The Turning Point of History: Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and its influences

Course: International Relations of the Nineteenth Century (850201) Submitted to: Prof. Dr. Selçuk Esenbel Submitted by: Tianlin Liu Date: April 21st 2014

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 was fought between Qing China and Meiji Japan. Considered as important in the nineteenth century history, the war is a fight over regional dominance in East Asia, rather than simply over control of Korea. Before the war, in the traditional political ecology of Asia, China has been recognized as the only dominant power of the region, so dominant that it even did not recognize the existence of any other country in east Asia with more advanced political system or technology. However, as a result of China’s defeat in 1895, Qing's attempts to modernize its military were announced to be failed, compared with Japan's huge success in Meiji Restoration. In the mean time, as Japan forced its will upon the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which is viewed as humiliating to China, the war marks the leadership of east Asia formally shifted from China to Japan. As one takes a serious look at Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, one may realize that its historical importance is just as much as its complicatedness— over years, historians are debating on reasons why China lost the war, and how the outcome influenced each country. The purpose of this essay is, therefore, to compare and contrast viewpoints of Allen Fung and Benjamin A. Elman’s, in which the former focuses more on the war itself, while the latter emphasize more on its historical context. I would like to discuss first the way that each paper precedes and the major differences in their perspectives. It is a common belief to historians that China lost the War essentially due to its structural problems, referring the incompleteness of the Self-strengthening Reforms in Qing government, as well as the incompetence of its ordinance industry. Whilst this explanation is well accepted, Allen Fung maintains that it is much more interesting and meaningful to reconsider the defeat of China in terms of the  

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war itself. Fung believed that neither “China's dismal performance in 1894”1 nor the “Self-strengthening reforms 2 in the preceding decades failed to bear fruit” 3 , proves China’s deficiency in all areas during the war, thus either way fails to appreciate the true strength of the Chinese military. To explain the defeat of China, according to Allen Fung, it is important to analyze what really happened in the war, mostly the battles on land. On the other side, Benjamin A. Elman identifies that it is significant to trace the war in its period, which enables us to view it as a cluster of related warfare and historical events in a big picture, rather than as merely a war. In his paper, before talking about the war

itself,

Elman

provides

detailed

and

extensive

information

about

the

Self-Strengthening Movement, ranging from the perspectives of movement of foreign affairs, rises of regional arsenals, and the occurrence of translations of Western science. What is more, for Elman, to appreciate the Sino Japanese war, it is important to view it in sight of reforms that happened within Qing government, such as “the rise of the new arsenals, shipyards, technical schools, and translation bureaus”4, as well as to explore how Qing government deals with other wars, for example, Sino-French naval battles of 1884–1885 5 and Taiping Rebellion 6 . The complexity of Sino-Japanese War of

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Fung, A. (1996). “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–

The  Self-­‐Strengthening  Movement  (Chinese:   洋务运动   or   自强运动),  c  1861–1895,  was  a  period  of   institutional  reforms  initiated  during  the  late  Qing  Dynasty  following  a  series  of  military  defeats  and  concessions   to  foreign  powers.   3   Ibid,  p.1009.    

  Elman, B. A. (2004). “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865-1895” Modern Asian Studies, p.284. 4

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The  Sino-­‐French  War  (Chinese:   中法戰争;  pinyin:  Zhōng  fǎ   Zhànzhēng,  French:  Guerre  franco-­‐chinoise,   Vietnamese:  Chiến  tranh  Pháp-­‐Thanh),  also  known  as  the  Tonkin  War  and  Tonquin  War,  was  a  limited  conflict   fought  between  August  1884  and  April  1885  to  decide  whether  France  should  replace  China  in  control  of  Tonkin   (northern  Vietnam).   6   The  Taiping  Rebellion  was  a  massive  civil  war  in  southern  China  from  1850  to  1864,  against  the  ruling   Manchu-­‐led  Qing  Dynasty.  It  was  a  millenarian  movement  led  by  Hong  Xiuquan,  who  announced  that  he  had   received  visions  in  which  he  learned  that  he  was  the  younger  brother  of  Jesus.  At  least  20  million  people  died,   mainly  civilians,  in  one  of  the  deadliest  military  conflicts  in  history.    

