Yet it is not, perhaps, too much to say that but for
the presence of an ever-increasing number of Chris-
tian missionaries in China during her rule, Her
Imperial Majesty Tze-hi might have remained a mere
name to the Western world. Certainly the West
would not otherwise have come to look upon her as
the great influence, for good or for evil, that she
is admitted to have been. The European penetration

75



-jS GREAT EMPRESS DOWAGER OF CHINA

of China has almost invariably proceeded on the same
lines. The missionary is the pioneer, the trader and
the gunboat follow him, and the last step is the estab-
lishment of a " settlement " or " concession," or in
some cases the outright annexation of a port and its
" hinterland." To the solution of the problem how
to deal with aggression conducted in this manner,
the subtlest minds of the Celestial Empire were
compelled to devote their attention. The Manchu
Empress Dowager, therefore, and her greatest
Chinese henchman, Li Hung-chang, giving their
consideration to the matter, learnt by experience that
honesty was impossible, and that the only policy was
what Li himself called "the policy of the weak"^ —
to yield when forced to, and in the meanwhile to
postpone the evil day by playing upon the mutual
jealousies of the ever insatiable Barbarians, who
looked on China as their prey, whether for religious,
commercial, or political purposes. So now at this
point in the Empress's story, when we are about
to see China make a sincere attempt to grapple with
the missionary difficulty, we may pause to look at the
prominent aspects of the question which, above all
others, has brought China into conflict with the
world.
