What did this moderate Young China think about the relation of Japan to itself? I looked him up and asked.
He made it quite clear that the Republic had come to stay. He did not attempt to minimize its difficulties. He did claim, however, that whatever the surface indications, the whole Yangtze Valley, which is the very heart of the country, is committed to the Republic, and is coöperating with it. He gave a hundred indications of how from this great central artery running east and west democratic influences are surely and steadily spreading north and south. He showed how in the northern provinces the progress was slowest, most difficult, because here conservatism was strongest, most corrupt. He pointed out how Old China is concentrating in the Peking government all its cunning, its wisdom, its appeal to the old thing, but he claimed, and unquestionably believed, that Young China was going to be too much for it. He went over the southern provinces and showed how in all of them, except Canton, there was a steadily improving coöperation with the Peking government.
Moderate Young China thinks Canton is wrong in its haste. He does not believe that the people can assimilate the new ideas as rapidly as Canton claims. He believes that its hurry to make over a great country is one of the most dangerous factors in the nation’s present problem. To sustain, guard, and develop the struggling Peking government is his program.
“We are quarreling, to be sure,” moderate Young China said, “but it is _our_ quarrel. We are like brothers who have fallen to beating one another—let a neighbor interfere and both turn on him. China will turn on any nation or nations that attempt to coerce her. She alone can work out her difficulties. She can work out best her disputes with Japan, and if let alone, will do so.”
“Of course,” continued Young China, “Japan must resign control of Shantung, and particularly of the Shantung railroad. Look at the map and you will understand why. If Japan controls the Shantung railroad she can at any moment cut our main rail communication between Peking and Shanghai, destroy the main artery of our circulatory system. She can do more than that. By that control she will be able to cut off the two arteries across the mainland, the Yellow River and the Yangtze. No government in its senses could permit that.