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1894-1895 demands researches beyond the confines of anyone battle of specialization or academic discipline. This essay, therefore, ventures to focus on how two studies from different angles complement each other. By comparing their viewpoints towards the situations in the time of pre-war, inter-war and post-war, I will offer an eclectic, and hopefully alternative evaluation of these studies.

Before the war—the preparation of two sides In Fung’s essay, he argues that the war was not a “fair contest” between the two sides. Japan prepared for the war from the early stage of Korean dispute, while China tried to resolve it peacefully from the beginning. Though both Qing China and Meiji Japan sent their troops to Korea, one may see that there is subtle difference between postures of two sides: Qing wanted a simultaneous withdrawal of both Japan and China’s troop as soon as the rebels were suppressed, aiming to avoid further complication in the area; Japan, on the other side, “refused to withdraw its troops unless wholesale reforms of the Korean government were carried out” 7 , expecting to use the opportunity to strengthen its influences within Korea. According to Fung, when the negotiation between Qing China and Meiji Japan came to a deadlock in June 1894, attitudes of two sides toward the Korean dispute were even more diverging. During the Tonghaks Rebellion, Japan sent troops in the name of “protect her legation, trade and nationals”8, but after the rebellion was been suppressed and Tonghaks was no longer a threat, Japan continued to transfer its troops to Korea,                                                                                                                 Fung, A. (1996). “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894– 1895” Modern Asian Studies, 30(04), 1010.   8   Ibid,  p.1010.   7  

 

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despite the “lack of good transportation routes”9 and “facing a rather hostile Korean population”10. However, Qing China, at the same time, was doing the almost opposite. Seeking an international arbitration to settle down the dispute peacefully, Qing government tried to avoid the potential warfare as far as it is possible. Fung also argues that the peace policy of Li Hongzhang11, though seemingly irrational and coward, was for good reasons, with “well aware of the strength of the Japanese, and knew that any war with Japan was going to be a hard-fought one.”12 Different from Fung’s point of view, Elman appreciates the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 in a rather long period, namely, in the last 20 years of the 19th century. He states that “Japanese hostility was apparently aroused by China’s flaunting of its naval superiority”13. What is more, in fact, the “flaunting” strategy is exactly the result of Li Hongzhang’s diplomatic policy, which aimed to “make a propaganda statement by showing Japanese that China’s naval equipment was superior to Japan’s”14. Li’s policy is obviously failed, as documented in the diplomatic controversies raised in the “Nagasaki Incident”15 of 1886 and the “Kobe Incident”16 of 1889. These incidents undoubtedly aroused the hostility of Meiji Japan toward Qing China, and therefore the former strived to find a chance to “reject Chinese claims of                                                                                                                 Ibid,  p.1015.   Ibid,  p.1015.   11   Li  Hongzhang  (also  rendered  in  English  as  Li  Hung  Chang),  GCVO,  (February  15,  1823  –  November  7,  1901)   was  a  politician,  general,  and  diplomat  of  the  late  Qing  Empire.  He  quelled  several  major  rebellions  and  served  in   important  positions  of  the  Imperial  Court,  including  the  premier  viceroyalty  of  Zhili.   12   Fung, A. (1996). “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894– 1895” Modern Asian Studies, 30(04), 1012.   9  

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13  

Elman, B. A. (2004). “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865-1895” Modern Asian Studies, p.318. 14   Ibid,  p.  318   15  

The  Nagasaki  Incident  (長崎事件   Nagasaki  Jiken)  was  a  riot  involving  the  arriving  Qing  Dynasty  Beiyang   Fleet  soldiers.  It  is  also  called  the  Nagasaki―Qing  Navy  Incident  (長崎清国水兵事件).   12  Kobe  Incident  of  1889  was  based  on  Japanese-­‐Chinese  fights  that  became  a  diplomatic  dispute  after  a  Chinese   port  stop  there.    

