 One can see the author's point of view in that the featured Westerner characters tend to be sympathetic, whereas unsympathetic Western characters or influences are merely mentioned or alluded to.However, Westerners are depicted only sporadically in the book, and by the middle of the book they have all evacuated the city, having flown to the gunboats on the Yangtze to avoid the general chaos of the warring Tuchuns.The main character has a rather Western taste for progress and invention.