THE CHINESE PARADOX 353 



court at once childish and devilishly ingenious, the Manchu govern- 

 ment was enabled to reverse al)Solutel3' the relative position occupied 

 by the Treaty Powers and itself, and was in a position to assume antl 

 did assume the attitude of a superior state dealings contemptuously 

 and condescendingly with its feudatories. This anomal}'-, which 

 the Powers Avould better never have endured, so paralyzed the ex- 

 ercise of diplomatic relations that normally subsist between great 

 nations that the position of any envoy in Pekin was always more or 

 less impossible, and any insolence on the part of the Chinese always 

 possible; for, arrogant and ignorant as was the Manchu court, it 

 would never have dared to attempt to Avipe the slate clean had not 

 Chinese officialdom implicitly believed that the Powers, which for 

 40 years had allowed their envoys to be treated in a manner be- 

 neath the dignity of the states they represented, would not interfere 

 were a drastic anti-foreign movement carried to a bloody success all 

 along the line. 



However small Chinese sovereignty was writ at the treaty i)orts, at 

 the capital it not only saved "its face," but by forcing Europe and 

 America meekl \' to accept its own vainglorious fictions as to the world — 

 supremacy of the puppet '" Son of Heaven," gained a prestige far from 

 em[)ty, in which were infinite possibilities of evil. Advantage was 

 taken of the complaisance of the Powers as to what they considered 

 were non-essentials, but which to the Chinese mind were distinct re- 

 nunciations of national rights. The envoy who left his home ca})ital 

 in conscious i)ride that in him was personified the greatness of the 

 country he rei)resented, and that he was the em1)odiment of a high 

 civilization, woke up in Pekin to find that, though he was surrounded 

 by the revolting sights and smells and discomforts of twelfth century 

 barl)arism, by the pervading tyraimy of convenient etiquette he was 

 classed as an inferior person and was obliged to carry on diplomatic 

 relations under such social and ofiicial disabilities as to cripple his 

 usefulness and paralyze his initiative. Amazed, di.sgusted, ami dis- 

 gruntled, "cabined, cril^bed, confined," his only consolation was that 

 all his associates were in the same boat and had got used to it. 



That the present crisis is directly the outcome of tins ])arad()x in 

 international relations, events ])rove. All other causes — religious, eco- 

 nomic, political — are secondary. As the feeling of contempt whicii 

 the position occupied by the envf)ys invited grew, the reactionaries 

 became l)older, and when tliey were sue^u'ssful with tiie <'(>ii}> (Vilut ot 

 18U8 and found that western complaisance endured it, they planned 