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extraterritoriality in Japan.”17 In a nutshell, according to Elman, in a long run, it is Qing itself who provoked the war, and Li’s foreign strategy toward Japan was not peaceful at all. In my opinion, the two seemingly different arguments by Fung and Elman, are not completely controversial, and even in a sense, consistent. The strategy of Qing’s bravado was exactly aiming to avoid the war by flaunting its military competence and by intimidating Japan. In fact, this strategy almost works. Just as Elman pointed out, “many Japanese themselves were not overly confident of victory, however. The publicist Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901), warned against overconfidence, for instance, although he agreed with Japan’s just cause in spreading independence and enlightenment to a Korea allegedly subjugated by China.”18 In fact, even after the initial China’s losses, “Japanese Diet members were surprised at the easy victory, and the Meiji emperor was reluctant to begin hostilities”19. The bravado strategy successfully drew attention of Western countries, too. Almost every foreign press predicted an eventual Chinese victory, and the likely military advantage of China over Japan in the eyes of foreigners was exactly the way of China to “seeking the help of the Western powers, Russia and Great Britain in particular”20, which is a notion of Fung. For Qing, the more likely it has the ability to win the war, the stronger the bargaining chip she has in hands.

During the war— military and diplomatic actions of two sides                                                                                                                 17   Elman, B. A. (2004). “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865-1895” Modern Asian Studies, p. 318;   18   19  

Ibid,  p.  319   Ibid,  p.  319  

Fung, A. (1996). “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894– 1895” Modern Asian Studies, 30(04), p.1011.   20  

 

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Both essays state that, adopting the Constitutional Monarchy and westernizing its military forces in the Meiji Restoration, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 is a successful strike of Japan to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the decaying Chinese empire. However, two authors have different explanations on how Japan actually achieved the triumph. Fung refutes the common-accepted statement that China’s defeats in the Sino-Japanese War were due to the failure of the Chinese ordnance industry. He claims that, far from “brave men armed with pitchforks against brave men armed with rifles”21, Chinese troop actually enjoyed a slight advantage in equipment in the early stage of the war. Looking closely into various battles, he concludes that there are three reasons for China’s losses: (1) lack of military training; (2) lack of preparation in the early stage of the war (3) outnumbered, but poor-equipped troops in the later stage of the war. Elman also admits that technology was not the key determinant of the outcome. Focusing on the sea war, he gives specific data of ships on two sides, from which one can see that China indeed had an advantage at sea. Also, according to the data of projectiles firing and smaller guns firing of two sides, it is conspicuous that cowardice was not the decisive factor on Qing’s defeat, too. Alternatively, Elman gives his two reasons for China’s losses: (1) the independent action of China’s four fleets, compared with Japan’s unified navy; (2) the passive and stalled reaction of Qing, compared with the active and quick decision of Meiji Japan. From my own perspective, given the fact that there are a variety of reasons explaining the outcome of the war, the most fundamental one is the structural problem within Qing itself. From hindsight, without a systematic program of drilling and training,                                                                                                                 21  

 

Ibid,  p.1016  

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it is impossible for Qing soldiers to use the weapon effectively; without a structured personnel system, it is impossible to allocate rewards and punishment properly; without a participatory and responsive political system, it is impossible to make quick and reasonable decision in the critical time of war. In fact, the so-called “Self-Strengthening Movement” is a superficial “copy and paste” on western technology, mostly subscribing to military modernization, rather than a social reform from the inside out—which is exactly what Meiji Restoration did.

