The East: a Survey of the Post-War Years

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IT is one of the commonplaces of the modern world to say that the Unchanging East is on the move. The causes of this movement are well-known and the evidence of it is to be seen in widespread alterations in the physical machinery of life, and even more significantly in a partial revolution in the attitude of Asiatic mankind to their own political and religious traditions. The awakening of nationalism is the most conspicuous, and politically the most troublesome, of all the manifestations of the new insurgent spirit in Asia; but, for the future destiny of the peoples involved, it cannot be regarded as the most significant. Nationalism in the East is the political reaction against Western power, and owes its inspiration to the European nationalist movements of the nineteenth century which flowed from the French Revolution. But since the doctrines of nationalism were only one part, and not the most pregnant, of the message brought from the West to the shores of Asia we must seek the meaning and direction of the whole contemporary Asiatic movement in something wider than a political interpretation. If the effect of the Western impact on the East had been confined to political change, and the social and religious structure of Asiatic society had remained immune, it would be possible, nay, even inevitable, to regard the change itself as superficial. Indeed, as it is, there are Western observers who believe that no fundamental change has taken place, and that it is therefore an error to pursue any policy, either in foreign relations or in trade, based on the assumption that the revolution in the East has achieved anything more than a passing, if violent, storm on the face of the waters, leaving the depths beneath undisturbed...