Page:The problem of China - Russell 1922.pdf/56

54Rh at Port Arthur, the British by acquiring Wei-hai-wei and a sphere of influence in the Yangtze, and so on. The Americans alone held aloof, proclaiming the policy of Chinese integrity and the Open Door.

The Boxer rising is one of the few Chinese events that all Europeans know about. After we had demonstrated our superior virtue by the sack of Peking, we exacted a huge indemnity, and turned the Legation Quarter of Peking into a fortified city. To this day, it is enclosed by a wall, filled with European, American, and Japanese troops, and surrounded by a bare space on which the Chinese are not allowed to build. It is administered by the diplomatic body, and the Chinese authorities have no powers over anyone within its gates. When some unusually corrupt and traitorous Government is overthrown, its members take refuge in the Japanese (or other) Legation and so escape the punishment of their crimes, while within the sacred precincts of the Legation Quarter the Americans erect a vast wireless station said to be capable of communicating directly with the United States. And so the refutation of Chien Lung is completed.

Out of the Boxer indemnity, however, one good thing has come. The Americans found that, after paying all just claims for damages, they still had a large surplus. This they returned to China to be spent on higher education, partly in colleges in China under American control, partly by sending advanced Chinese students to American universities. The gain to China has been enormous, and the benefit to America from the friendship of the Chinese (especially the most educated of them) is incalculable. This is obvious to everyone, yet England shows hardly any signs of following suit.