China was at last awake.  Where the West had failed, Japan succeeded.  She had transmuted Western culture and achievement into terms that were intelligible to the Chinese understanding.  Japan herself, when she so suddenly awakened, had astounded the world.  But at the time she was only forty millions strong.  China’s awakening, with her four hundred millions and the scientific advance of the world, was frightfully astounding.  She was the colossus of the nations, and swiftly her voice was heard in no uncertain tones in the affairs and councils of the nations.  Japan egged her on, and the proud Western peoples listened with respectful ears.

China’s swift and remarkable rise was due, perhaps more than to anything else, to the superlative quality of her labour.  The Chinese was the perfect type of industry.  He had always been that.  For sheer ability to work no worker in the world could compare with him.  Work was the breath of his nostrils.  It was to him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure had been to other peoples.  Liberty, to him, epitomized itself in access to the means of toil.  To till the soil and labour interminably was all he asked of life and the powers that be.  And the awakening of China had given its vast population not merely free and unlimited access to the means of toil, but access to the highest and most scientific machine-means of toil.

China rejuvenescent!  It was but a step to China rampant.  She discovered a new pride in herself and a will of her own.  She began to chafe under the guidance of Japan, but she did not chafe long.  On Japan’s advice, in the beginning, she had expelled from the Empire all Western missionaries, engineers, drill sergeants, merchants, and teachers.  She now began to expel the similar representatives of Japan.  The latter’s advisory statesmen were showered with honours and decorations, and sent home.  The West had awakened Japan, and, as Japan had then requited the West, Japan was not requited by China.  Japan was thanked for her kindly aid and flung out bag and baggage by her gigantic protege.  The Western nations chuckled.  Japan’s rainbow dream had gone glimmering.  She grew angry.  China laughed at her.  The blood and the swords of the Samurai would out, and Japan rashly went to war.  This occurred in 1922, and in seven bloody months Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa were taken away from her and she was hurled back, bankrupt, to stifle in her tiny, crowded islands.  Exit Japan from the world drama.  Thereafter she devoted herself to art, and her task became to please the world greatly with her creations of wonder and beauty.

Contrary to expectation, China did not prove warlike.  She had no Napoleonic dream, and was content to devote herself to the arts of peace.  After a time of disquiet, the idea was accepted that China was to be feared, not in war, but in commerce.  It will be seen that the real danger was not apprehended.  China went on consummating her machine-civilization.  Instead of a large standing army, she developed an immensely larger and splendidly efficient militia.  Her navy was so small that it was the laughing stock of the world; nor did she attempt to strengthen her navy.  The treaty ports of the world were never entered by her visiting battleships.