The Problem of China

The Problem of China

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Title: The Problem of China
Author: Bertrand Russell
Release Date: November 3, 2004 [EBook #13940]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PROBLEM OF CHINA
BY
BERTRAND RUSSELL
O.M., F.K.S.
London GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD RUSKIN HOUSE
MUSEUM STREET FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1922 SECOND
IMPRESSION 1966

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY
UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED WOKING AND LONDON

CONTENTS


CHAPTER
FOREWORD I. QUESTIONS II. CHINA BEFORE THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY III. CHINA AND THE WESTERN
POWERS IV. MODERN CHINA V. JAPAN BEFORE THE
RESTORATION VI. MODERN JAPAN VII. JAPAN AND CHINA
BEFORE 1914 VIII. JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR IX.
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE X. PRESENT FORCES AND
TENDENCIES IN THE FAR EAST XI. CHINESE AND WESTERN
CIVILIZATION CONTRASTED XII. THE CHINESE CHARACTER
XIII. HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA XIV. INDUSTRIALISM IN
CHINA XV. THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA APPENDIX INDEX
The Ruler of the Southern Ocean was Shû (Heedless), the Ruler of the
Northern Ocean was Hû (Sudden), and the Ruler of the Centre was
Chaos. Shû and Hû were continually meeting in the land of Chaos, who
treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay
his kindness, and said, "Men all have seven orifices for the purpose of
seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing, while this poor Ruler alone has
not one. Let us try and make them for him." Accordingly they dug one
orifice in him every day; and at the end of seven days Chaos
died.--[_Chuang Tze_, Legge's translation.]

The Problem of China


CHAPTER I

QUESTIONS
A European lately arrived in China, if he is of a receptive and reflective
disposition, finds himself confronted with a number of very puzzling
questions, for many of which the problems of Western Europe will not
have prepared him. Russian problems, it is true, have important
affinities with those of China, but they have also important differences;
moreover they are decidedly less complex. Chinese problems, even if
they affected no one outside China, would be of vast importance, since
the Chinese are estimated to constitute about a quarter of the human
race. In fact, however, all the world will be vitally affected by the
development of Chinese affairs, which may well prove a decisive factor,
for good or evil, during the next two centuries. This makes it important,
to Europe and America almost as much as to Asia, that there should be
an intelligent understanding of the questions raised by China, even if,
as yet, definite answers are difficult to give.
The questions raised by the present condition of China fall naturally
into three groups, economic, political, and cultural. No one of these
groups, however, can be considered in isolation, because each is
intimately bound up with the other two. For my part, I think the cultural
questions are the most important, both for China and for mankind; if
these could be solved, I would accept, with more or less equanimity,
any political or economic system which ministered to that end.
Unfortunately, however, cultural questions have little interest for
practical men, who regard money and power as the proper ends for
nations as for individuals. The helplessness of the artist in a
hard-headed business community has long been a commonplace of
novelists and moralizers, and has made collectors feel virtuous when
they bought up the pictures of painters who had died in penury. China
may be regarded as an artist nation, with the virtues and vices to be
expected of the artist: virtues chiefly useful to others, and vices chiefly
harmful to oneself. Can Chinese virtues be preserved? Or must China,
in order to survive, acquire, instead, the vices which make for success
and cause misery to others only? And if China does copy the model set
by all foreign nations with which she has dealings, what will become of
all of us?

China has an ancient civilization which is now undergoing a very rapid
process of change. The traditional civilization of China had developed
in almost complete independence of Europe, and had merits and
demerits quite different from those of the West. It would be futile to
attempt to strike a balance; whether our present culture is better or
worse, on the whole, than that which seventeenth-century missionaries
found in the Celestial Empire is a question as to which no