The year 1899, when the revised treaties came into operation, marked a fresh stage in the progress of Japan towards attaining a footing of equality with Western Powers—the aim which her statesmen had set before themselves ever since the Restoration, and which had in so many ways been the guiding principle of both domestic and foreign policy. With the object of allowing time for the negotiation of similar treaties with other foreign Powers, the revised British Treaty, signed in London in 1894, had, as already mentioned, provided that it should not come into force until five years after the date of signature. Before the expiration of the period named similar treaties had been concluded with all the other Powers concerned, those with France and Germany containing a few modifications of minor importance. In the meantime, moreover, the conditions specified in the Treaty regarding the new Japanese Codes and Japan’s adhesion to the International Conventions concerning Copyright and Industrial Property had been fulfilled. The way was thus cleared for the operation of the new revised treaties, which, accordingly, came into force on the 17th July, 1899, the earliest date possible. Though in these new treaties, recognizing the territorial jurisdiction of Japan, the stipulation of previous conventions which chiefly offended Japanese susceptibilities found no place, she still remained bound for a further period of twelve years—the term of the revised treaties—by a tariff of a unilateral character. Only when that period expired would she recover full tariff autonomy and be free to negotiate reciprocal treaties with the various Powers concerned on a footing of complete equality. This opportunity came to her in 1911, and she at once availed herself of it.

In the spring of the following year (1900) what is known as the Boxer Rising took place. In its inception it was a protest against missionary enterprise. As it developed, it became the expression of a feeling of exasperation among the official and lettered classes of Northern China engendered by the action of European Powers in occupying under the guise of leases various portions of Chinese territory in that region. During the previous autumn a society called I-Ho-C’uan (Patriot Harmony Fists) had been formed in the province of Shantung. Its formation was encouraged by the reactionary tendencies which made their appearance about this time at Peking, where the Empress Dowager, after the successful coup d’état by which she had crushed the ill-conducted reform movement in 1898, was again in power. The magical powers claimed by its members produced on the ignorant masses an impression that was heightened by the incantations they performed. As the movement grew, it attracted the attention of the Governor of the province, who supported it with, apparently, the twofold idea of utilizing it against foreign aggression, and gaining favour at Court. As a result of his outspoken sympathy the Boxer movement assumed formidable dimensions. Though eventually, through the energy of Yuan Shih-k’ai, who was at one time, as we have seen, Chinese Resident in Korea, order was restored in Shantung, the movement spread northwards towards Peking. There, as Mr. Campbell explains in the China Handbook prepared under the direction of the Foreign Office, it gained the powerful support of the ignorant and reactionary statesman Prince Tuan, the selection of whose son as Heir-Apparent to the Throne gave him a commanding influence in the councils of the Empire. In April, 1900, bands of Boxers were drilling in the outskirts of the Capital, their appearance in every district they invaded being accompanied by murders of missionaries and massacres of native converts. Some weeks later the situation became so threatening that arrangements were made for bringing up to Peking small contingents of foreign troops for the protection of the Legations and such portion of the foreign community as still remained. These guards arrived opportunely at the end of May, by which time swarms of Boxers infested the Capital, and the Legations were practically isolated. Prince Tuan chose this moment for openly espousing the Boxer cause. This step on his part was followed by the murders of the Chancellor of the Japanese Legation and the German Minister, the two outrages occurring within a few days of each other. The subsequent course of events is well known: the storming of the Taku forts (June 16th); the siege of the Legations by Chinese troops and Boxers; the failure of Admiral Seymour’s attempt to re-establish communications with the Capital; the equipment of foreign expeditionary forces to operate against Peking; the issue of an Imperial Decree ordering a general massacre of foreigners in the Chinese dominions; the attack on the foreign settlements at Tientsin; the arrival of Russian and British reinforcements, and the taking of Tientsin city (July 14th); the relief of the Legations, and occupation of the Chinese capital on the 13th and 14th August by the allied forces; and the flight of the Chinese Court to Sian-fu, the ancient capital in the province of Shensi. With the flight of the Court from the capital Chinese resistance collapsed, and when Count Waldersee arrived in September with several thousand German troops to take supreme command of the allied expeditionary forces, there was no enemy to fight. Hostilities gave place to negotiations between the foreign Governments concerned and China for the settlement of the various issues raised by the Boxer outbreak. The negotiations resulted in two preliminary exchanges of Notes, dated, respectively, December 22nd, 1900, and January 16th, 1901, embodying the conditions for the re-establishment of normal relations with China, and in the signature of a final Protocol on September 7th, 1901. Three days before its signature Prince Ch’un, who had proceeded on a mission to Berlin to apologize for the murder of the German Minister, was received in audience by the Kaiser.

