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The fruits of this
period were permanently ceded territories (Hongkong and Macao);
leases temporarily establishing foreign sovereignty in various
districts (Kiao-chou, Weihaiwei, and Kwang-chow); railway and mining
concessions, and the establishment of settlements at open ports where
foreign jurisdiction was supreme. But when, in 1900, the Boxer rising
forced all the powers into a common camp, they awoke to full
appreciation of a principle which had been growing current for the
past two or three years, namely, that concerted action on the lines
of maintaining China's integrity and securing to all alike equality
of opportunity and a similarly open door, was the only feasible
method of preventing the partition of the Chinese empire and averting
a clash of rival interests which might have disastrous results. This,
of course, did not mean that there was to be any abandonment of
special privileges already acquired or any surrender of existing
concessions. The arrangement was not to be retrospective in any
sense. Vested interests were to be strictly guarded until the lapse
of the periods for which they had been granted, or until the maturity
of China's competence to be really autonomous.

A curious situation was thus created. International professions of
respect for China's sovereignty, for the integrity of her empire, and
for the enforcement of the open door and equal opportunity co-existed
with legacies from an entirely different past. Russia endorsed this
new policy, but not unnaturally declined to abate any of the
advantages previously enjoyed by her in Manchuria. Those advantages
were very substantial. They included a twenty-five-year lease--with
provision for renewal--of the Liaotung peninsula, within which area
of 1220 square miles Chinese troops might not penetrate, whereas
Russia would not only exercise full administrative authority, but
also take military and naval action of any kind; they included
the creation of a neutral territory on the immediate north of the
former and still more extensive, which remained under Chinese
administration, and where neither Chinese nor Russian troops might
enter, nor might China, without Russia's consent, cede land, open
trading marts, or grant concessions to any third nationality; and
they included the right to build some sixteen hundred miles of
railway (which China would have the opportunity of purchasing at cost
price in the year 1938, and would be entitled to receive gratis in
1982), as well as the right to hold extensive zones on either side of
the railway, to administer these zones in the fullest sense, and to
work all mines lying along the lines.

Under the Portsmouth treaty these advantages were transferred to
Japan by Russia, the railway, however, being divided so that only the
portion (521.5 miles) to the south of Kwanchengtsz fell to Japan's
share, while the portion (1077 miles) to the north of that place
remained in Russia's hands. China's consent to the above transfers
and assignments was obtained in a treaty signed at Peking on the 22nd
of December, 1905. Thus, Japan came to hold in Manchuria a position
somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, she figured as the champion
of the Chinese empire's integrity and as an exponent of the new
principle of equal opportunity and the open door. On the other, she
appeared as the legatee of many privileges more or less inconsistent
with that principle. But, at the same time, nearly all the great
powers of Europe were similarly circumstanced. In their cases, also,
the same incongruity was observed between the newly professed policy
and the aftermath of the old practice. It was scarcely to be expected
that Japan alone should make a large sacrifice on the altar of a
theory to which no other State thought of yielding any retrospective
obedience whatever. She did, indeed, furnish a clear proof of
deference to the open-door doctrine, for instead of reserving the
railway zones to her own exclusive use, as she was fully entitled to
do, she sought and obtained from China a pledge to open to foreign
trade sixteen places within these zones.

For the rest, however, the inconsistency between the past and the
present, though existing throughout the whole of China, was nowhere
so conspicuous as in the three eastern provinces (Manchuria); not
because there was any real difference of degree, but because
Manchuria had been the scene of the greatest war of modern times;
because that war had been fought by Japan in the cause of the new
policy, and because the principles of the equally open door and of
China's integrity had been the main bases of the Portsmouth treaty,
of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and of the subsequently concluded
ententes with France and Russia. In short, the world's eyes were
fixed on Manchuria and diverted from China proper, so that every act
of Japan was subjected to an exceptionally rigorous scrutiny, and the
nations behaved as though they expected her to live up to a standard
of almost ideal altitude. China's mood, too, greatly complicated the
situation. She had the choice between two moderate and natural
courses; either to wait quietly until the various concessions granted
by her to foreign powers in the evil past should lapse by maturity,
or to qualify herself by earnest reforms and industrious developments
for their earlier recovery. Nominally she adopted the latter course,
but in reality she fell into a mood of much impatience. Under the
name of a "rights-recovery campaign" her people began to protest
vehemently against the continuance of any conditions which impaired
her sovereignty, and as this temper coloured her attitude towards the
various questions which inevitably grew out of the situation in
Manchuria, her relations with Japan became somewhat strained in the
early part of 1909.

