Extraordinary progress of Japan—Nation becomes restless—Invades Formosa—Bought off by China.
The civil war in Japan had been fought with characteristic energy during three years, when a revolution, the like of which was never before seen, established the new empire on the double foundations of hereditary monarchy and popular suffrage. The effect of the revolution was to concentrate the whole strength of the State under the government of the Mikado, and thus enable it to give free play to the widest ambitions. With incredible rapidity the nation made itself efficient for every enterprise of peace or war. The best that the Western world had to teach was eagerly appropriated by a people just aroused from a long sleep, and anxious to make up lost time. They went so fast, indeed, that onlookers shook their heads, and their best friends would have applied the brake had it been possible. But the nation was self-reliant, and in its first adolescence it began to be aggressive.
Within six years of the revolution of 1868 an expedition was sent to invade the Chinese island of Formosa. Through the good offices of Sir Thomas Wade, British Minister in Peking, war between the two empires was averted, and the Japanese forces withdrawn. They were virtually bought off, a proceeding characterised by Sir H. Parkes as pusillanimous on the part of the empire of China. The transaction really sealed the fate of China, in advertising to the world that here was a rich empire which was ready to pay, but not ready to fight. The euphemisms under which the ransom was disguised deceived no one unless it were the Chinese themselves. The vast cessions to Russia, incredible as they appeared, had at least the palliation of a dire emergency, and verbal equivalents in the shape of promises of deliverance therefrom. The submission to Japan, on the other hand, was made in a time of comparative ease.
The incident had yet a further significance. The pretext of the Japanese invasion was injuries done to shipwrecked Liuchiuans, a people whom China till then and for some years later considered her own vassals, and who had for centuries paid her regular tribute. Such an episode was therefore a sure mark of imperial decadence;—a definite step, moreover, in the downward process, to be followed not long after by the Japanese boldly asserting a claim to the Liuchiu Islands, against which China could only interpose an inarticulate protest. The meaning of these indications was not likely to be lost either on the Japanese, who were more immediately concerned, or on other less interested onlookers. And what has the subsequent history of China been but a development of the symptoms?
III. KOREA OPENED.
Japan concludes commercial treaty with Korea—Establishes working relations—Exciting jealousy in China—The suzerain—China replies by opening Korea to the whole world.
The expanding life of Japan was soon to overflow in another direction. The kingdom of Korea lay within twelve hours' steaming from the Japanese coast: it had a historic and a mythical interest for Japan; it had been the source of her culture as well as the scene of her conquests and ultimate defeat. With the exception of piratical raids on the coast towns of China, Korea was the only foreign field into which Japanese arms had been carried, and the prowess of their peninsular heroes was cherished as a sacred treasure by a people singularly tenacious of their heroic legends. After an interval of three centuries the new Japan directed its ambition to the scene of its medieval exploits; and the "hermit kingdom" was at last dragged from its seclusion and forced to play an unwilling part in the international game. The modern spirit had tempered the military passion, commerce and industry supplied the ballast to adventure, and instead of landing an army of 200,000 men, as they had done in 1592, the Japanese, in 1876, re-established themselves in the peninsula through the peaceable agency of a treaty of amity and commerce—a weapon newly borrowed from the armoury of Europe. This movement of the Japanese was by no means intended to "open" Korea—except to themselves. On the contrary, it appears that that very astute people ingratiated themselves with the king's Government by aiding, or professing to aid, them to keep the country closed to all other nations.
But, like every other attempt to isolate an international question, the exclusive effort of the Japanese not only failed, but resulted in opening Korea instead of closing it. They could not lock themselves in: the key was on the outside of the door. Although they disguised their feelings, the Chinese authorities had been gravely disturbed by the attacks of the French and the Americans on Korea in 1867 and 1871. The audacious advance of the Japanese aroused them to the extent of considering the merits of a counter-move; for Korea was the secular battle-ground between China and Japan, the historic stepping-stone between the two countries. And Korea was a vassal to China, if ever one State did occupy such a relation to another. By old tradition, by effective conquest, by solemn engagement, by regular tributary missions, by the prerogative of investiture, by the obeisance of the sovereign before the Chinese envoys sent on great occasions, by every kind of acknowledgment which the servant could render to the master, was the suzerainty of China established.
China's relations to her tributaries was perhaps the best feature in her imperial character. There was protection, nominal or real, but never a shadow of domination. The ceremonial once settled, the most complete independence was accorded to the vassal State, the imperial object being never oppression or exploitation, but the girdling of the empire with a cordon of contented States looking with filial eyes towards the Dragon throne. Of these filial States Korea was the most important, on account of its geographical position as commanding one of the main approaches to the Middle Kingdom, or, as the king himself once expressed it in a memorial to the emperor, as "the lips protecting the teeth." For China the Korean peninsula has been a strategical stronghold, but its importance was increased a hundredfold when the statesmen of Peking came to realise what they had done in giving away the whole Manchurian sea-coast, leaving them no outlet to the Sea of Japan excepting through Korea, which, moreover, was studded all round with excellent harbours, useful to friends and tempting to enemies.
The wise policy which the emperors had observed towards their tributaries had borne valuable fruit in Korea. For two hundred years the Peking Government had dealt so benignly with king and people as to have inspired feelings of genuine affection combined with deep reverence for the "big country." Whether collectively or individually, officially or privately, the Chinese were warmly welcomed everywhere without ever abusing the courtesy of their hosts—in marked contrast, it must be observed, to the Japanese, whose record in Korea has been one of unbroken brutality, producing a general feeling of aversion.