as a superficial gadgetry, to be acquired at little cost. In
contrast, Japan, confronting a similar crisis, but better at
borrowing and adapting, having borrowed a significant
portion of its culture from China, reacted with ruthless
speed and in the course of a generation transformed itself
into a passable imitation of an advanced Western state. So
much so that when a clash came with China in 1894 it was China
which suffered humiliating defeat. A new predator power had
emerged, and one with its base not thousands of miles away, as
Europeans and Americans, but a next-door
with the
neighbour.
As Li Hongzhang, the great realist and international
"fixer" for the Empress Dowager, prophetically observed as
early as the sixties, "Although the European powers are
strong, they are still seventy thousand li away from us,
whereas Japan is as near as in the courtyard, ΟΙ on the
threshold and is prying into our emptiness and solitude.
Undoubtedly she will become China's permanent and great
anxiety."
With the emergence of Japan the balance of power of the
area changed fundamentally; and the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of
1902 reflected the fact. For Britain its primary object was
to apply a check on Russia, in British eyes the traditional
Asiatic menace. But in China it was naturally seen as an anti-
Chinese alliance, imposing a permanent bias on British
policy; and such a bias was visible for the next forty years,
at first as a result of the treaty and later, when it was not
renewed, as a result of respect for Japanese military
strength. Britain sympathised with China and proclaimed a