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European nations and the Japanese.  The only thing that has prevented the dismemberment of China has been the jealousy of the great World Powers for each other.  Since the overthrow of the Manchu regime in 1917, political matters in China have gone from bad to worse, so that at the present time, the central government has little or no power.  The country has practically relapsed into a state of feudalism with chiefs, more or less powerful, controlling various parts of the ancient empire.  Although in some cases acknowledging the authority of Peking, they are a law unto themselves.  They maintain their own military establishments, levy their own taxes, and administer things anyway they desire.

5.  This condition came about in the following manner.  The Chinese have never held the military profession in high esteem.  Throughout their history, they have only raised armies and practiced the profession of arms seriously when called upon to resist invasion or to make a conquest.  Throughout their thirty centuries of existence, although menaced on all her frontiers by warlike neighbors, China has been the least militaristic nation on the earth.  Those nations that have conquered her, such as the Mongols and the Manchus, although based on military overlordship, rapidly lost it

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