436 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

in the contemporary world."* Japan is but the spear-head
of Asia.

When England, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, and the
U. S. A., all combined together to crush the Boxer Revolt in
China, and imposed on her an indemnity of $330,000,000,
and later remitted most of this indemnity on condition that
it shall be spent on educating the youth of China in the
countries that made the generous gesture, they laid the
foundations of Modern China. The Revolution of 1912,
under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen, the abdication of the
Celestial Manchu Emperor Pfi Yi; and the establishment
of the Chinese Republic were the first fruits of the new
awakening. But the sorrows of China were far from being
ended thereby. Her Tuchuns still continued to divide and dis-
tract the country. Russian communist propaganda, after
1922, added a fresh principle of discord. The dictatorship
of Chang Kai-shek was the ultimate solution that China in
her distress evolved in order to save herself. For now a
greater danger than that of the European Powers was
looming on her Eastern shore, viz., Japan. Sun Yat-sen
had planned to ally China and Japan in their common re-
volt against the West; but Japan discovered in China's
helplessness just the quarry she needed for exploitation under
the spell of her recent developments. During the Great War
she had allied herself with England and pounced upon the
German possessions in China. Then she also pressed upon
China her notorious * Twenty-one Demands' which if con-
ceded would have reduced that country to a Japanese de-
pendency. The Chinese boycott movement and the protests
of the Western Powers saved the situation for the time being.
At the Washington Conference in 1922 the 'open door*

1. The Story of Civilization, II, p. 913,