So long as that government remains, so long must Japan remain an
international suspect and be denied equal rights in the council-
chambers of the Liberal Powers.
If the situation which arose on the 15th August, 1914, is to be
thoroughly understood, it is necessary to pick up threads of
Chino-Japanese relations from a good many years back. First-hand
familiarity with the actors and the scenes of at least three
decades is essential to give the picture the completeness, the
brilliancy of colouring, and withal the suggestiveness inseparable
from all true works of art. For the Chino-Japanese question is
primarily a work of art and not merely a piece of jejune diplomacy
stretched across the years. As the shuttle of Fate has been cast
swiftly backwards and forwards, the threads of these entwining
relations have been woven into patterns involving the whole Far
East, until to-day we have as it were a complete Gobelin tapestry,
magnificent with meaning, replete with action, and full of
scholastic interest.
Let us follow some of the tracery. It has long been the habit to
affirm that the conflict between China and Japan had its origin in
Korea, when Korea was a vassal state acknowledging the suzerainty
of Peking; and that the conflict merited ending there, since of
the two protagonists contending for empire Japan was left in
undisputed mastery. This statement, being incomplete, is
dangerously false.
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