第七十九章《胡适英文论著：民族危机与公共外交》（4）

  第七十九章《胡适英文论著：民族危机与公共外交》（4）

  (3) It must restore and greatly strengthen the international order for the Pacific region so that orderly and just international relationships shall prevail and recurrence of such an aggressive war shall be impossible.
  I repeat: such a just and enduring peace is not in sight, and therefore my people are determined to fight on until such a peace is achieved.
  The Modernization of China and Japan
  Ruth Nanda Anshen, ed., Freedom: Its Meaning .
  New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940. pp. 114-122.
  In recent years I have published some of my reflections on the modernization of Japan and China. What I am now going to state is a summary and restatement of what I have been thinking on this fascinating subject during these years.
  I
  First of all, we must state the problem of our inquiry. What special aspect of the modernization of China and Japan arouses our curiosity and requires our study and explanation?
  Generally speaking, there are two aspects of the question that have puzzled the outside world and demanded some explanation.
  For many decades, down to very recent years, the question often asked was: Why was Japan so successful in her task of modernization, and why was China so unsuccessful? That is the first aspect of the question, which has called forth many explanations.
  But in recent years, the problem has radically changed. After almost a century of hesitation and resistance, China has emerged as a modern nation, not sufficiently westernized (it is true) in her material aspects, but fully modern in her outlook on life and feeling completely at home in the modern world. On the other hand, Japan, after seventy years of apparently rapid modernization, is suddenly discovered by the outside world as having never been transformed in all the fundamental aspects of her national life. Professor G. C. Allen, one of the most sympathetic interpreters of Japan, said: "If the changes in some of the aspects of her [Japan's] life have been far-reaching, the persistence of the traditional in other aspects is equally remarkable The contrasts between these innovations and the solid core of ancient habit are as striking as ever they were."Professor Emil Lederer and Emy Lederer-Seidler, in their joint work on Japan in Transition , another most sympathetic interpretation of Japanese life, have dwelt on the most strange phenomenon in Japan, namely, her "immunity to the dialectic play of deep-lying evolutionary forces," her being "devoid of dialectic and dynamic" and her ancient civilization "offering strong resistance to the facile assimilation of foreign elements."
  In short, the new problem is just the opposite of the older puzzle. It is: Why has China at last succeeded in overthrowing her old civilization and in achieving a Chinese Renaissance? And why has Japan, after seven decades of extraordinarily successful modernization, yet failed to break up her "solid core of ancient habit"? That is the second aspect of the problem.
  Any theory that attempts to explain the first set of questions must also explain satisfactorily the second set of questions. And vice versa.
  Ⅱ

  In 1933, I was trying to solve the first set of puzzles: Why and how has Japan succeeded, and China failed, to achieve a speedy and orderly cultural readjustment and bring about the modernization necessary for national survival in the new world? The explanation I offered then was that China and Japan had been going through two distinct types of cultural response. The modernization in Japan I described as the type of cultural transformation under centralized control, made possible by the existence of a powerful ruling class—the feudal militaristic caste—from which came the leaders of the Reformation who not only decided for the nation what to change and what not to change, but who also had the political power to carry out their decisions. On the other hand, I pointed out, China, because of the nonexistence of a ruling class and because of the thoroughly democratized social structure, could only go through the slow and often wasteful process of cultural transformation through the gradual and diffused penetration and assimilation of ideas and practices, usually initiating from a few individuals, slowly winning a following, and finally achieving significant changes when a sufficient number of people are convinced of their superior reasonableness, convenience, or efficacy.
  The advantages of the Japanese type of modernization under the centralized control of a ruling class are easy to see. It is orderly, economical, continuous, stable, and effective. But, I point out, "it is not without very important disadvantages. The Japanese leaders undertook this rapid transformation at so early a time that even the most farsighted of them could only see and understand certain superficial phases of the Western civilization. Many other phases have escaped their attention. And, in their anxiety to preserve their national heritage and to strengthen the hold of the State and the dynasty over the people, they have carefully protected a great many elements of the traditional Japan from the contact and contagion of the new civilization Much of the traditional medieval culture is artificially protected by a strong shell of militant modernity. Much that is preserved is of great beauty and permanent value; but not a little of it is primitive and pregnant with grave dangers of volcanic eruption."
