In studying the background of Japan's expansionist policy it is necessary to take into account the part played by Yoshida Shōin, one of the most picturesque and colorful personalities in modern Japanese history. Yoshida was one of the outstanding figures of the movement which in 1868 overthrew the Shogunate and restored the Imperial authority. “If we are going to speak of the Restoration,” Mr. Iichiro Tokutomi points out in his biographical study, “we must necessarily speak of Yoshida Shōin. Just as a mother may die in giving birth to her child, but the child lives and grows to manhood, so we may say he was the mother and child of the Restoration.”

Until a century ago, China's foreign relations were suzerain-vassal relations conducted through the ancient forms of the tributary system. This traditional Chinese basis for diplomacy was finally turned upside down by the “unequal” treaties of the period 1842–1858, but vestiges of the old Chinese way of dealing with the barbarians survived much longer and today still form a considerable though latent portion of the heritage of Chinese diplomats. It is of course a truism that tribute was not exactly what it seemed, and that both diplomacy and international trade were conducted within the tributary framework. The following essay offers a preliminary interpretation of the origin, function, and significance of this great Chinese institution.

Is the immaturity of Western social and political sciences one of the factors responsible for China's fortunes during the past generation and a half? Is this condition thus responsible in part for the unrealized dreams of various “modern intellectuals” for immediate representative government in China? Or, to reverse the approach so as to look toward the future, do China's misfortunes and do the thwarted schemes of various Chinese intellectuals, imply the need of certain developments in social and political science? Might such developments in turn permit the social and political sciences to be of greater use in China's further ventures and experiments in the direction of political democracy?—These questions, both practical and theoretical, both retrospective and predictive, call for consideration together.

The foreign policy of Japan known as the Tōa shin chitsujo or New Order in East Asia was officially announced by Prince Konoye on November 3, 1938, the birthday of Emperor Meiji. Further statements were issued by Foreign Minister Hachirō Arita to correspondents of foreign newspapers on December 19, 1938 and by the premier to the nation, three days later. When the fall of the Netherlands and France in May and June 1940 pointed to the complete collapse of European colonial empires in Asia and offered opportunity for the expansion of Japanese hegemony, the cabinet of Prince Konoye, on August 1, 1940, issued a restatement of the policy under the name of the New Order in Greater East Asia or Dai Tōa shin chitsuj. The Greater East Asia included not only Japan, Manchukuo and China, but also Indo-China and Thailand or Siam, and possibly the Dutch East Indies and the South Seas.

Abbé huc's Travels in Tartary, Tibet and China, during the years 1844–5–6, has long since become one of the world's great travel classics. For some decades after its publication, however, it was read with the utmost scepticism. Foremost among the sceptics, and the book's chief detractor, was the Russian explorer, Prjevalsky, whose vindictive attempts to disprove Huc's statements caused many people to doubt that he and Father Gabet had ever entered Tibet. It was some forty years after the book first appeared before Huc found a champion in the American traveller, W. W. Rockhill, who in writing of his own expeditions, quoted the Abbé frequently, and stated his faith in the earlier traveller's observations. Shortly after this, Henri, Due d'Orleans, wrote a book protesting the widespread lack of belief in Huc's narrative. Refuting Prjevalsky's major charges point by point, he made it clear that the Russian's motive for casting slurs on the Frenchmen was largely due to his jealousy at their having gone so far into the interior, where he himself had been unable to go. Finally, in 1900, Henri Cordier published some diplomatic correspondence between Ch'i-ying, the governor-general at Canton, and the French consul, M. de Bécour, which discussed the expulsion of the two Lazarist fathers from Lhasa, leaving no doubt that they had been there.

The colonialism of Richelieu first brought the French to the Indo-Malayan peninsula in the seventeenth century. Ayuthia, which was then the capital of Siam, was the chief entrepôt of the area and as such naturally attracted the French. But their efforts to establish diplomatic and commercial relations were terminated abruptly by two revolutions half a world apart. In Siam the Revolution of 1688 placed an antiforeign king on the throne. In England the Revolution of 1688 established William of Orange, implacable enemy of Louis XIV, as king of England. The former event dislodged the French from the favorable position they had won in Siam. The latter was the signal for the outbreak of general war in Europe, which so engaged French attention that the venture in Siam was forgotten.

Some months ago it was suggested that the FAR EASTERN QUARTERLY might render a real service to that part of the reading public interested in Eastern Asia by running a lengthy review article of the ten outstanding popular and semi-popular books of the year relating to the Far East. As the managing editors approved of the idea, a select list of books published in America during 1941 that seemed to fall into that category was drawn up. This list was submitted to the Board of Editors of the QUARTERLY and a number of other students of the Far East with a request that they select from that list or from their own reading in the field their list of the ten best books.

Students of the cultures of Eastern Asia are apt to accuse specialists in European and American history of culpable ignorance in regard to that vast portion of the human race which inhabits the Asiatic continent. Their accusations are reasonably well founded. An expert in the history of the Renaissance would be properly scandalized if one of the local experts in Far Eastern history (if there are any) should profess ignorance of Savanarola, but he may feel no decent embarrassment at his own inability to place the Han dynasty within a thousand years of its proper dates.

