Chengchiatun might have taken place at any one of half-a-dozen other places in this vast and little-known region whither Japanese detachments have silently gone; and if Chinese diplomacy in the month of August, 1916, was faced with a rude surprise, it was only what political students had long been expecting.  For though Japan should be the real defender of Chinese liberties, it is a fact that in Chinese affairs Japanese diplomacy has been too long dictated to by the Military Party in Tokio and attempts nothing save when violence allows it to tear from China some fresh portion of her independence.

And here we reach the crux of the matter.  One of the little known peculiarities of the day lies in the fact that Japan is the land of political inaction because there is no tradition of action save that which has been built up by the military and naval chiefs since the Chinese war of 1894-95.  Having only visualized the world in international terms during two short decades, there has been no time for a proper tradition to be created by the civil government of Japan; and because there is no such tradition, the island empire of the East has no true foreign policy and is at the mercy of manufactured crises, being too often committed to petty adventures which really range her on the side of those in Europe the Allies have set themselves to destroy.  It is for this reason that the Chinese are consistently treated as though they were hewers of wood and drawers of water, helots who are occasionally nattered in the columns of the daily press and yet are secretly looked upon as men who have been born merely to be cuffed and conquered.  The Moukden Governor, General Chang Tso-lin, discussing the Chengchiatun affair with the writer, put the matter in a nutshell.  Striking the table he exclaimed:  “After all we are not made of wood like this, we too are flesh and blood and must defend our own people.  A dozen times I have said, ’Let them come and take Manchuria openly if they dare, but let them cease their childish intrigues.’  Why do they not do so?  Because they are not sure they can swallow us—­not at all sure.  Do you understand?  We are weak, we are stupid, we are divided, but we are innumerable, and in the end, if they persist, China will burst the Japanese stomach.”

Such passionate periods are all very well, but when it comes to the sober business of the council chamber it is a regrettable fact that Chinese, although foreign friends implore them to do so, do not properly use the many weapons in their armoury.  Thus in this particular case, instead of at once hurrying to Chengchiatun some of the many foreign advisers who sit kicking their heels in Peking from one end of the year to the other and who number competent jurisconsults, China did next to nothing.  No proper report was drawn up on the spot; sworn statements were not gathered, nor were witnesses brought to Peking; and it therefore happened that when Japan filed her demands for redress, China had not in her possession anything save an utterly inadequate defence.  Mainly because of this she was forced to agree to forgoing any direct discussion of the rights and wrongs of the case, proceeding directly to negotiations based on the various claims which Japan filed and which were as follows:—­