  The disadvantages of the Chinese type of cultural changes through gradual diffusion and penetration are numerous: they are slow, sporadic, and often wasteful, because much undermining and erosion are necessary before anything can be changed.
  But they have also undeniable advantages. They are voluntary. From the lipstick to the literary revolution, from the footwear to the overthrow of the monarchy, all has been voluntary and in a broad sense "reasoned." Nothing in China is too sacred to be protected from the contact and contagion of the invading civilization of the West. And no man, nor any class, is powerful enough to protect any institution from this contact and change. In short, this process of long exposure and slow permeation often results in cultural changes which are both fundamental and permanent.
  Ⅲ

  This, in general, was my theory regarding the modernization of China and Japan. Japan was modernized under the powerful leadership and control of a ruling class, and China, because of the nonexistence of such control from above, was modernized through the long process of free contact, gradual diffusion, and voluntary following.
  We may ask: Can this theory satisfactorily explain all the four phases of our main inquiry? Can it explain the marvelously rapid westernization of Japan and at the same time the unchanging solid core of medieval Japan? Can it explain both the long failures and the recent successes in China's modernization? I think not only that it can, but that it is the only hypothesis which can satisfactorily resolve all the apparent contradictions of the problem.
  According to my theory, the early and rapid successes of the Meiji Reformation were brought about by the effective leadership and powerful control of the ruling class, which happened to coincide with the militaristic class of feudal Japan and which naturally was most anxious and at the same time best fitted to undertake the adoption of the Western armaments and methods of warfare. As Professor Lederer has pointed out, "It could hardly be foreseen at this early stage that in this case one step leads inexorably to a second." "Since a modern military state is possible only on condition that it is an industrialized state, Japan had to develop in that direction. But industrialization, by reason of the economic interrelationship between various types of production, means also the development of branches of industry which are not essential to the conduct of war Just as militarism reaches beyond itself into industry, so the technological system of industrialism has far-reaching implications for the social system." The leaders of Japanese westernization started out with the desire to adopt Western militarism and have thereby brought about what Professor Lederer calls the"militaristic industrial system."
  Of all the non-European countries with which the European civilization has come into contact, Japan is the only nation that has successfully learned and mastered that one phase of the occidental civilization which is most coveted by all races, namely, its militaristic phase. Japan has succeeded where all these non-European countries have invariably failed. This historical mystery can only be explained by the fact that no other non-European country was so favored with the existence of a militaristic caste which has been the governing class of the country for over twelve centuries.
  But this militaristic caste was not an enlightened or intellectual class. Its leaders were courageous, pragmatic, patriotic, and in some cases statesmanlike. But they were limited in their visions and in their understanding of the new civilization that had knocked at their shores. They thought, just as Lafcadio Hearn thought, that they could build up a Western war machine which should be made to serve as a protective wall behind which all the traditional values of Tokugawa Japan should be preserved unaltered.
  Unfortunately for Japan and for the world, the military successes of Japan against Russia and China tended to vindicate these narrow-visioned leaders. The result has been an effective artificial protection and solidification of the traditional culture of medieval Japan against the "dangerous" contact and influence of the new ideas and practices of the ever-changing world. By the use of the modern means of rigidly controlled education, propaganda, and censorship, and by the use of the peculiarly Japanese methods of inculcating the cult of emperor-worship, Japan has succeeded in reinforcing and consolidating the "solid core" of unchanging medieval culture left over from the 250 years of Tokugawa isolation. It was the same centralized leadership and control which made possible the rapid and successful changes in militarization and industrialization and which has also deliberately protected and solidified the traditional values and made them "immune to the dialectic play of deep-lying evolutionary forces."