One of the basic aims of American foreign policy has been to maintain the right of all countries to trade with China on an equal basis. The first formal declaration of this aim came with the sending of the Open Door notes in September, 1899. The origin of these notes has received much attention from historians in recent years, and certain aspects of their origin, particularly the part played by W. W. Rockhill and the Englishman, Alfred Hippisley, have become very well known. At least one aspect, however, has been entirely overlooked: namely, that special business interests in the United States were concerned over the possible loss of the Chinese market; were eager to have the government take just the sort of action which it did take; and were active in bringing pressure to bear on the government. It is the thesis of this article that they were partly responsible for the sending of the notes and, consequently, for America's Open Door policy.

This bibliography is designed to guide the reading of instructors, students, and general readers interested in gaining an understanding of the backgrounds of the present war in the Pacific and the Far East and the problems of peace which will confront the post-war world in that area. It lists 169 of the better and more general introductory books relating to the area. There are 7 5 starred items, 25 of which are double-starred, for the guidance of librarians of institutions with more limited means seeking to build up basic collections of books on the Pacific area. No periodical articles have been included in the list, but a list of the leading periodicals in the field has been given at the end. The Far Eastern Quarterly carries in each issue a classified list of currently appearing articles and books in the field.

The opening paragraph in Mr. Campbell's excellent article on “American business interests and the Open Door in China, “published in the preceding number of the Quarterly, might leave the casual reader with the impression that the principle of the Open Door in China was no older than the year 1899. Actually, as has been pointed out by numerous authors, the principle of equality of opportunity for all nations in China, which constitutes the meaning of the Open Door in its broadest sense, goes back at least to the most-favored-nation clauses in the supplementary British treaty of 1843 and the American treaty of 1844.

In the fall of 1925, representatives of the powers which had attended the Washington Conference met in Peking for the long-delayed discussion of China's claim to tariff autonomy. Germany was not one of this group and received no special invitation; however, the Germans hoped that they would be allowed to participate, especially since in European affairs they had been given a place of equality in the October Locarno Conference. Consequently, as a step in this direction, Berlin readily accepted an invitation from the United States to adhere to the Nine-Power Treaty of the Washington Conference. To the surprise of both countries, China took offense. This episode, which passed almost unnoticed behind the scenes of the Tariff Conference, revealed Germany and the United States pursuing somewhat similar policies against which the Chinese foreign minister protested. It disclosed Chinese suspicion and distrust, not only of their policies, but of the Nine-Power Treaty as well.

The most serious threat to the Dutch monopoly of Japanese trade came from the English during the wars of Napoleon. As early as 1794 Holland was overrun by French forces, and French propaganda transformed the Dutch East Indies into a Batavian Republic allied to France. Grave complications immediately arose with Great Britain who was at war with France. The situation became even more acute when in 1801 Napoleon gave to Holland a new constitution and demanded a more enthusiastic cooperation with his policies.

During the winter of 1867–1868 the Chinese Foreign Office dispatched its first diplomatic mission to the United States and Europe. The stipulated time for treaty revision was drawing near and the Chinese government had reason to expect that the Treaty Powers, under pressure from their merchants doing business in China, would demand a considerable expansion of the privileges which they had forced the Chinese to grant them on previous occasions. Fearful of the internal effects of a great extension of foreign influence and activity, the Foreign Office decided to send a special embassy directly to the governments of the various Treaty Powers to plead for patience and forbearance.

Perhaps no other area of comparable size presents such geographical, racial, climatic, political, linguistic and economic complexities as are found in Southeast Asia. This region may be delimited roughly as a parallelogram extending southeastward from the Burma-Assam-Sikang frontier through Burma, Thailand, and Indochina and including part of Yunnan and all of the Malay peninsula with the adjacent islands. Those who prefer their geography in circles may think of Southeast Asia as the mainland and peripheral islands embraced within a circle having Bangkok as a focus with a radius of 1000 miles; i.e. from Singapore to Fort Hertz and from Brunei to Chitta-gong.

The decade between 1870 and 1880 was a significant one in the history of the development of modern China. At the beginning of this period the internal disturbances caused by the great T'ai-p'ing rebellion had subsided. Under the stress and strain of the rebellion Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang emerged as the two most powerful provincial officials in the Chinese mandarinate. Both men were forward-looking and fully realized that the sheer necessities of national existence required the Chinese to replace their traditional disdain for the “barbarian” West with a desire to seek out and learn the secrets of the strength of the Western nations. Both of these great Chinese officials, however, conceived of this strength in the narrow sense of military and naval prowess. Their primary concern, therefore, was to learn from the West the technical knowledge upon which western military and naval power rested, in order that China might create an army and navy as a protection against the aggressive tendencies of the Occidental nations.

Whenever the writer has asked anyone within the Soviet Union as to the functions of geography, the answer has invariably been “to develop the productive resources of the state.” Geography has proceeded along the lines of Marxian theory with especial emphasis on economic problems. Thus dozens of geographers are employed in the planning commissions of the U.S.S.R. and the constituent republics. Not only should these plans be in harmony with the natural environment, they are also the geographer's instrument for periodically changing this environment. Elsewhere the emphasis is equally on the political-economic side, with especial interest in people and their welfare, working conditions, and past relations to economic feudalism and imperialism. Those aspects of geography which deal with mere description, or with fields such as geomorphology or human ecology, are regarded as intellectual luxuries which must be postponed until some future date.

It may be interesting to learn that even before the end of the Ming dynasty, numbers of Chinese had already arrived in Mexico. On June 22, 1635, the municipal council (cabildo) of Mexico City studied a petition which had been submitted to the viceroy by the Spanish barbers in the capital. The latter protested against the “excesses” and “inconveniences” to the “Republic” resulting from the practises of Chinese barbers. The viceroy passed along the complaint and asked for the advice of the city government.