The chief conditions imposed on China by these arrangements were the payment of an indemnity of 450,000,000 Haikwan taels (equivalent at the rate fixed—3s. per tael—to £67,500,000); the permanent occupation of certain places, including Tientsin and Shanhaikwan, for the purpose of preserving free communications between Peking and the sea; the razing of the Taku and other forts which threatened those communications; and the construction of a separate fortified quarter in the Capital for the foreign Legations, for the further protection of which permanent foreign guards were to be retained. Other terms included special reparation for the murders of the German Minister and the Chancellor of the Japanese Legation and the desecration of cemeteries; the punishment of Prince Tuan, as well as other personages and officials responsible for the attacks on foreigners; and the prohibition of the import of arms.

Thanks, as we learn from the Handbook already quoted, to the good sense of the leading provincial authorities, such as the Viceroys of Nanking and Wuchang and the new Governor of Shantung, who had the courage to disobey the Imperial Decree, the Boxer movement was stifled in the central and southern regions of China. There, in spite of considerable unrest, order was preserved. But further north in Manchuria the Governors were not so judicious. In obedience to instructions from the Court they declared war on the Russians. The sudden attacks made by Chinese forces created a panic on the Amur, and brought about the savage reprisals which occurred at Blagovestchensk on that river, and the occupation of the whole of Manchuria by Russian troops. The folly of the Empress Dowager and of the ignorant clique by whose counsels she was guided gave Russia the opportunity she desired for pursuing her designs of aggression in the Far East. Her subsequent conduct throughout the negotiations, and after their conclusion, destroyed the good effect produced by her valuable co-operation in the fighting at Tientsin, where the Russian reinforcements were, undoubtedly, the chief factor in saving the foreign settlements from destruction.

In the military operations against Peking, and in the protracted negotiations which succeeded them, Japan played a conspicuous part. She had suffered injury similar to that sustained by other foreign Powers in connection with the Boxer Rising, and she had a common interest with them in adopting whatever measures might be necessary in the international emergency which had arisen. Her proximity to China and her military resources enabled her to strike quickly, and with effect. To the invitation to take part in the expeditionary force in process of organization, which was addressed to her by the other interested Powers, with the exception of Russia, she responded with alacrity; and in a short space of time a well-equipped Japanese force took its place with the troops of other Powers, and joined in the march on Peking for the relief of the besieged Legations. The discipline and efficiency of the Japanese contingent won well-deserved praise from those best qualified to judge. In the subsequent negotiations the readiness shown by Japan to act in harmony with other Powers, whose attitude was influenced by consideration for the general interests of all concerned, facilitated the solution of many difficulties; and, when the question of claims for indemnity came to be discussed, the moderation of her demands was equalled only by that of Great Britain and the United States.

