themselves upon an unwilling Siam, an unwilling Japan and an unwilling China. Of these countries, China, with her huge area, her enormous population, her laissez-faire practices and principles of government, has not yet made the readjustment for which the new contacts call. The Chinese have never been accustomed to precision, exact definitions, legal prescriptions and contracts written out and agreed upon in