To begin with, the population of Japan (approximately 60,000,000) is increasing at the rate of about 800,000 per year. China has no modern vital statistics, but the annual increase of her 400,000,000 population, at the Japanese rate, would be 6,000,000. Now the settled parts of both Japan and China may be considered as fully populated so far as agriculture is concerned, further extensive increases of population being dependent upon the rise of machine industry. Both countries have, however, thinly settled areas within their present political frontiers. Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido (Yezo) has a great amount of good agricultural land as yet almost unoccupied, some of her other island possessions offer minor outlets, while Korea and Manchuria afford extensive colonizing possibilities albeit Chinese and Korean competition preclude a Japanese colonization on the scale which the size and natural wealth of these regions would at first sight seem to indicate. China has even more extensive colonizable areas. Both Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan, though largely desert, contain within their vast areas enough fertile land to support many millions of Chinese peasants as soon as modern roads and railways are built. The Chinese colonization of Manchuria is also proceeding apace, and will continue despite anything Japan may do to keep it down. Lastly, the cold but enormous plateau of Tibet offers considerable possibilities.
Allowing for all this, however, it cannot be said that either China or Japan possess within their present political frontiers territories likely to absorb those prodigious accretions of population which seem destined to occur within the next couple of generations. From the resultant congestion two avenues of escape will naturally present themselves: settlement of other portions of the Far East to-day under white political control, but inhabited by colored populations; and pressure into accessible areas not merely under white political control, but also containing white populations. It is obvious that these are two radically distinct issues, for while a white nation might not unalterably oppose Mongolian immigration into its colored dependencies, it would almost certainly fight to the limit rather than witness the racial swamping of lands settled by its own flesh and blood.
Considering the former issue, then, it would appear that virtually all the peninsulas and archipelagoes lying between China and Australia offer attractive fields for yellow, particularly Chinese, race-expansion. Ethnically they are all colored men’s lands; politically they are all, save Siam, under white control; Britain, France, Holland, and the United States being the titular owners of these extensive territories. So far as the native races are concerned, none of them seem to possess the vitality and economic efficiency needed to maintain themselves against unrestricted Chinese immigration. Whether in the British Straits Settlements and North Borneo, French Indo-China, the Dutch Indies, the American Philippines, or independent Siam, the Chinaman, so far as he has been allowed, has displayed his practical superiority, and in places where, like the Straits Settlements, he has been allowed a free hand, he has virtually supplanted the native stock, reducing the latter to an impotent and vanishing minority. The chief barriers to Chinese race-expansion in these regions are legal hindrances or prohibitions of immigration, and of course such barriers are in their essence artificial and liable to removal under any shift of circumstances. Many observers predict that most of these lands will ultimately become Chinese. Says Alleyne Ireland, a recognized authority on these regions: “There is every reason to suppose that, throughout the tropics, possibly excepting India, the Chinaman, even though he should continue to emigrate in no greater force than hitherto, will gradually supersede all the native races.”[30] Certainly, if this be true, China has here a vast outlet for her surplus population. It has been estimated that the undeveloped portions of the Dutch Indies alone are capable of supporting 100,000,000 people living on the frugal Chinese plane. Their present population is 8,000,000 semi-savages.
China’s possibilities of race-expansion in the colored regions of the Far East are thus excellent. The same cannot be said, however, for Japan. The Japanese, bred in a distinctively temperate, island environment, have not the Chinese adaptability to climatic variation. The Japanese, like the white man, does not thrive in tropic heat, nor does he possess the white man’s ability to resist sub-Arctic cold. Formosa is not in the real tropics, yet Japanese colonists have not done well there. On the other hand, even the far-from-Arctic winters of Hokkaido (part of the Japanese archipelago) seem too chilly for the Japanese taste.
Japan thus does not have the same vital interest as China in the Asiatic tropics. Undoubtedly they would for Japan be valuable colonies of exploitation, just as they to-day are thus valuable for white nations. But they could never furnish outlets for Japan’s excess population, and even commercially Japan would be exposed to increasing Chinese competition, since the Chinaman excels the Japanese in trade as well as in migrant colonization. Japanese lack of climatic adaptability is also the reason why Japan’s present military excursion in eastern Siberia, even if it should develop into permanent occupation, would yield no adequate solution of Japan’s population problem. For the Chinaman, Siberia would do very well. He would breed amazingly there and would fill up the whole country in a remarkably short space of time. But the Japanese peasant, so averse to the winters of Hokkaido, would find the sub-Arctic rigors of Siberia intolerable.
Thus, for Japanese migration, neither the empty spaces of northern or southern Asia will do. The natural outlets lie outside Asia in the United States, Australasia, and the temperate parts of Latin America. But all these outlets are rigorously barred by the white man, who has marked them for his own race-heritage, and nothing but force will break those barriers down.
There lies a danger, not merely to the peace of the Far East, but to the peace of the world. Fired by a fervent patriotism; resolved to make their country a leader among the nations; the Japanese writhe at the constriction of their present race-bounds. Placed on the flank of the Chinese giant whose portentous growth she can accurately forecast, Japan sees herself condemned to ultimate renunciation of her grandiose ambitions unless she can somehow broaden the racial as well as the political basis of her power. In short: Japan must find lands where Japanese can breed by the tens of millions if she is not to be automatically overshadowed in course of time, even assuming that she does not suffocate or blow up from congestion before that time arrives. This is the secret of her aggressive foreign policy, her chronic imperialism, her extravagant dreams of conquest and “world-dominion.”
The longing to hack a path to greatness by the samurai sword lurks ever in the back of Japanese minds. The library of Nippon’s chauvinist literature is large and increasing. A good example of the earlier productions is Satori Kato’s brochure entitled “Mastery of the Pacific,” published in 1909. Herein the author announces confidently: “In the event of war Japan could, as if aided by a magician’s wand, overrun the Pacific with fleets manned by men who have made Nelson their model and transported to the armadas of the Far East the spirit that was victorious at Trafalgar. Whether Japan avows it or not, her persistent aim is to gain the mastery of the Pacific. Although peace seems to prevail over the world at present, no one can tell how soon the nations may be engaged in war. It does not need the English alliance to secure success for Japan. That alliance may be dissolved at any moment, but Japan will suffer no defeat. Her victory will be won by her men, not by armor-plates—things weak by comparison.”[31]
The late war has of course greatly stimulated these bellicose emotions. Viewing their own increased power and the debilitation of the white world, Japanese jingoes glimpse prospects of glorious fishing in troubled waters. The “world-dominion” note is stressed more often than of yore. For instance, in the summer of 1919 the Tokio Hochi, Count Okuma’s organ, prophesied exultantly: “That age in which the Anglo-Japanese alliance was the pivot and American-Japanese co-operation an essential factor of Japanese diplomacy is gone. In future we must not look eastward for friendship but westward. Let the Bolsheviki of Russia be put down and the more peaceful party established in power. In them Japan will find a strong ally. By marching then westward to the Balkans, to Germany, to France, and Italy, the greater part of the world may be brought under our sway. The tyranny of the Anglo-Saxons at the Peace Conference is such that it has angered both gods and men. Some may abjectly follow them in consideration of their petty interests, but things will ultimately settle down as has just been indicated.”[32]
Still