aulty premises
on imperfect or erroneous information, their conclusions were, as
might have been expected, not only inaccurate, but absurdly ludicrous.
There is no "yellow peril," no prospect whatever of it, either present
or remote.

The attitude of China, that vast though heterogeneous nation, is,
since the close of the Russo-Japanese War, I admit, one of the most
intense interest. Some persons may consider that in a book about Japan
any other than a passing reference to China is out of place, and that,
moreover, for me to deal with the attitude of China is to wander into
political regions--a peripatetic proceeding I deprecated in the
Preface. I am of opinion, however, that it is impossible to thoroughly
understand Japan and to appreciate the attitude of that country to the
Western Powers without some remarks respecting the present and
prospective relations of China and Japan. I also think that some
consideration of this bogey of "the yellow peril" is not only out of
place but indispensable in order to form a correct idea of the precise
effect of recent events in the Far East and the possible outcome of
them.

To any person who has closely studied Far Eastern problems the
attitude of China since the close of the war between Japan and Russia
is in no way surprising; the forces that have long been steadily at
work in that ancient Empire are now only attaining any degree of
development. There is nothing, in my opinion, in the history of the
world more dramatic than the way in which China has waited. That
country is now, I believe, about to show that the waiting policy has
been a sound one, and I am confident it will eventually prove
triumphant. In 1900 I expressed in print the opinion that not a single
acre of Japanese soil would ever be permitted to be annexed by a
foreign country; I spoke of the policy of China for the Chinese, and
remarked that that principle and policy had been repeated throughout
the length and breadth of that vast Empire, and had been absorbed, as
it were, into the very marrow of its people. It is in many respects
interesting and curious, indeed almost comical, the manner in which
that lesson has been driven home upon the Chinese. Russia has always
been to them a powerful, persistent, and aggressive neighbour, a more
formidable aggressor, indeed, because perhaps nearer, than any of the
other Powers of Europe, whom I am sorry to say China has always looked
upon very much as the substantial househ