  The same theory also explains the history of modernization in China. The early failures in the Chinese attempts at westernization were almost entirely due to the absence of the factors which have made the Japanese Meiji Reformation a success. The Chinese leaders, too, wanted to adopt the Western armaments and methods of warfare and to build up the new industries. Their slogan was "Fu Ts'iang" (Wealth and Strength). But there was in China neither the militaristic tradition, nor an effective and powerful governing class to undertake the leadership and direction in such gigantic enterprises. China had come out of feudalism at least twenty-one centuries ago; the social structure had been thoroughly democratized; and governmental policy, religion, philosophy, literature, and social usage had combined to condemn militarism and despise the soldier. Whereas the Samurai was the most highly esteemed class in Japan, the soldier ranked the lowest in the Chinese social scale. Therefore the new Chinese army and the new Chinese navy of the eighties and nineties of the last century were doomed to failure. With the destruction of the Chinese navy in 1894-95, all the new industries—the shipyard, the merchant marine, the government-operated iron and steel industry—which were to feed and support the new war machine, gradually came to nought. The government and the dynasty were thus discredited in their early efforts in modernization. After the failure of the reforms of 1898 and the tragedy of the Boxer Uprising of 1900, the discrediting of the dynasty and the government was complete. From that time on, China's main endeavor was to destroy that center of ignorance and reactionism—the monarchy and its paraphernalia—and then to build up a new center of political authority and leadership.
  Thus, while Japan's first successes in westernization were achieved under the leadership and control of her feudal-militaristic class, China has had to spend three or four decades in the effort of first removing the monarchy and later destroying the newly arisen militarists. It has been found necessary for China to bring about a political revolution as the precondition for her modernization.
  In 1911-12, the revolution succeeded in overthrowing the alien rule and the monarchy together with its historical accompaniments. The political revolution was in every sense a social and cultural emancipation. In a country where there is no ruling class, the overthrow of the monarchy destroys the last possibility of a centralized control in social change and cultural transformation. It makes possible an atmosphere of free contact, free judgment, and criticism, free appreciation, free advocacy, and voluntary acceptance.
  What has been called the Chinese Renaissance is the natural product of this atmosphere of freedom. All the important phases of cultural change in China have been the result of this free contact and free diffusion of new ideas and practices, which are impossible in Japan under rigid dynastic and militaristic taboos. The net outcome is that modern China has undoubtedly achieved more far-reaching and more profound transformations in the social, political, intellectual, and religious life than the so-called "modern Japan" has ever done in similar fields.
  I wish to cite one important and fundamental fact as illustration of the character of the cultural change in China. I refer to the spirit of free and fearless criticism which the leaders of China have applied to the study and examination of their own social, political, historical, and religious institutions. It is no accident that all the men who have exerted the greatest influence over the Chinese nation for the last forty years—Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, Wu Ching-heng, Chen Tu-shiu, and others—have been men who know our historical heritage critically and who have had the moral courage ruthlessly to criticize its evil and weak aspects and to advocate wholehearted changes. Neither Confucius, nor Lao-tse, nor the Buddha, nor Chu Hsi; neither the monarchy, nor the family, nor religion, is too sacred to be exempt from their doubt and criticism. A nation that has encouraged honest doubt and free criticism even in matters touching the sacred and most time-honored institutions is achieving a modernity undreamed of by its neighbors whose intellectual leaders are persecuted and punished for having taught thirty years ago a certain theory of constitutional law or for having suggested that certain Sacred Treasures at a certain shrine might be of doubtful authenticity.
  To sum up, the modernization in China illustrates the view that, in the absence of centralized control from above, cultural changes of basic importance may take place through the process of free contact and slow diffusion. It is the reverse side of what has happened in Japan. The breakdown of the monarchy and its paraphernalia has removed the possibility of artificial protection and solidification of the old culture, which is then thrown open to the natural processes of cultural transformation through free contact and voluntary acceptance.
  Ⅳ

  If I have any moral to present it is this: freedom of contact and choice is the most essential condition for cultural diffusion and change. Wherever two civilizations come into contact, there are natural tendencies (or laws) of one people learning and borrowing from the other what each lacks or recognizes as of superior utility or beauty. These natural tendencies of cultural diffusion will have free play if only the peoples are allowed free contact with the new ideas and practices.
