The Chinese government sent Li Hung-chang, viceroy of Pechili and senior grand secretary of state, and Li Ching-fong, to discuss terms of peace with Japan, the latter being represented by Marquis (afterwards Prince) Itō and Conclusion of Peace. Count Mutsu, prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, respectively. A treaty was signed at Shimonoseki on the 17th of April 1895, and subsequently ratified by the sovereigns of the two empires. It declared the absolute independence of Korea; ceded to Japan the part of Manchuria lying south of a line drawn from the mouth of the river Anping to the mouth of the Liao, through Feng-hwang, Hai-cheng and Ying-tse-kow, as well as the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores; pledged China to pay an indemnity of 200,000,000 taels; provided for the occupation of Wei-hai-wei by Japan pending payment of the indemnity; secured some additional commercial privileges, such as the opening of four new places to foreign trade and the right of foreigners to engage in manufacturing enterprises in China, and provided for the conclusion of a treaty of commerce and amity between the two empires, based on the lines of China’s treaties with Occidental powers.
No sooner was this agreement ratified than Russia, Germany and France presented a joint note to the Tōkyō government, recommending that the territories ceded to Japan on the mainland of China should not be permanently Foreign Interference. occupied, as such a proceeding would be detrimental to peace. The recommendation was couched in the usual terms of diplomatic courtesy, but everything indicated that its signatories were prepared to enforce their advice by an appeal to arms. Japan found herself compelled to comply. Exhausted by the Chinese campaign, which had drained her treasury, consumed her supplies of warlike material, and kept her squadrons constantly at sea for eight months, she had no residue of strength to oppose such a coalition. Her resolve was quickly taken. The day that saw the publication of the ratified treaty saw also the issue of an Imperial rescript in which the mikado, avowing his unalterable devotion to the cause of peace, and recognizing that the counsel offered by the European states was prompted by the same sentiment, “yielded to the dictates of magnanimity, and accepted the advice of the three Powers.” The Japanese people were shocked by this incident. They could understand the motives influencing Russia and France, for it was evidently natural that the former should desire to exclude warlike and progressive people like the Japanese from territories contiguous to her borders, and it was also natural that France should remain true to her alliance with Russia. But Germany, wholly uninterested in the ownership of Manchuria, and by profession a warm friend of Japan, seemed to have joined in robbing the latter of the fruits of her victory simply for the sake of establishing some shadowy title to Russia’s goodwill. It was not known until a later period that the German emperor entertained profound apprehensions about the “yellow peril,” an irruption of Oriental hordes into the Occident, and held it a sacred duty to prevent Japan from gaining a position which might enable her to construct an immense military machine out of the countless millions of China.
Japan’s third expedition over-sea in the Meiji era had its origin in causes which belong to the history of China (q.v.). In the second half of 1900 an anti-foreign and anti-dynastic rebellion, breaking out in Shantung, spread Chinese Crisis of 1900. to the metropolitan province of Pechili, and resulted in a situation of extreme peril for the foreign communities of Tientsin and Peking. It was impossible for any European power, or for the United States, to organize sufficiently prompt measures of relief. Thus the eyes of the world turned to Japan, whose proximity to the scene of disturbance rendered intervention comparatively easy for her. But Japan hesitated. Knowing now with what suspicion and distrust the development of her resources and the growth of her military strength were regarded by some European peoples, and aware that she had been admitted to the comity of Western nations on sufferance, she shrank, on the one hand, from seeming to grasp at an opportunity for armed display, and, on the other, from the solecism of obtrusiveness in the society of strangers. Not until Europe and America made it quite plain that they needed and desired her aid did she send a division (21,000) men to Pechili. Her troops played a fine part in the subsequent expedition for the relief of Peking, which had to be approached in midsummer under very trying conditions. Fighting side by side with European and American soldiers, and under the eyes of competent military critics, the Japanese acquitted themselves in such a manner as to establish a high military reputation. Further, after the relief of Peking they withdrew a moiety of their forces, and that step, as well as their unequivocal co-operation with Western powers in the subsequent negotiations, helped to show the injustice of the suspicions with which they had been regarded.
From the time (1895) when Russia, with the co-operation of Germany and France, dictated to Japan a cardinal alteration of the Shimonoseki treaty, Japanese statesmen seem to have concluded that their country must one day War with Russia. cross swords with the great northern power. Not a few European and American publicists shared that view. But the vast majority, arguing that the little Eastern empire would never invite annihilation by such an encounter, believed that sufficient forbearance to avert serious trouble would always be forthcoming on Japan’s side. Yet when the geographical and historical situation was carefully considered, little hope of an ultimately peaceful settlement presented itself.
Japan along its western shore, Korea along its southern and eastern, and Russia along the eastern coast of its maritime province, are washed by the Sea of Japan. The communications between the sea and the Pacific Ocean are practically two only. One is on the north-east, namely, Tsugaru Strait; the other is on the south, namely, the channel between the extremity of the Korean peninsula and the Japanese island of the nine provinces. Tsugaru Strait is entirely under Japan’s control. It is between her main island and her island of Yezo, and in case of need she can close it with mines. The channel between the southern extremity of Korea and Japan has a width of 102 m. and would therefore be a fine open sea-way were it free from islands. But almost mid-way in this channel lie the twin islands of Tsushima, and the space of 56 m. that separates them from Japan is narrowed by another island, Iki. Tsushima and Iki belong to the Japanese empire. The former has some exceptionally good harbours, constituting a naval base from which the channel on either side could easily be sealed. Thus the avenues from the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan are controlled by the Japanese empire. In other words, access to the Pacific from Korea’s eastern and southern coasts and access to the Pacific from Russia’s maritime province depend upon Japan’s goodwill. So far as Korea was concerned this question mattered little, it being her fate to depend upon the goodwill of Japan in affairs of much greater importance. But with Russia the case was different. Vladivostok, which until recent times was her principal port in the Far East, lies at the southern extremity of the maritime province; that is to say, on the north-western shore of the Japan Sea. It was therefore necessary for Russia that freedom of passage by the Tsushima channel should be secured, and to secure it one of two things was essential, namely, either that she herself should possess a fortified port on the Korean side, or that Japan should be bound neither to acquire such a port nor to impose any restriction upon the navigation of the strait. To put the matter briefly, Russia must either acquire a strong foothold for herself in southern Korea, or contrive that Japan should not acquire one. There was here a strong inducement for Russian aggression in Korea.
Russia’s eastward movement through Asia has been strikingly illustrative of her strong craving for free access to southern seas and of the impediments she had experienced in gratifying that wish. An irresistible impulse had driven her oceanward. Checked again and again in her attempts to reach the Mediterranean, she set out on a five-thousand-miles march of conquest right across the vast Asiatic continent towards the Pacific. Eastward of Lake Baikal she found her line of least resistance along the Amur, and when, owing to the restless perseverance
