If you’re anything like me and your focus hasn’t been on Asian history, you may have
vaguely heard of the First Sino-Japanese war.
The aftermath of the war ushered in a new era for China, Japan and the presence of the
European powers in Asia, as the balance of power shifted.
But… what’s fascinating is that the war was fought over the Korean peninsula, and
there were so many power dynamics, intricacies and conflicting political interests going
on, that it makes for a fascinating story to analyze the geopolitical situation of Korea,
in combination with the Japanese and Chinese empire the decades preceding the war.
Without further ado, I present you a modest overview of Sino-Korean relations, combined
with Japan pursuing its own interests in the region, all leading up to the Sino-Japanese
War.
-intro-
Geopolitical Background: Japan
When Japan was opened by Matthew Perry’s notorious Gunboat diplomacy in eighteen-fifty-four,
the country had embarked on an entirely different path than China.
This push from the outside had caused a large-scale revolution in a (successful) attempt to restore
the practical abilities and consolidate the political system under the Emperor of Japan,
Meiji, in eighteen-sixty-eight.
A group of modern reformers such as Kido Takayoshi and Mori Arinori issued a policy of modernisation
and Westernization.
This movement was much stronger than the Chinese self-strengthening movement, which took place
around the same time.
The goal of the reformers was to develop a modern education system and a powerful military
apparatus.
Most importantly, however, was a large-scale industrial modernization, which was financed
through taxes from the agrarian sector.
The first confrontation any country had with modernized Japan was China, when it got into
a dispute with Japan over Korea.
Now, Japan and Korea had a history going back centuries.
One of the more telling events was that at the end of the sixteenth century, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, the second “great unifier” of Japan, invaded Korea.
After all, from Japan’s viewpoint, Korea was seen as either a bridge to the mainland
or the spear that could penetrate Japan’s heart.
Geopolitical background: Korea
The Northern part of Korea had been incorporated in the Chinese Han empire ages ago, in one-hundred-and-eight
B.C. Pyongyang housed the Chinese commandery, which remained an outpost for over four centuries.
It wasn’t until the seventh century that Korea was unified - its culture was more or
less modelled after China.
Whereas Vietnam was influenced by South-East Asian cultural elements, Korea adapted all
of its major features from Chinese culture.
As such, it became China’s foremost tributary state, regardless of the language and historical
difference, not to mention the vigorous sense of their separate identity.
Combined with these cultural aspects, a very deeply rooted urge of political conservatism
was prevalent in Korean society.
This political conservatism can be seen in the two dynasties that ruled Korea in its
history: The Koryo dynasty that reunified Korea back in nine-hundred-thirty-five.
This dynasty lasted for four-hundred-and-seventy-four years, and its successor, the Chosun dynasty,
lasted from thirteen-ninety-two to nineteen-ten, a period that is nearly as long as the Chinese
Ming and Qing dynasties… combined.
Fate had it that Korea’s geography wasn’t a real advantage to the peninsula.
It lay at the crossroads where China, Japan and Russia met and clashed multiple times.
The Chinese imperial system and tributary system put its mark on Korea.
For hundreds of years the only foreign interaction Korea had was sending tribute to China….
And very rarely to Japan.
Virtually every Korean king was hostile to European explorers, just like the Chinese
and Japanese by the way.
Japan and China eventually caved into the European Powers, which did not happen by diplomatic
means… well… gunboat-diplomatic means, Korea was dubbed the “hermit kingdom”
for adhering to their policy of seclusion until it nearly was too late for them to participate
in diplomacy at all.
The Rebellion and Restoration: Korea in the 19th century
We’ll leap to the eighteen-sixties when the Korean state was met by both domestic
and foreign challenges.
Both China and Japan had faced similar challenges years previously.
We’ll start with the religious element: As Catholic Christianity reached Korea via
the Jesuits of Beijing, these writings became known as “Western Learning”.
Smuggled across the border, Catholics and its missionaries were persecuted in Korea.
It was coined a foreign menace and heterodox sect.
Automatically, Christianity became an underground society, managed by Chinese and French priests
smuggled into the country.
