Far Eastern History

LA QUESTION DEXTREME-ORIENT, 1840-1940. By Pierre Renouvin, Membre de

lInstitut. (Paris: Librairie Hachette. 1946. Pp. 435. 250 fr.)
IN this survey, M. Renouvin presents one of the clearest accounts that has yet
appeared of the relations among the powers during the last century in the Far East
and the Pacific. His narrative traces the European approach to the Far East and notes
the early mid-century beginning of rivalry and suspicion between the Russians,
advancing into Manchuria by land, and the trading powersBritain and the United
Stateswho led the way in the opening of China and Japan, respectively. The
commercial motif is again evident in the early French expansion in Indo-China. After
an analysis of Japans transformation and Chinas stagnation, leading up to the
Chinese crisis of 1894-1901, the book recounts Japans rise to great-power status, her
expansion during World War I, its checking by the peace settlement and resumption
again in China in the 1930s, leading to eventual defeat in World War II.
Within this broad canvas M. Renouvin, with extreme lucidity and compactness, has
been able to summarize the significant developments in Indo-China, Burma, and
Siam, in the Pacific Islands, and within China and Japan, as a background for the
drama of international relations down to 1946.
In the present state of scholarship no volume covering so much of the Far East could
avoid weakness in some respect, and I suggest that this treatment of diplomatic
relations suffers at some points from inadequate attention to the institutional and
social traditions of the Far Eastern peoples. The main reason for this is doubtless that
there are few good studies as yet available linking modern politics to their essential
background in Asiatic institutions and history. Since Japan has been more fully
studied, while areas like Indo-China have been, comparatively, passive under the
Western impact, this weakness in interpretation shows up chiefly in some parts of M.
Renouvins treatment of China. Though it is almost a counsel of perfection to point it
out, his treatment of the Taiping rebellion neglects its fundamental social and
economic background: he states that "Cette crise elle-mme nest sans doute quune
consquence indirecte de la dfaite subie, en 1842, par la dynastie dans la guerre de
lopium, and proceeds to describe the influence of secret societies and of the Taiping
religion, without reference to the extensive work which has been done on the subject
of Chinese peasant revolts, the dynastic cycle, and commercial penetration.
While this is a minor matter of a few pages, I mention it because the same disregard
of the native Chinese tradition seems to me to detract from the authors treatment of
the Chinese Communist problem. In brief, he traces with superb clarity the Russian
expansionist trend in the Far Easton the Amur and the Pacific, in Korea, in
Manchuria in the 1900s and again in the 1920sand recounts also the Comintern
activity in the Chinese Nationalist revolution of the 1920s. Coming down to Russias
reaction to Japanese aggression in China, he then states En fvrier 1937, le Parti
communiste chinois, 'instigation de l'International Communiste, adresse un
appel au Kuomintang; il lui offre une 'collaboration amicale... While I have never
seen the evidence for strong Comintern influence in this decision, it may exist; my
point is that this approach to Chinese Communist policy as a mere reflection of
Russian interests leaves out of account an entirely separate line of development
which stems from the revolutionary process within Chinaa process which in broad

terms began before communism and would have occurred even if communism had
never been invented. Chiang Kai-sheks detention in the Sian incident of December,
1936, in which the Chinese Communists mediated and which has generally been
regarded as the prelude to the united front, was part of this native process, not part
of Russian or Comintern activity in China.
In other words, treatment of Chinas revolutionary processes from the point of view
primarily of great-power politics may lead us into disastrous misconceptions. China
today, for example, in spite of strident American propaganda concerning Russian
influence there, is not alone a Russo-American field of tension; it is also a peculiar
Oriental society with a long and valid revolutionary tradition, remaking itself
according to its own needs and conditions.
In line with this suggestion, the useful bibliographical notes for each chapter could be
improved by the addition of standard works like those of Sansom and E. H. Norman
on Japan, or Latourette and MacNair (China in Revolution) on China, instead of
some of the less thorough works cited.
I raise these minor points only because M. Renouvins high standing in the field of
diplomatic history makes it unnecessary to dilate upon his masterly grasp of the
subject of this book and the great precision and finesse of his presentation of it.
Harvard University

J. K. FAIRBANK