Treaty of Shimonoseki

The Treaty of Shimonoseki (Japanese: 下関条約, "Shimonoseki Jōyaku"), known as the Treaty of Maguan () in China, was signed at the Shunpanrō hall on April 17, 1895 between the Empire of Japan and the Qing Empire, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. The peace conference took place from March 20 to April 17 1895.

Treaty terms

The treaty ended the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 as a clear victory for Japan. In this treaty, China recognized the independence of Korea and renounced any claims to that country. It also ceded the Liaodong peninsula (then known to the Western Press as Liaotung — the southern portion of Fengtian, now part of modern Liaoning province), the islands of Taiwan (Formosa) and the Pescadores to Japan. China also paid Japan a war indemnity of 200 million Kuping taels, and opened various ports and rivers to international entry and trade.

Signatories and diplomats

The treaty was drafted with John A. Foster, former American Secretary of State, advising the Qing Dynasty. It was signed by Count Ito Hirobumi and Viscount Mutsu Munemitsu for the Emperor of Japan and Li Hung-Chang and Li Ching-Fong on behalf of the Emperor of China. Before the treaty was signed, Li Hung-chang was attacked by a right-wing Japanese extremist on March 24: he was fired at and wounded on his way back to his lodgings at Injoji temple. The public outcry aroused by the assassination attempt caused the Japanese to temper their demands and agree to a temporary armistice. The conference was temporarily adjourned and resumed on April 10.

Entry of the imperialist powers

The conditions imposed by Japan on China led to the Triple Intervention of Russia, France, and Germany, imperial powers all active in China, with established enclaves and ports, just three days after its signing. They demanded that Japan withdraw its claim on the Liaodong peninsula, concerned that Lüshun, then called Port Arthur by Westerners, would fall under Japanese control. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (a de jure ally of France) and his imperial advisors, including his cousin-advisor-friend-rival Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, had designs on Port Arthur, which could serve as Russia's long sought-after 'ice-free' port.

The aftermath

Under threat of war from the three Western political powers, in November 1895, Japan — a weaker emerging nation not yet perceived as even a regional power — receded ('ceded back') control of the territory and withdrew its de jure claim on the Liaotung peninsula in return for an increased war indemnity from China. At that time, the European powers were not concerned with any of the other conditions, or the free hand Japan had been granted in Korea under the other terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and this would prove to be a diplomatically short sighted error.

Within months after Japan re-ceded the Liaodong peninsula, Russia started construction on the peninsula and a railway to Harbin from Port Arthur, despite a protesting China. Eventually, Russia agreed to offer a diplomatic solution (See Kwantung Leased Territory) to the Chinese Empire, and agreed to a token lease of the region to save face, instead of annexing Manchuria outright, its de-facto effect. Within two years, Germany, France, and Great Britain had similarly taken advantage of the economic and political opportunities in the weak Chinese Empire, each controlling significant local regions and Japan took note. She also took note of how the international community allowed powers to treat weaker nation states, and continued her remarkable measures to bootstrap herself into a modern industrial state and military power, with great success as she would demonstrate in the Russo-Japanese War less than a decade later.

In Taiwan pro-Qing officials and elements of the local gentry declared a Republic of Formosa in 1895 but failed to win international recognition.

This new blatant exploitation of weak nations following immediately after her humiliation at the hands of the European powers is regarded by many Japanese historians as being a crucial historic turning point in Japanese foreign affairs - from this point on, the nationalist, expansionist, and militant elements began to join ranks and steer Japan from a foreign policy based mainly on economic hegemony toward outright imperialism — a case of the coerced turning increasingly to coercion. In time the once peaceful and mercantile Japan would become transformed by its mimicking of the Western powers.

An uneasy prelude to war

Russia wasted little time after the Triple Intervention to move men and materials down into the Liaodong to start building a railroad from both ends — Port Arthur and Harbin, as she already had railway construction in progress across northern Inner Manchuria to shorten the rail route to her sole Pacific Ocean naval base at Sakhalin Island, a port closed by ice four months of each year. She also improved the port facilities at Port Arthur and founded the commercial port town at Dalny (Dalian), before inking the Lease of the territory.

When the de-facto governance of Port Arthur and the Liaodong peninsula was granted de jure to Russia by China along with an increase in other rights she had obtained in Manchuria (especially those in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces) the construction of the 550 mile Southern spurline of the Manchurian Railway was redoubled. Russia finally seemed to have gotten what the Russian Empire had been wanting in her quest to become a global power since the reign of Peter the Great. This ice-free natural harbor of Port Arthur/Lüshun would serve to make Russia a great sea as well as the largest land power. Russia needed this ice-free port to achieve world power as she was tired of being balked by the Balance of Power politics in Europe (The Ottoman Empire and its allies had repeatedly frustrated Russian power fruition).

However, the omission of the geopolitical reality in ignoring the free hand Japan had been granted by the Treaty (of Shimonoseki) with respect to Korea and Japan was short-sighted of Russia with respect to her strategic goals; to get to and maintain a strong point in Port Arthur she would have to dominate and control many additional hundreds of miles of Eastern Manchuria (the Fengtian province of Imperial China, modern Jilin and Heilongjiang) up to Harbin. Japan had long considered the lands paralleling the whole Korean border as part of its strategic Sphere of Influence. By leasing Liaodong and railway concessions, Russia crashed its Sphere of Influence squarely into Japan's.

This acted as a further goad to emerging Japanese anger at their disrespectful treatment by all the West. In the immediate fallout of the Triple Intervention Japanese popular resentment at Russia's deviousness and the perceived weakness of her own government caving in to foreign pressure led to riots in Tokyo. The disturbance almost brought down the government, as well as a strengthening of imperial and expansionist factions within Japan. The Russian spear into the sphere also brought about the ensuing struggle with Russia for dominance in Korea and Manchuria. These events eventually lead to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 by a renewed and modernized Japanese military.

References

F.R. Sedwick, (R.F.A.), ''The Russo-Japanese War, 1909, The Macmillan Company, N.Y.
Colliers (Ed.), ''The Russo-Japanese War, 1904, P.F. Collier & Son, New York
Dennis and Peggy Warner, The Tide At Sunrise, 1974, Charterhouse, New York
William Henry Chamberlain, Japan Over Asia, 1937, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston
Pei-Kai Cheng and Michael Lestz (Eds.) The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection, 1999, W. W. Norton & Company, New York.

External link

Text of the treaty

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