The most influential daily press organ in the Tsardom, the Novoye Vremya, wrote:  “The war with Germany has supplied our Asiatic neighbor with an opportunity of proving the sincerity of her friendly assurances.  She behaves not merely like a good friend, but like a stanch military ally....  In the interests of the future tranquil development of Japan a more active participation of the Japanese is requisite in the war of the nations against the world-beast of prey.  An alliance with Russia for the attainment of this object would be an act of immense historic significance."[244]

Ever since her entry into the community of progressive nations, Japan’s main aspiration and striving has been to play a leading and a civilizing part in the Far East, and in especial to determine China by advice and organization to move into line with herself, adopt Western methods and apply them to Far-Eastern aims.  And this might well seem a legitimate as well as a profitable policy, and a task as noble as most or those to which the world is wont to pay a tribute of high praise.  It appeared all the more licit that the Powers of Europe, with the exception of Russia, had denied full political rights to the colored alien.  He was placed in a category apart—­an inferior class member of humanity.

“In Japan, and as yet in Japan alone, do we find the Asiatic welcoming European culture, in which, if a tree may fairly be judged by its fruit, is to be found the best prospect for the human personal liberty, in due combination with restraints of law sufficient to, but not in excess of, the requirements of the general welfare.  In this particular distinctiveness of characteristic, which has thus differentiated the receptivity of the Japanese from that of the continental Asiatic, we may perhaps see the influence of the insular environment that has permitted and favored the evolution of a strong national personality; and in the same condition we may not err in finding a promise of power to preserve and to propagate, by example and by influence, among those akin to her, the new policy which she has adopted, and by which she has profited, affording to them the example which she herself has found in the development of Eastern peoples."[245]

Now that is exactly what the Japanese aimed at accomplishing.  They were desirous of contributing to the intellectual and moral advance of the Chinese and other backward peoples of the Far East, in the same way as France is laudably desirous of aiding the Syrians, or Great Britain the Persians.  And what is more, Japan undertook to uphold the principle of the open door, and generally to respect the legitimate interests of European peoples in the Far East.