  Where such freedom is denied to a people, where artificial isolation and solidification are consciously and effectively carried out with regard either to a whole culture or to certain specially prized aspects of it, there arises the strange phenomenon of the "solid core of ancient habit" "devoid of dialectic and dynamic," such as has been found in present-day Japan.
  There is really no mystery in this unchanging Japan after seventy years of marvelously rapid change in the militaristic industrial system. There is no truth in the theory, for example, that the Japanese civilization has been able to resist change because it has its peculiar vitality and has attained "the completed perfection of its forms." The fashion of men's dress in the Western world does not change so rapidly as that of women—can we say that men's dress has achieved special vitality and "the completed perfection of form"? In the same way, sitting on the floor, for example, was discarded in China so long ago that historians have difficulty in dating the first use of chairs and tables. But the Japanese to this day continue to sit on the floor. That does not mean the custom of sitting on the floor has any special "vitality" or has attained "completed perfection of form."
  Nor is there much truth in the view that the Japanese are naturally clumsy in understanding and conservative in their outlook. Lack of understanding never prevents a people from accepting new fads. Japan probably never understood the various schools of Buddhism when she accepted them. (Certainly China did not understand some of them when she adopted them.) Besides, a people can always learn. European observers in the seventeenth century recorded that the Japanese knew "nothing of mathematics, more especially of its deeper and speculative parts." But we now know the Japanese can become accomplished mathematicians.
  As to their native conservatism, the history of early Japanese contacts with Korea, China, and Europe only proves the contrary. They learned from these foreign peoples everything they could learn, not excluding things affecting their social, political, and religious institutions. In recording the success of the Jesuits in Japan , Sansom said: "Though a number of their converts were beyond all doubt genuine to the point of fanaticism and adhered to their new faith in the face of great danger, one cannot but suspect that it had, by one of those crazes which have often swept over Japan, become the fashion to ape the customs of foreigners, including their religion. We know that rosaries and crucifixes were eagerly bought and worn by many who were modish to wear foreign clothes and to be able to recite a Latin prayer."
  I cannot therefore escape the conclusion that it will be the element of freedom that may yet some day break down the "solid core of ancient habit" in Japan just as it has already broken it down in China.
  China's Power of Resistance
  The Carnegie Magazine
  Nov., 1941. Vol. 15. No. 6. pp. 163-171.
  I am very glad to be here tonight to celebrate Founder's Day in honor of
  Andrew Carnegie, who did so much for peace in the world. This beautiful Carnegie Institute has always devoted itself to the founder's ideals of a common brotherhood and the establishment of the peace and security of all men.
  By the first week of November, Japan's war in China will be fifty-two months old. China has been fighting for four years and four months.
  You will probably ask me how it is possible for China to fight on so long under such great handicaps against such a formidable foe. China's four years' fight against Japanese aggression has been called a modern miracle, and I shall devote my allotted time to an explanation of the factors which have made this miracle possible.
  In brief, there are five main factors which have made up China's sustaining power:
  1. Space
  2. Number
  3. Historical unity
  4. Internal reconstruction
  5. External aid
  First—space. China has the rich inheritance of vast space to move about in. After ten years of intermittent war, and especially after four years of large-scale hostilities, our enemy can barely claim to have occupied more than ten per cent of China's territory. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has told the world that the principle of his strategy in the war against Japan is "to trade space for time." The spatial factor has been most important in China's ability to bog down the Japanese invader and gain four years' time. This factor of space was not fully understood until Hitler's blitzkrieg succeeded in conquering more than a dozen European countries in the brief space of a few months. Those countries in western and northern Europe and in the Balkans have fallen one after another because, among other things, they were lacking sufficient space with which to trade for time. The recent success of Soviet Russia in so far withholding the onslaught of the German panzer divisions has furnished fresh proof that the most effective weapon against a blitzkrieg is time, and time can only be gained by means of vast space and large man power.
