The precept was not lost upon other European nations. England, Germany, and France also established spheres of influence in China after forcing the government to lease territory or grant special privileges. And Russia added to former gains by a 25-year lease of the Liaotung Peninsula.
China’s Boxer Rebellion of 1900 interrupted the march of events, but two treaties in 1902 indicated that Japan and Russia would soon be at each other’s throats. Japan acquired an ally in England, as a result of that nation’s alarms over Muscovite designs, so that the neutrality of European powers was practically assured. Russia and China drew closer meanwhile with a new treaty of alliance. The stage was set for a fight to the finish in the Far East.
Possession of the Philippine Islands had given the United States a new interest in Far Eastern affairs since the Spanish-American War of 1898. John Hay, Secretary of State, realized that the American “open door” policy was imperiled by the situation in Asia.[3] But he admitted in April 1903 that nothing short of the threat of armed force could have checked Russia’s encroachments.
[3] Pauline Tompkins, _American-Russian Relations in the Far East_ (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 21.
A candid comparison would reveal a striking similarity between the aggressions of Czarist Russia in the early 1900’s and those of Soviet Russia half a century later. The expression “cold war” was not current in 1903, but the account of Russia’s threats, seizures and violated agreements has a dismally familiar aspect to the modern reader. Rudyard Kipling paid a bitter tribute at the turn of the century to these techniques of the Russian Bear in his lines:
When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near; When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise, When he veils the hate and cunning of his little swinish eyes; When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer, That is the time of peril--the time of the Truce of the Bear!
Following the Sino-Japanese War, the truce between Russia and Japan in “independent” Korea was broken by both nations whenever a favorable opportunity arose. Both of them intrigued constantly at Seoul. For a time, indeed, the Korean government was directed from the Russian legation with the backing of Russian troops.