In response, around the eighteen-sixties, the religious cult known as Tonghak, also
known as Eastern Learning, was established and violently arose against Western Learning,
all the while borrowing some of its concepts.
The poverty-stricken peasantry was fascinated by this new religious sect and many joined
it.
As a result, the cult spread rapidly.
They supported uprisings in south and southeast Korea, such as the massive Imsul Peasant Revolt
and Yi Pilje’s Revolt.
The rulers of Korea responded exactly the way you’d expect the ‘hermit kingdom’
to respond to these domestic problems and Western influences.
Christianity was banished and a policy of seclusion was instated.
Tonghak was suppressed and a rigorous program of conservative reforms to counter the hardships
the Chosun dynasty faced was pursued by Taewongun, or Grand Prince, the father of the boy-king
Gojong.
And as such, the hermit kingdom remained exactly that: vigorously exclusionist.
Opening up Korea
Li Hongzhong, the Chinese general that was instrumental in defeating the Taiping, maintained
his focus on the ever-growing threat of Japanese power.
The Korean peninsula could easily be a liability for China if Japan grew too influential.
Korea adhered to its nickname and restricted any contact other than Japanese trade at Pusan
on a restricted basis (which was somewhat comparable to the Dutch trade at Nagasaki
centuries before).
The only consistent foreign contact the Korean kingdom had was the annual tribute ritual,
conducted at Beijing.
Throughout the nineteenth century, Western vessels occasional visited the Korean coast
due the bad weather conditions, shipwrecks and general misfortune.
These were subsequently expelled to China.
All forms of contact were violently opposed, whether it was trade or negotiation.
Among the European powers, this induced a certain rivalry; who could open the Korean
peninsula the way Commodore Perry had opened Japan several years before?
Multiple missions were sent, often violent, causing plenty of Korean casualties, but the
kingdom didn’t budge.
Meanwhile, several disgruntled Japanese samurai attempted to provoke a war with Korea.
In eighteen-seventy-three these plans were thwarted by a less aggressive lobby within
the Japanese government, but nonetheless, opening up Korea and draw it away from China
was high on Tokyo’s list.
Eventually, however, this wasn’t done through force.
In eighteen-seventy-five five Japanese warships were fired upon from Korea.
Tokyo opposed an invasion of Korea as retribution.
It instead attempted to open Korea peacefully.
Li Hung-chang adhered to the old Sinocentric concept of Chinese moral suzerainty but respecting
the self-governing ability of Korea over its domestic and foreign policy.
He did advise Korea to start negotiations with the Japanese and in eighteen-seventy-six
the Treaty of Ganghwa, an unequal treaty modelled after the treaties of the West with China
and Japan, opened three ports of Japanese trade: Pusan, Inchon (then known as Chemulpo)
and Wonsan.
The treaty referred to Korea as an independent state, and China, having difficulty to translate
the ancient tributary relationships to modern ones, did not object.
But, that did not mean, that China did not attempt to keep Korea under its control.
The Hermit Kingdom no more
The Qing Imperial Government, realizing opening up Korea may have been detrimental to Sino-Korean
relations, attempted to keep Korea under Chinese control.
Li Hung-chang urged Korea to embark on a ‘self-strengthening’ policy not just modelled after the Chinese
one, but controlled by the Chinese.
The moderate Chinese reform program was competing with the more profound modernizing influences
of Japan.
The Koreans could choose: moderate and incremental reforms like China, or fast-paced modernization
like Japan?
Now, there was a third way to make it even more complicated: both the Chinese and Japanese
ways of modernization were opposed by the fundamentalist conservatives like Taewongun.
Although King Gojong dismissed him in eighteen-seventy-three, Taewongun played a large role in inciting
anti-foreign sentiment on the peninsula.
This anti-foreign sentiment culminated in eighteen-eighty-two.
During an uprising, soldiers and a mob set a Japanese government building on fire and
attacked the Japanese Legation.
Shocked at the violent outburst, both Japan and China sent troops to the peninsula, in
order to restore control.