  The second factor is number, that is, vast population as actual and potential supply of man power. In all these four years, China has suffered great military reverses in the face of superior mechanized armies of the invader, but, because of our numerical superiority, the enemy has never been able to encircle or trap any large Chinese army. And we have been able to utilize the time gained in training more and more new divisions and new officers so that even the Japanese military High Command states that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek still has at least three million trained soldiers under his command. That is to say, even our enemy admits that the size of the Chinese army, not counting the vast guerilla forces, is greater today than it was four years ago when the war started. And we are confident that a nation of seventy million Japanese can never conquer a nation of four hundred fifty million.
  The third factor is our historical national unity. It is not true, as you have been frequently told, that China has been unified by the Japanese invasion and by four years of war. Such a miracle cannot happen in so short a time. Let it be said once and for all that the Chinese national unity has been of twenty-one centuries' making. China was unified into an Empire about 200 B.C. During these last twenty-one centuries and a half, there have been short periods of separation and of foreign invasion. But broadly speaking, the Chinese people have been living continuously for over twenty-one centuries under one Empire, one government, one system of law, one written language, one form of education, and one historical culture. This continuity of unified national life has no parallel in the history of any race, nation, or continent, so that it is rarely fully appreciated by the foreign observer, who often writes about Chinese disunity during the first two decades of the Republic, and fails to grasp the fundamental feeling of national unity behind, and in spite of the internal political strife. It is this age-long sense of historical unity that is now holding the whole country together, inspiring the people to fight on most heroically for the deliverance of their country from the invader, comforting them in their adversity and misery and making it possible for millions of them patiently to bear great humiliation and agony in enemy-occupied territory, never despairing that final victory would be with their long-lived Fatherland.
  The fourth factor in China's sustaining power has been a whole decade of internal reconstruction. As you will remember, Japanese war of aggression in China was actually started ten years ago, in September 1931, by her invasion in Manchuria. At that time, China was caught totally unprepared to fight an enemy who happened to be a first-rate military and naval power. Our leaders fully realized that as soon as a large-scale war began, China would have to lose all the modern cities on the eastern and southeastern coast and possibly all along the lower half of the Yangtze River, and to face defenselessly a rigid blockade by the powerful navy of the enemy. Therefore, during those years of apparent appeasement, our leaders were not only drilling, training, equipping, and, as far as possible, modernizing our army units, but were also taking important steps in mapping out a long-term economic and industrial reconstruction in the vast hinterland of China's west and southwest in anticipation of the imminent war and naval blockade.
  The first step in this direction was to build railroads and highways toward the west, northwest, and southwest. A great network of motor roads has been built up during these ten years, which includes the transcontinental highway to Russia and the famous Burma Road. Only recently, F. Tillman Durdin, of The New York Times , reported from Burma on the wonderful feat of the Burma Road. I quote a few sentences from his dispatch to give you a picture of China's achievement in the field of interior transportation. "The Burma Road," says Mr. Durdin, "has never been adequately described. Built almost entirely by hand labor, the road is a staggering achievement and without doubt the greatest highway construction feat of modern times. It twists over seemingly impassable eighteen-thousand-foot mountains and finds its way through three-thousand-foot gorges. At places the road has been chiseled into the face of sheer mountainside, with thousands of feet of canyon below. The southern section runs through the worst malarial jungles in the world."
  Equally important was the step to establish modern industrial plants in the interior. Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the Government took the decisive step in dismantling more than four hundred factories and transporting their mechanical equipment to the interior, including the equipment of machine works, metallurgical plants, chemical works, cotton mills, flour mills, and paper factories. The total weight of the machinery thus transported with Government help amounted to over seventy thousand tons. In addition, blast furnaces, iron and steel furnaces, and other related materials necessary for the steel industry were also sent into the interior. In order to feed the planned industries in the interior, mining equipment, including hoisting, pumping, and other equipment, was transported from the great mines of Honan into the southwestern provinces in order that coal mines may be operated with more up-to-date equipment. The total weight of these materials from the mines and the furnaces thus transported was about fifty thousand tons. To supplement these transported plants, the Government also started a number of new factories including electrolytic copper plants, electrical apparatus factories, and machine works. This new equipment totaled over ten thousand tons in weight.
