Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan

Without the intimate cooperation of Japan at multiple levels and in multiple guises, China could not have broken the iron grip of tradition and embarked upon its road of modernity. Between 1898-1910 japan had great influence on china This time is called the “golden decade” Westerners did not like it Rev. A. P. Parker of Shanghai wrote in his article, A New Japanese Invasion of China": An invasion of ideas instead of one of arms. A propaganda of education instead of one of coercion. A subtle attempt to make a conquest of China by means of mental rather than physical forces. Such is, in brief, the condition of things now rapidly coming to the front in China under the Japanese program, as indicated by their methods of procedure during the past few years Western envy and anxiety are evident in the 1903 article of George Lynch, “Japanization of China.” They are likewise evident in “La Japonization de la Chine” of 1905, by Rene Pinon, which declares, “This new China will be a Japanese China.” Pinon proceeds to explain:

It is under Japanese influence that the [recent] reforms have been decided upon and accomplished. The report of Chang Pao-hsi [Zhang Baixi], President of the University, on "the reorganization of education in the Chinese Empire" ... was directly inspired by the Japanese system . . . and advises that all professors, except teachers of foreign languages, should be chosen in Japan. In fact, in normal schools which have just been founded, all the foreign teachers are subjects of the Mikado.... It would be needless to dwell upon the enormous influence which cannot fail to result from this educational mission of the Japanese.

A secret report of the German consul general in Shanghai expresses similar anxieties:

Along with the development of Japanese commerce and industry which is enough to startle anyone, I wish merely to single out two areas that should alarm us: one, namely, the drive [of Japan] to increase shipping by massive state' funding and to expand trade through protective subsidies; and, two, the eager encouragement of education for Chinese by such agencies as To-A Dobunkai, and the earnest training of their own people for future involvement with China, by the opening of such schools as To-A Dobun Shoin in Shanghai. In order to, counter these, the German government must make available substantial subsidies with all due facility.

Mao