Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 107 (Color Image)

0107	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. iv.] BLUFF. 81

they are kindly and warm-hearted. But I do

not think they would deny those whom I have

met have openly admitted that politically,

their object is to extend their influence over all

the countries bordering on their Asiatic Empire,

and wherever their influence has been extended

to exclude British trade. The policy of the

open door finds favour with us because we can

beat the Russians in commercial competition.

But the Russians prefer the door closed, with

themselves inside, and us on the outside.

They think that then they have a better chance.

Moreover, in pursuing this policy of absorp-

tion and exclusion, they are not afraid to resort

to bluff of the most audacious kind. Their

advance towards Herat, on to the Pamirs and

to Port Arthur, has in each case been carried

out by pure unmitigated bluff. And to one

who saw them, as I did, scarcely a dozen years

ago, crouching behind the Amur frontier in

scarcely disguised terror lest the Chinese by

land from Manchuria, and ourselves by sea

from Port Hamilton, should quietly close the

pincers and nip off Vladivostok, the audacity of

their coolly asking the Chinese to deliver up

their chief naval base, of their asking us to

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