  It took from one year to two years to transport, set up, and operate these factories in the hitherto unindustrialized interior. They are widely distributed in the vast interior in localities unknown even to myself and are now in full operation. It is these almost miraculously transported and transplanted factories which have been making arms for our defensive warfare, feeding the mechanical needs of our vast war machine, mining our old and new mines and producing chemicals, textiles, flour, and paper for the military and civilian needs of Free China.
  These measures for building up a vast system of communication and transportation and for the industrialization of the interior provinces constitute the fourth factor of China's power of resistance—the reconstruction of the great west.
  The last, but not the least, factor is external assistance to China. It is no exaggeration to say that China has been able to fight on all these years because we have been able to receive important assistance from our friends abroad. Throughout these years we have been receiving aid in one form or another from Soviet Russia, Great Britain, the United States, and France before her collapse. This assistance has taken various forms—sometimes in the form of loans or commercial credits, sometimes in the form of military supplies purchased under barter, sometimes in the direction of maintaining our air routes and trade routes for our communication with the outside world and for transportation of our exports and imports, and sometimes in the form of economic embargo of important military and industrial supplies and materials against our enemy.
  Of these four friendly powers aiding China, the United States has been most consistent and generous in her policy of giving assistance to countries resisting aggression. Even in those early days of isolation sentiment and neutrality legislation, the American Government took great pains in searching for ways and means to help China in her distress. The first American aid came in the form of purchasing Chinese silver, which gave my people the first source of foreign exchange with which to buy our war supplies in America. The second aid was the commercial credit of twenty-five million dollars given to China in December 1938—at a time when China had just lost Canton and Hankow and was probably at the lowest ebb in her national morale. Since that first loan, there have followed the twenty million dollar commercial credit of April 1940; the twenty-five million dollar commercial credit of September 1940, and the one hundred million dollar loan of December 1940. The total sum of American credits and loans to China since December 1938 amounts to $170,000,000.
  In addition to these forms of financial aid, the United States Government has taken other steps which have proven as effective as these loans in helping China and curbing her enemy. These steps include the various forms of limited embargo of essential war materials against Japan. A very important step was taken in March 1941, when Congress passed the Lease-Lend Act and appropriated seven billion dollars to carry out the national policy of giving material assistance to the countries resisting aggression. In one of his historic speeches, President Roosevelt said: "China shall have our help." During these several months, China has been receiving important material assistance under the Lease-Lend Act. A special mission of military and technical experts under the leadership of Brigadier General John Magruder has gone to Chungking to take charge of the Lease-Lend materials at the China end.
  Another and probably the most important step in this direction was undertaken by the American Government, in the last days of July, when Japanese assets in this country were ordered frozen, all aviation gasoline and motor fuel and all oil products from which these could be derived were placed under embargo, and Japanese commerce and shipping with this country were virtually entirely stopped.
  This last economic pressure on Japan has been made more effective by the support and parallel action of the entire British Empire and the Netherlands East Indies.
  This most effective economic weapon against Japanese aggression, which American public opinion had been advocating all these years, has now been in full operation for about six weeks. It is already beginning to show important effects on the national life and militaristic tempo of Japan. For Japan is a nation most vulnerable to this economic embargo. While she can manufacture most of her weapons of war, she is extremely lacking in the raw materials with which to manufacture these weapons. She is also lacking in oil and motor fuel. Seventy-five per cent of her oil has been coming from the United States. More than half of her imported iron ore and scrap iron and steel also came from America. From this country came also over eighty per cent of her imported raw cotton. As recently as 1939, fifty-seven per cent of her imported machines and machine tools came from the United States, the remaining forty-three per cent coming from Germany, Britain, and other countries.
  An American embargo, supported by the British and the Dutch East Indies Governments, on all these vital materials, is therefore the most powerful weapon to curb the aggressive and destructive power of Japan.