The uprising was swiftly crushed by foreign forces and Korea had to pay Japan indemnity.
Both Japan and China agreed to withdraw their troops from the peninsula.
That wasn’t everything though, as China too saw that the conservatives were the reason
for opposition to Korean modernization.
On their way out of the country, they took something with them.
They took Taewongun, who was locked up and held in China for three years.
Now, the pro-Chinese Min faction at Korean court, represented by King Gojong’s queen,
was able to gain influence and a Chinese oriented policy followed.
The self-strengthening of Korea modelled on the Chinese movement, and indirectly overseen
by China, wasn’t completely altruistic.
Li Hung-chang tried to combine Korea’s self-strengthening with China building up its navy and army…
get a bit of a profit out of it if you will.
Furthermore, in order to prevent Korea from being absorbed by Russian or Japanese encroachment,
he persuaded the country to accept treaties with all trading powers.
He figured (and not wrongly, might I add): that vested interest in Korea as an independent
trading partner would prevent war.
The first success was the negotiation between Korea and the US, which Li Hongzhang brokered.
Commodore R.W. Shufeldt agreed to the treaty of Tientsin in eighteen-eighty-two.
While Li Hongzhang acted as a middle-man of sorts, it is very ironic to consider he failed
to get a clause into the treaty that marked Korea as a “dependent state of the Chinese
Empire”.
The US treaty, as a matter of fact, recognized Korea as an independent state, and other European
powers that agreed to treaties with Korea would explicitly note its independence the
years to come.
These diplomatic relations backfired for China, to put it mildly.
Gapsin Coup
Taewongun was still residing in a Chinese prison and his enemies controlled the Korean
court.
The Min family, represented by the wife of King Gojong, Queen Min, cooperated with China.
The conservative policies he instated were structurally dismantled.
Chinese influence in Seoul became more prevalent during the eighties.
But at the same time, so did the number of Western and Japanese diplomats and missionaries
that espoused Korean independence.
The main factor was Japan.
Japanese actively instilled the idea of patriotism and advocated Korean independence, Western
ideas of nationalism and reform.
It was Japanese liberals such as Fukuzawa Yukichi that adviced young Korean reformers
like Kim Ok-Kyun and Pak Yong-hyo.
The ruling Min faction and Chinese presence vehemently opposed any voices demanding western-style
reforms.
As the camp of western reformers grew, these contradictions eventually culminated in the
eighteen-eighty-four Gapsin coup.
Plans were made to assassinate Chinese-oriented ministers and kidnap King Gojon.
Thing is, it wasn’t just Korean coup plotters.
The Japanese legation was fully aware of these plans.
Even more than that, after the king was abducted by Kim Ok-Kyun and his conspirators, he was
put under guard by the Japanese legation guards.
Although the conspirators had the support of Japan, the coup failed thanks to Chinese
General Yuan Shikai who was in Korea to train a new Korean military unit.
His troops defeated the guards of the Japanese legation and rescued the king.
A diplomatic crisis, understandably, followed.
The crisis was eventually overcome when Li Hongzhong and the Japanese statesman Ito Hirobumi
signed the Li-Ito Convention.
In it was agreed that both China and Japan could only send troops to Korea if they had
informed each other about this beforehand.
This convention marked the end of Korea as China’s tribute state and this convention
will be extremely important in order to understand the Sino-Japanese war.
Oh and Yuan Shikai?
He became the Chinese Resident-general in Seoul in 1885, training Korean troops and
meddling in domestic politics for the years to come.
A pro-Japanese reform movement was growing during these years, facing the Min-faction
at court that favoured China.
Now, remember the religious sect I talked about, the Tonghak?
As all these events we just talked about transpired, the general misery of the Korean population
simmered on.
It wasn’t sustainable, and would eventually culminate in the Tonghak rebellion.
That Tonghak rebellion was the direct reason for the Sino-Japanese war.
But that’s the story I’ll tell you next week, thank you for watching this video and
what is a person or event from Chinese, Korean or Japanese history you would like to know
more about, and perhaps see a video of?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you enjoyed this video, consider subscribing
to my channel!
See you next time.