JAPAN IN KOREA AFTER THE WAR WITH RUSSIA

Having waged two wars on account of Korea, Japan emerged from the
second conflict with the conviction that the policy of maintaining
the independence of that country must be modified, and that since the
identity of Korean and Japanese interests in the Far East and the
paramount character of Japanese interests in Korea would not permit
Japan to leave Korea to the care of any third power, she must assume
the charge herself. Europe and America also recognized that view of
the situation, and consented to withdraw their legations from Seoul,
thus leaving the control of Korean foreign affairs entirely in the
hands of Japan, who further undertook to assume military direction in
the event of aggression from without or disturbance from within. But
in the matter of internal administration, she continued to limit
herself to advisory supervision. Thus, though a Japanese
resident-general in Seoul, with subordinate residents throughout the
provinces, assumed the functions hitherto discharged by foreign
ministers and consuls, the Korean Government was merely asked to
employ Japanese experts in the position of counsellors, the right to
accept or reject their counsels being left to their employers.

Once again, however, the futility of looking for any real reforms
under this optional system was demonstrated. Japan sent her most
renowned statesman, Prince Ito, to discharge the duties of
resident-general; but even he, in spite of patience and tact, found
that some less optional methods must be resorted to. Hence, on the
24th of July, 1907, a new agreement was signed, by which the
resident-general acquired initiative as well as consultative
competence to enact and enforce laws and ordinances; to appoint and
remove Korean officials, and to place capable Japanese subjects in
the ranks of the administration. That this constituted a heavy blow
to Korea's independence could not be gainsaid. That it was inevitable
seemed to be equally obvious. For there existed in Korea nearly all
the worst abuses of medieval systems. The administration of justice
depended solely on favour or interest. The police contributed by
corruption and incompetence to the insecurity of life and property.
The troops were a body of useless mercenaries. Offices being allotted
by sale, thousands of incapables thronged the ranks of the executive.
The Emperor's Court was crowded by diviners and plotters of all
kinds, male and female. The finances of the Throne and those of the
State were hopelessly confused. There was nothing like an organized
judiciary. A witness was in many cases considered particeps criminis;
torture was commonly employed to obtain evidence, and defendants in
civil cases were placed under arrest. Imprisonment meant death or
permanent disablement for a man of means. Flogging so severe as to
cripple, if not to kill, was a common punishment; every major offence
from robbery upwards was capital, and female criminals were
frequently executed by administering shockingly painful poisons. The
currency was in a state of the utmost confusion. Extreme corruption
and extortion were practised in connexion with taxation. Finally,
while nothing showed that the average Korean lacked the elementary
virtue of patriotism, there had been repeated proofs that the safety
and independence of the empire counted for little with political
intriguers. Japan must step out of Korea altogether or effect drastic
reforms there.

She necessarily chose the latter alternative, and the things which
she accomplished between the beginning of 1906 and the close of 1908
may be briefly described as the elaboration of a proper system of
taxation; the organization of a staff to administer annual budgets;
the re-assessment of taxable property; the floating of public loans
for productive enterprises; the reform of the currency; the
establishment of banks of various kinds, including agricultural and
commercial; the creation of associations for putting bank-notes into
circulation; the introduction of a warehousing system to supply
capital to farmers; the lighting and buoying of the coasts; the
provision of posts, telegraphs, roads, and railways; the erection of
public buildings; the starting of various industrial enterprises
(such as printing, brick making, forestry and coal mining); the
laying out of model farms; the beginning of cotton cultivation; the
building and equipping of an industrial training school; the
inauguration of sanitary works; the opening of hospitals and medical
schools; the organization of an excellent educational system; the
construction of waterworks in several towns; the complete
remodelling of the Central Government; the differentiation of the
Court and the executive, as well as of the administrative and the
judiciary; the formation of an efficient body of police; the
organization of law-courts with a majority of Japanese jurists on the
bench; the enactment of a new penal code, and drastic reforms in the
taxation system.

In the summer of 1907, the resident-general advised the Throne to
disband the standing army as an unserviceable and expensive force.
The measure was, doubtless desirable, but the docility of the troops
had been overrated.