  I am quite confident that the American people, once fully realizing the wonderful efficacy of this economic weapon, will not lightly relax or abandon it until its enforcement has succeeded in driving home to the Japanese military and the Japanese people the plain lesson that aggression does not pay and war is suicide.
  These, then, are the five factors which go to make up China's power of resistance. We still have the vast space. We still have the unlimited man power. Our historical sense of national unity has gone through a new baptism of fire and blood and has come out of it more solid and more unshakable than ever. Our internal economic and industrial reconstruction in the interior is showing more and better results every month: we are making more arms and producing more goods for export and home consumption. And, on top of all these, the whole international situation has turned more and more in our favor and against the enemy. The political isolation and moral ostracizing of Japan has long been completed by her own action. And the economic encirclement and strangling of Japan is now being completed—again by her own action.
  China has long left her Valley Forge and is now confidently marching on to her final victory at her Yorktown!
  Factors Necessary for a Durable Peace in the Pacific Area: A Chinese View
  Francis J. McConnell et al., A Basis for the Peace to Come.
  New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1942. pp. 115-125.
  Over two years ago, in October, 1939, in a speech before the China Society in America, I said that a just and durable peace in the Far East must fulfill these basic conditions:
  1. It must not result in vindicating any territorial gain or economic advantage acquired by the use of brutal force in open violation of international law and solemnly pledged treaty obligations.
  2. It must satisfy the legitimate demands of the Chinese people for an independent, unified, and strong national state.
  3. It must restore and greatly strengthen the international order for the Pacific area and in the world at large so that orderly international relationships may always prevail and aggressive wars may not recur.
  More than two years have since passed, and the world has radically changed. But I still think that these three fundamental principles sum up the factors necessary for a durable peace in the Pacific area. So I shall present these three points as a basis for discussion and criticism by this distinguished assembly.
  The first point is merely a reaffirmation of the "Stimson doctrine of nonrecognition" which was stated in the United States Government's note to China and Japan on January 7, 1932, as follows:
  The American Governmentdoes not intend to recognize any situation, treaty, or agreement which may be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of the Pact of Paris of August 27, 1928, to which treaty both China and Japan, as well as the United States, are parties.
  This principle of nonrecognition was adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations on March 11, 1932, when it unanimously passed the following resolution proposed by the British Government:
  The Assemblydeclares that it is incumbent upon the members of the League of Nations not to recognize any situation, treaty or agreement which may be brought about by means contrary to the Covenant of the League of Nations or to the Pact of Paris.
  This principle was reaffirmed by the League of Nations on February 24, 1933, when in adopting the Lytton Report it declared that its members "will continue not to recognize this regime [the puppet regime in Manchuria] either de jure or de facto ."
  Since 1933, the same doctrine has been applied to similar situations created by aggressor states in other parts of the world.
  In its specific application to the original dispute in the Far East, this principle means the nonrecognition of the puppet regime in Manchuria. Clearly the same principle should now apply to any situation, treaty, or agreement brought about by means contrary to international law and solemnly pledged treaty obligations. This should include not only the puppet regimes in Manchuria, Peiping, Nanking, and other occupied areas of China, but also any situation, or treaty, or agreement that may be brought about by the aggressors in any other parts of the Pacific area, or in any other parts of the world.
  It is to be noted, however, that the principle of nonrecognition was proclaimed by the American Government and by the League of Nations at a time when the war-weary world was not prepared to take more positive action to curb armed aggression and help its victims to redress the injuries already done to them. Nonrecognition is a negative doctrine with a positive purpose. As Mr. Henry L. Stimson himself has said in his famous letter to the late Senator Borah of February 23, 1932:
  If a similar decision should be reached and a similar position taken by the other governments of the world, a caveat will be placed upon such [aggressive and lawbreaking] action which, we believe, will effectively bar the legality hereafter of any title or right sought to be obtained by pressure or treaty violation, and which, as has been shown by history in the past, will eventually lead to the restoration to China of rights and titles of which she may have been deprived.