After the war—how the war influenced two sides The Sino-Japanese War ended on April 17, 1895, with China forced to cede Taiwan, the Liaotung Peninsula and an indemnity of 30 million pounds sterling to Japan. As far as I am concerned, the outcome of the Sino-Japanese War indeed serves as the main turning point of both China’s as well as Japan’s history. For China, the defeat marks China’s political leadership along with its culture influences, suffered from a major setback. Just as Elman wrote in his essay, “The unexpected naval disaster at the hands of Japan had shocked many literati and officials and now led to a new respect for Western studies in literati circles.”22—the defeat in1895 was indeed a catalyst for the constitutional reform in 1898, leading by Kang Youwei23 and Liang Qichao24. And as the reform finally failed, revolutions broke out in 1911.                                                                                                                 22   Elman, B. A. (2004). “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865-1895” Modern Asian Studies, p. 322; 23   Kang Youwei; March 19, 1858 – March 31, 1927), was a Chinese scholar, noted calligrapher and prominent political thinker and reformer of the late Qing dynasty. 24   Liang  Qichao  (February  23,  1873  –  January  19,  1929),  courtesy  name  Zhuoru,  pseudonym  Rengong,  was  a  

Chinese  scholar,  journalist,  philosopher  and  reformist  who  lived  during  the  late  Qing  Dynasty  and  early   Republican  China.  He  inspired  Chinese  scholars  with  his  writings  and  reform  movements.[1]    

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On the other hand, for Japan, the war generated intense self-confidence and accelerated the further Meiji Reformation. After the annexation of Taiwan in 1895, the victory in Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), and the annexation of Korea in 1910, the world was coming to recognize Japan's parity with the Western powers— the dream of universal Japan is finally been achieved, in the name of “departure from Asia for Europe” by Fukuzawa Youkichi25. This short essay obviously does not cover all points of view of two authors, but it does, hopefully, serve to accentuate the major emphasis of both studies. Personally, I inclined to view the war as the long-term consequence of Qing’s failed SelfStrengthening Movement, just as Elman indicated in his essay. Still and all, though, I agree with most of the facts and data of the war that Fung documented, which clarifies some common misunderstanding of the war itself, and helps one appreciate the true strength of Qing’s military in a new and objective view.

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Fukuzawa  Yukichi  (福澤   諭吉?,  January  10,  1835   –   February  3,  1901)  was  a  Japanese  author,   Enlightenment  writer,  teacher,  translator,  entrepreneur  and  journalist  who  founded  Keio-­‐Gijuku  University,  the   newspaper  Jiji-­‐Shinpo  and  the  Institute  for  Study  of  Infectious  Diseases.  He  was  an  early  Japanese  civil  rights   activist  and  liberal  ideologist.  His  ideas  about  government  and  social  institutions  made  a  lasting  impression  on  a   rapidly  changing  Japan  during  the  Meiji  Era.  He  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  founders  of  modern  Japan.  He  is  called  a   Japanese  Voltaire.    

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Bibliography: [1] Fung, A. (1996). “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895.” Modern Asian Studies, 30(04), 1007-1031. [2]Elman, B. A. (2004). “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865-1895.” Modern Asian Studies, 283-326. [3]Leibo, S. A. (1985). “Transferring Technology to China: Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement.” Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies. [4]Kheng, Y. K. (1987). “A Study of the Malaysian Chinese Economic Self-Strengthening (Corporatisation) Movement—With Special Reference to MPHB, Other Communal Investment Companies and Cooperatives.” M. Ec. diss., University of Malaya. [5]Paine, S. C. (2005). “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: perceptions, power, and primacy.” Cambridge University Press. [6]Malozemoff, A. (1977). “Russian Far Eastern policy, 1881-1904: with special emphasis on the causes of the Russo-Japanese War (pp. 41-43).” Octagon Books. [7]Jansen, M. B., & Ryoma, S. (1961). “The Meiji Restoration.” The Cambridge History of Japan, 5, 338. [8] Wilson, G. M. (1983). “Plots and motives in Japan's Meiji Restoration.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 25(03), 407-427. [9] “Fukuzawa Yukichi.” In Wikipedia. Last modified 12th April, 2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukuzawa_Yukichi

 

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