s
_China Awakened_ (Macmillan, 1922) chap, ix., "The Student Movement."]

[Footnote 83: "Soviet Russia has addressed to the Powers a protest
against the discussion at the Washington Conference of the East China
Railway, a question exclusively affecting China and Russia, and declares
that it reserves for itself full liberty of action in order to compel
due deference to the rights of the Russian labouring masses and to make
demands consistent with those rights" (_Daily Herald_, December 22,
1921). This is the new-style imperialism. It was not the "Russian
labouring masses," but the Chinese coolies, who built the railway. What
Russia contributed was capital, but one is surprised to find the
Bolsheviks considering that this confers rights upon themselves as heirs
of the capitalists.]

CHAPTER IX

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

The Washington Conference, and the simultaneous conference, at
Washington, between the Chinese and Japanese, have somewhat modified the
Far Eastern situation. The general aspects of the new situation will be
dealt with in the next chapter; for the present it is the actual
decisions arrived at in Washington that concern us, as well as their
effect upon the Japanese position in Siberia.

In the first place, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance has apparently been
brought to an end, as a result of the conclusion of the Four Power Pact
between America, Great Britain, France and Japan. Within this general
alliance of the exploiting Powers, there is a subordinate grouping of
America and Great Britain against France and Japan, the former standing
for international capitalism, the latter for national capitalism. The
situation is not yet plain, because England and America disagree as
regards Russia, and because America is not yet prepared to take part in
the reconstruction of Europe; but in the Far East, at any rate, we seem
to have decided to seek the friendship of America rather than of Japan.
It may perhaps be hoped that this will make our Chinese policy more
liberal than it has been. We have announced the restoration of
Wei-hai-wei--a piece of generosity which would have been more impressive
but for two facts: first, that Wei-hai-wei is completely useless to us,
and secondly, that the lease had only two more years to run. By the
terms of the lease, in fact, it should have been restored as soon as
Russia lost Port Arthur, however many years it still had to run at that
date.

One very important result of