[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government 9050
[B]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[29896]
No. 1.
317
RECE
GP 31 AUG 09
[August 9.]
SECTION 3.
(No. 257.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received August 9.)
Peking, July 15, 1909. SOME eight months have passed since the simultaneous deaths of the Emperor and Empress-Dowager placed the Government of China in the hands of the Prince Regent, and although mourning ceremonies have filled a great part of the time, the events which have occurred, although not sufficient to justify any final judgment, have at least furnished indications of the character of the ruler and of the régime which may be expected to last for the next fifteen years.
The Prince Regent entered upon his high office with much in his favour. The Emperor, his brother, had been a ruler merely in name, while the Empress-Dowager, with all her strong qualities had seen nothing of the outer world, had little real sympathy with the innovations and changes which closer contact with the West had forced upon China, and had in her later years laboured under the disadvantage of heing the usurper rather than the recognised holder of sovereign power.
The Regent, a man of about twenty-eight, had mixed freely amongst his fellow men; had seen something of the world outside China; and had experienced in
the person bitter results of reactionary methods. His assumption of power coincided with what might perhaps be regarded as the high watermark of Chinese progress. A year or so before, the Hunan party had been removed from the councils of the empire and their place had been taken by Yuan Shih Kai and his Cantonese foreign-educated protégés, whose services were at last being utilised by the Central Government after some twenty years of studied neglect. Yuan, it is now known, came here by his own desire, in the hope of carrying on at the centre the programme of reforms which he had inaugurated at Tien-tsin. Any hopes which he cherished in this direction must have largely disappeared before his dismissal put an end to them. Yuan's removal from public life, we were assured at the time, would have no effect upon the course of reforms, but the assurance has been falsified by subsequent events. It has marked, so far as can be seen at present, the first retrograde step in the steady deterioration of the administration under the Regency. Tong and others who were associated with Yuan have lost all semblance of influence, and those that remain admit that they hold office without power.
The result has been a decided weakening of the central authority, amounting almost to a paralysis of government in all matters where the provinces are concerned. This is especially noticeable in the Wai-wu Pu, whose inefficiency during the Regency has been so marked as to suggest that it is part of a deliberate policy. Na Tung, who had just returned to the board after a lengthy absence through illness, has been transferred to Tien-tsin with what appears to be almost a cynical disregard for foreign relations, and Prince Ch'ing continues to make his age and frail health a pretext for neglecting the duties assigned to him by the Protocol. The remaining Ministers often admit the justice of the requests which are made by the foreign representatives, but say that they are powerless to give effect to them, and privately suggest that, in order to strengthen their hands in dealing with refractory provinces, means should be found to bring pressure upon Prince Ch'ing or the Regent. This is a state of things which has never before existed, or at least been openly acknowledged, in my experience in China, and if allowed to continue it must inevitably lead to serious trouble.
The tendency to uphold Manchu ascendency in the vicinity of the capital, to which I referred in a previous despatch, has been accentuated by two recent appointments-that of Hsi Liang to the Manchurian viceroyalty, and the transfer of Tuan Fang to the viceroyship at Tien-tsin. The latter post has generally in the past been held by the most prominent Chinese official in the Empire, Tseng Kuofan,
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