First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895): Japan's Rise Over Qing China

The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Meiji Japan and Qing China from July 1894 to April 1895 over control of Korea. Japan’s modernised army and navy won a rapid series of victories at Pyongyang, at sea off the mouth of the Yalu River, at Port Arthur and at Weihaiwei. The Treaty of Shimonoseki forced China to give up Taiwan and pay a huge indemnity, marking Japan’s emergence as East Asia’s leading power and exposing the weakness of the Qing empire.

Background: the contest for Korea

For centuries the Joseon kingdom of Korea had been a tributary of China, sending envoys to the emperor while governing itself. After the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876, Japan pressed for influence in Korea, while China under the statesman Li Hongzhang tried to strengthen its traditional position. Japanese leaders saw Korea as strategically vital, a potential base for an attack on Japan if held by a hostile power, especially Russia.

Rivalry produced repeated crises. In 1884 a pro-Japanese coup in Seoul, the Gapsin Coup, was crushed by Chinese troops. The Convention of Tianjin of 1885 provided that both China and Japan would withdraw their soldiers and notify each other before sending troops to Korea again.

Both countries had pursued military modernisation. China’s Self-Strengthening Movement had built arsenals and a Beiyang (Northern) Fleet, which included two German-built battleships, the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. Japan, after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, had created a conscript army on German lines and a navy on British lines.

Outbreak of war

In 1894 the Donghak (Tonghak) movement, a religious and peasant rising in southern Korea, defeated government troops. The Korean court asked China for help, and Chinese troops landed in June. Japan, citing the Tianjin convention, sent a larger force to the Seoul area.

Although the rebellion subsided, Japan refused to withdraw and demanded reforms of the Korean government. On 23 July 1894 Japanese troops occupied Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul and installed a government favourable to Japan. On 25 July Japanese warships attacked Chinese vessels off Pungdo Island and sank the Kowshing, a British-owned steamer carrying more than 1,000 Chinese soldiers, most of whom died. Japanese troops defeated the Chinese at Seonghwan on 28-29 July, and both countries formally declared war on 1 August 1894.

Course of the war

On land. Chinese forces concentrated at Pyongyang in northern Korea. On 15 September 1894 Japanese forces under General Nozu Michitsura attacked the city from several directions, and the Chinese garrison withdrew in disorder that night. Japan now controlled Korea.

In October the Japanese First Army under Yamagata Aritomo crossed the Yalu River into Manchuria, while the Second Army under Oyama Iwao landed on the Liaodong Peninsula. It stormed the fortified naval base of Port Arthur (Lushun) on 21 November 1894. Japanese troops then killed large numbers of Chinese soldiers and civilians in the town. Estimates of the dead in the Port Arthur massacre range from hundreds to several thousand, and the reports by Western journalists damaged Japan’s reputation abroad.

At sea. On 17 September 1894 the Beiyang Fleet under Admiral Ding Ruchang met the Japanese Combined Fleet under Admiral Ito Sukeyuki near the mouth of the Yalu River, in the Yellow Sea. In one of the first major battles between modern steam-powered ironclad fleets, faster Japanese cruisers with quick-firing guns circled the Chinese line. China lost five warships, while no Japanese ship was sunk, although the Japanese flagship Matsushima was badly damaged.

The surviving Chinese ships withdrew to the base of Weihaiwei in Shandong. In January 1895 Japanese troops landed and attacked the base from land, while torpedo boats raided the harbour. On 12 February 1895 the remaining fleet surrendered, and Ding Ruchang took his own life.

Peace and the Triple Intervention

China sent Li Hongzhang to Shimonoseki in Japan to negotiate with Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi and Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu. On 24 March 1895 a young Japanese nationalist shot and wounded Li. Embarrassed by the attack, Japan agreed to an armistice. Japanese forces nevertheless occupied the Pescadores (Penghu) Islands in March.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on 17 April 1895. Its main terms were:

• China recognised the “full and complete independence” of Korea, ending the tributary relationship.
• China ceded Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan.
• China paid an indemnity of 200 million Kuping taels of silver.
• China opened four more cities, including Chongqing and Hangzhou, to trade and allowed Japanese factories in its treaty ports.

