The First Sino-Japanese War
Japan's modernised army and navy crush Qing China in a war over Korea, taking Taiwan and announcing Japan as Asia's new power.
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- The Making of Modern Japan — Marius B. Jansen, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2000)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 — Peter Duus, University of California Press (1995)
The war began over Korea, a Qing tributary that both China and Japan wanted to control. When a rebellion broke out there in 1894, both sent troops, and fighting started in July. Japan’s modern conscript army and navy won on land at Pyongyang and at sea at the Yalu in September, then took Port Arthur and the naval base at Weihaiwei.
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- The Making of Modern Japan — Marius B. Jansen, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2000)
Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 1895), China recognised Korea’s “independence”, ceded Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaodong peninsula to Japan, and agreed to pay an indemnity of 200 million taels of silver. Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to hand back Liaodong, an intervention many Japanese resented.
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
Japan ruled Taiwan for fifty years and annexed Korea in 1910. In China the defeat discredited the Qing’s cautious “self-strengthening” and pushed reformers and revolutionaries toward more radical change.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 — Peter Duus, University of California Press (1995)
A war of aggression that stripped China of Taiwan and its influence in Korea and imposed a crushing indemnity, and a humiliating sign of how far the Qing had fallen behind.
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
Many Japanese, including Fukuzawa Yukichi, hailed it as a war of "civilisation against barbarism" that freed Korea from Chinese dominance and showed that Japan stood with the modern powers. Later Japanese historians have been more critical of the expansion it launched.
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy — S. C. M. Paine, Cambridge University Press (2003)
- The Making of Modern Japan — Marius B. Jansen, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2000)
A war between two outside powers over Korea's fate, fought after the Joseon court asked for Qing help against its own rebelling peasants. Japan's victory brought "independence" from China in name only, and the murder of Queen Min by Japanese agents in 1895 showed what was to come.
- A Concise History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present — Michael J. Seth, Rowman & Littlefield (2016)
- Korea Old and New: A History — Carter J. Eckert, Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson and Edward W. Wagner, Ilchokak / Korea Institute, Harvard University (1990)
Why it matters today
Defeat by Japan, a country China had long seen as a cultural pupil, was a deeper shock than defeat by the West. The loss of Taiwan in 1895 is the starting point for the modern Taiwan question, and the war is remembered as part of the century of humiliation.
For Japan, victory proved that the Meiji reforms had worked and started its empire, beginning with Taiwan. For many Japanese it is a distant episode; for neighbours it is where Japanese expansion began, which is one reason the two countries remember the twentieth century so differently.
The war was fought over Korea and largely on Korean soil, sparked by the Donghak peasant uprising. For Koreans it is the classic case of the "shrimp among whales": the end of centuries of tribute to China, but only so that Japan could take its place, a step on the road to annexation in 1910.