CHAPTER XXV
Agreement between Great Britain and Germany—The Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

Soon after the opening of negotiations for the re-establishment of friendly relations with China the Governments of Great Britain and Germany concluded an Agreement of a self-denying character which confirmed, though in different words and with special application to the situation then existing in China, the principle of the “open door and equal opportunity,” as set forth by the United States, and accepted by the Powers consulted, in the autumn of 1899 and the spring of the year following. By this Agreement, signed in London on October 16th, 1900, the two Powers bound themselves to support the principle above mentioned; to abstain from making use of the existing troubles in China to “obtain for themselves any territorial advantages”; and to co-operate for the protection of their interests in the event of any attempt on the part of another Power to obtain such advantages under existing conditions. The Agreement was, as prearranged, communicated to other interested Powers, who were invited “to accept the principles recorded in it.” Replies more or less favourable were received from the Powers addressed. The French Government referred to its prompt adhesion to the proposals of the United States in the previous year as a proof of its long-entertained wishes in the direction indicated; while the Russian reply, which, like the French, took the form of a Memorandum, went so far as to say that Russia had been “the first to lay down the maintenance of the integrity of the Chinese Empire as a fundamental principle of her policy in China.” The Japanese Government, in its answer, stated that, in view of the assurance received that in adhering to the Agreement Japan would be placed in the same position as she would have occupied had she been a signatory instead of an adhering State, it had no hesitation in adhering to the Agreement, and accepting the principles embodied therein.

Subsequently, when it became apparent that Russia had no idea of evacuating the territory she occupied in Manchuria, the German Government explained that the Agreement was never intended to apply to that territory.

The course pursued by Russia from the outset of the negotiations in Peking was in marked contrast to the attitude adopted by the other Powers concerned, and in direct contradiction to the principles embodied in the Anglo-German Agreement in which she professed to acquiesce. From some of the demands made by the other Powers conjointly she dissociated herself, while her conduct in keeping her troops stationed in the furthest positions to which they had penetrated during the Boxer outbreak indicated an intention to give a permanent character to her occupation of Manchuria. Her attitude in this latter respect was doubtless encouraged by the fact that, whereas the Final Protocol provided for the withdrawal of foreign troops, under certain conditions, from Peking, and the province of Chihli, it contained no reference to the evacuation of Manchuria. Further proof of her designs was furnished by the conclusion in January, 1901 (subject to confirmation by the Peking Government), of an Agreement between Admiral Alexeieff and the Tartar General at Moukden, placing the province of Fêng-t’ien (Shenking) under Russian control, and by the subsequent opening of negotiations at St. Petersburg for a formal Convention, which would have established a Russian Protectorate over the whole of Manchuria, besides giving her exclusive, or preferential, rights in Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan. These attempts to obtain China’s consent to her occupation of Manchuria, and to secure for herself a position of exceptional advantage elsewhere, were frustrated by the vigilance of Great Britain, the United States and Japan, and by the general indignation they aroused in China. The Government at Peking, yielding to the pressure thus brought to bear upon it, withheld its confirmation of the Moukden Agreement; the Chinese Minister at the Russian capital was forbidden to sign the Convention under negotiation; and eventually, in August, 1901, the Russian Government issued an official communiqué announcing the shelving of the proposed Convention owing, as it was explained, to the misrepresentation of Russia’s intentions. Russian troops, nevertheless, remained in Manchuria, and it was not until after the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance that Russia at length made an Agreement with China for the evacuation of the territory she had occupied, an Agreement which, as M. Witte afterwards explained to the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, she never intended to observe.

On the 30th January, 1902, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance was signed in London by the Marquess of Lansdowne and the Japanese Minister there, the late Count (then Baron) Hayashi, who was afterwards Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Treaty related to affairs in “the Extreme East,” and came into effect immediately after signature. It was terminable after five years’ duration, at one year’s notice on either side, subject to the condition that should either of the contracting parties be at war when the period of the Treaty came to an end it should remain in force until peace was concluded. By this Agreement the contracting parties recognized the independence of China and Korea, and the special interests therein of Great Britain and Japan respectively. They bound themselves to maintain strict neutrality in the event of either of them being involved in war, and to come to one another’s assistance in the event of either being confronted by the opposition of more than one hostile Power. The Treaty also, as we have seen, affirmed the principle of “equal opportunity.”