  Ten long years have passed and the civilized world is now better prepared to take a more positive stand on this issue of armed aggression and international brigandage. Thus the Atlantic Charter in its second and third articles goes much further than the doctrine of nonrecognition.
  Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.
  Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.
  I willingly and gladly accept these two articles as positive amplifications of my first principle.
  In specific application, this first condition therefore means the complete restoration to Chinese sovereignty and government of all the territories of Manchuria, Jehol, Chahar, Suiyuan, as well as the occupied parts of North, Central, and South China.
  And this also means that, at the peace conference at the end of the war, the wishes of the 22,000,000 people in Korea should be given a fair hearing and just consideration and steps should be taken to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to these people.
  Ⅱ

  The second principle I have proposed—namely, that a durable peace must satisfy the legitimate demands of the Chinese people for an independent, unified, and strong national state—needs no detailed explanation to such a learned assembly.
  "An independent, unified, and strong national state of China" means a sovereign China free from all forms of so-called political and economic "cooperation and collaboration" which her aggressive neighbor has been forcing upon her; free from the remaining legal or extraterritorial restrictions that have survived from the early relations between China and the foreign countries seeking to trade with her; free from domination and control by any foreign power; free, in the words of the Nine-Power Treaty, "to develop and maintain for herself an effective and stable government"; free, in the words of the Atlantic Charter, to choose the form of government under which the people will live.
  To this distinguished assembly, it is unnecessary to defend this thesis except by way of pointing out that the central idea in the traditional Far Eastern policy of the Anglo-Saxon powers throughout the last forty years has always been a desire to see China develop into an independent, unified, modernized, and strong national state as the stabilizing force for the peace and prosperity of the entire Pacific area.
  The American and British statesmen who formulated the "Open Door"policy in China at the turn of the century apparently had a clear conception of the dangers of an international war which was certain to come on the Asiatic continent and in the Pacific area if and when the sovereignty and the territorial and administrative integrity of China could not be preserved. They saw clearly that the principle of equality of economic opportunity was dependent upon the political independence and territorial and administrative integrity of China. They saw clearly that the door of China could be kept open only by an independent, sovereign state of China with a modern government sufficiently stable and effective to protect the rights and interests not only of China herself, but also of all nations having friendly relations with her.
  This fundamental concept seems to have consciously motivated and inspired all successive stages in the development of the "Open Door" policy in China, from the John Hay notes of 1899-1900 down to the Nine-Power Treaty and the other treaties of the Washington Conference of 1921-22. Because a weak, disorganized, and backward China would always be a temptation to the territorial designs of aggressive powers and therefore constitute a constant source of danger to the peace of the Far East, the China policy of the Anglo-Saxon powers has consistently and consciously aimed at the setting up of an international arrangement which should provide to China "the fullest and most unembarrassed opportunity to develop and maintain for herself an effective and stable government."
  Viewed in the light of history, however, this policy has suffered from one fundamental and inherent weakness, namely, that it is essentially, in the words of Mr. Henry L. Stimson, "a covenant of self-denial among the signatory powers in the deliberate renunciation of any policy of aggression" in China. As there is no provision for effective sanctions against possible violations, the whole structure of Far Eastern peace breaks down whenever a strong and selfish power refuses to be bound by this"covenant of self-denial." The history of the last ten years clearly demonstrates that determined and premeditated aggression cannot be checked by voluntary pledges of self-denial and may at any moment break out, wreck the entire peace structure of the Pacific area, and endanger the peace and order of the whole world.
  An independent, unified, modernized, and strong China is therefore an indispensable condition for an enduring peace in the Pacific area. A China strong enough to resist unprovoked aggression and defend her own territory and political independence—such a China can and will serve as the most reliable and effective guarantee of the peace and prosperity of the Far East.
  Such a China will be able to keep her doors open to all nations seeking to trade with her on terms of equality and justice. Such a China will be able to participate fully in carrying out the greater "Open Door" policy proclaimed in the fourth and fifth articles of the Atlantic Charter, namely:
  Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.
  Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic adjustment, and social security.