On 23 April 1895 Russia, Germany and France jointly “advised” Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula, which Russia saw as a threat to its own ambitions in Manchuria. Facing three great powers, Japan agreed, in return for an additional 30 million taels. When Russia itself leased Port Arthur in 1898, Japanese resentment became intense.

In Taiwan, local officials and gentry declared a short-lived Republic of Formosa in May 1895. Japanese forces conquered the island over the following months, against stubborn resistance by Chinese troops, local militias and the Black Flag veteran Liu Yongfu, and ruled it until 1945. Taiwan became Japan’s first major colony and a model for its later empire.

Key people

• Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909): Japanese prime minister during the war and chief negotiator at Shimonoseki.
• Mutsu Munemitsu (1844-1897): Foreign minister who drove Japan’s diplomacy towards war.
• Li Hongzhang (1823-1901): China’s leading statesman, who controlled the Beiyang forces and signed the treaty.
• Ding Ruchang (1836-1895): Commander of the Beiyang Fleet.
• Yamagata Aritomo (1838-1922): Founder of the modern Japanese army and commander of the First Army.

Why Japan won

On paper the two sides looked closer than the result suggests. China had a far larger population, and the Beiyang Fleet’s two battleships were heavier than anything in the Japanese navy. Many Western observers expected a Chinese victory.

Japan’s advantages were organisational. Its army was a national force of conscripts, trained to a common standard, supplied through a general staff and backed by a modern railway and shipping system at home. Its navy had faster ships and quick-firing guns, and its officers had trained intensively for a war in Korean waters.

China, by contrast, fought largely with the regional forces of Li Hongzhang’s northern command. The southern fleets did not join the war, and provincial armies were poorly coordinated. Chinese units were short of ammunition, some shells were defective, and training and morale were uneven. At the Qing court in Beijing, debates between those who wanted to fight and those who wanted to negotiate weakened the conduct of the war.

The war was also the first test of the Meiji state’s reforms. Japanese newspapers, woodblock prints and patriotic songs celebrated each victory, building popular support for the government and for future expansion.

A popular story holds that China lost because the Empress Dowager Cixi spent the navy’s money on the Summer Palace. Naval funds were diverted to rebuild the Summer Palace for Cixi’s use, and naval purchases largely stopped after 1888. Historians stress, however, that divided command, poor training, shortages of shells and corruption mattered at least as much.

The human cost of the war fell heavily on Korea, where much of the fighting took place. Armies requisitioned food, animals and porters, and in late 1894 Japanese and Korean government troops crushed a renewed Donghak rising, most famously at the Battle of Ugeumchi, killing many thousands of peasants. Disease also swept through the armies: cholera and dysentery killed far more Japanese soldiers than Chinese bullets did.

Consequences

The defeat shocked China’s educated elite. Foreign powers rushed to seize leases and spheres of influence in 1897-1898, and reformers led by Kang Youwei won the emperor’s backing for the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, which was crushed by conservatives. The indemnity forced the Qing to borrow heavily abroad.

For Japan, victory brought a first colony, international prestige and money that helped fund industrial and naval expansion. Korea, though nominally independent, became the arena for rivalry between Japan and Russia. The murder of Queen Min by Japanese agents and Korean allies in October 1895 drove King Gojong to seek Russian protection, setting the stage for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1894, spring: The Donghak uprising spreads in southern Korea.
• 1894, 23 July: Japanese troops seize Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul.
• 1894, 25 July: Battle of Pungdo and sinking of the Kowshing.
• 1894, 1 August: China and Japan declare war.
• 1894, 15 September: Battle of Pyongyang.
• 1894, 17 September: Naval Battle of the Yalu River.
• 1894, 21 November: Japan captures Port Arthur.
• 1895, 12 February: The Beiyang Fleet surrenders at Weihaiwei.
• 1895, 17 April: Treaty of Shimonoseki signed.
• 1895, 23 April: Triple Intervention by Russia, Germany and France.

Why it matters

The First Sino-Japanese War overturned the old order in East Asia, in which China had stood at the centre of a system of tributary states. It turned Japan into an imperial power, began the dismemberment of Qing China by foreign powers and made Korea and Manchuria the battleground of the next decade, culminating in the Russo-Japanese War.