A few words may be said regarding the effects of the war upon China and Japan. The former's reverses were in a large measure a blessing in disguise, for they revealed, as nothing else would, the radical faults of her policy and administrative system, and convinced many of her patriots of the need for a reform. It was largely due to this fact that the two nations emerged from the war with no ill-will against each other. On the contrary, the more thoughtful among the Chinese seemed to be attracted to Japan by her success in the same proportion that they became alive to the causes of the failure of their own government. In such a vast and conservative country as China a reform must come slowly, but it is safe to say that some of its seeds were sown as a result of the war of 1894-1895. As for Japan herself, her position suddenly rose in the eyes of the nations of the world. Even those foreigners who had heard little of her great progress in arts and sciences and still greater hopes of further growth were now forced to admit the foresight, endurance, courage, and power of organization manifested by the Japanese during the campaign. The more one knew the practical side of so large an undertaking the more he realized the magnitude of Japan's success. This appreciation of the world naturally stimulated the Japanese to a larger ambition for future progress. The stimulus after the war, however, came as well from the victory, as from the bitter experience which closely followed it—the forcible intervention of three European powers against Japan, which at once changed the whole aspect of the Eastern question.
Chapter XX
JAPAN AND RUSSIA IN KOREA AND MANCHURIA
1893-1904
When the peace negotiations between the Japanese and Chinese plenipotentiaries were in progress at Shimonoseki, Russia and France had been preparing themselves to intervene, and Germany had for diplomatic reasons consented to aid the Russian overtures, while Great Britain, which had once before made a fruitless effort to bring about a concerted mediation by the powers, declared that she had no objections to Japan's claims. The plan of intervention having been matured, the Russian, French, and German representatives at Tōkyō called at the foreign office on April 23, 1895, and on their separate cordial reception, presented notes from their governments in which the latter counseled Japan to return to China the Liao-tung peninsula of South Manchuria, for its retention by Japan would, in their opinion, not only endanger the position of the Chinese capital, but also render the independence of Korea illusory, and permanently threaten the general peace of the Far East. While the notes were couched in polite terms, the Eastern squadrons of the three powers manifested such an activity as to demonstrate the determination of the intervening states to enforce their demand, if necessary, by a concerted appeal to arms. At this grave crisis the Japanese authorities agreed among themselves that after the exhausting war of the last eight months it would be impossible for Japan to fight single-handed with the three European powers. May 10, 1895, found the Japanese nation eagerly perusing the imperial decree which reiterated the unalterable devotion of the emperor to the cause of peace, for the sake of which the three friendly powers had advised, and his own sense of magnanimity also counseled, the retrocession to China of the entire peninsula of Liao-tung. The feeling excited among all ranks of the people by this memorable incident was intense. It seemed plain to everyone that the conduct of the powers in thus depriving Japan of what appeared to be a just fruit of her costly war could not have been animated by a genuine respect for the integrity of the Chinese empire. None wished the independence of Korea and the progress of China more deeply than did the Japanese, while, on the other hand, Russia, the central figure in the intervention, probably had a design upon Port Arthur and the whole of Manchuria. The fall of this vast territory into Russia's hands would eventually threaten the independence of Korea, and, consequently, the safety of Japan herself. The Japanese nation naturally awoke to the conviction that, in order to secure the peace of the East and the repose of Japan, the latter must strengthen and enrich herself, so that the humiliation of 1895 should never recur. The conviction was based, it should be clearly noted, not so much upon a desire for revenge as upon the determination to safeguard the common vital interests of Japan and the general Far East by means of progress and civilization. From 1895, therefore, began the most rapid advance in all directions of Japan's material power that has ever taken place in any period of the same length in her past history.
In China, however, the clever diplomacy of Russia entered a new epoch after the intervention of 1895. The first definitely known understanding between the two powers concerned a Chinese loan of four hundred million francs, $80,000,000, guaranteed by Russia and raised mainly at Paris in July, 1895, which was intended for the payment of one-half of the indemnity due to Japan. Then, the Russo-Chinese Bank was organized by a syndicate of capitalists of Paris and St. Petersburg, with its headquarters in the latter city, where the intimate friend of the tsar, Prince Ukhtomsky, was made its president. An important agreement was entered upon on September 8, 1896, between this bank and the Chinese minister at St. Petersburg, which has since proved to be the basis of many another striking document. By this agreement and also by the Russian statutes based upon it, it was provided that the Russo-Chinese Bank should undertake to organize the Eastern Chinese Railway Company, which should construct a branch line of the great Siberian Railway through the Hei-lung and Kirin provinces of Manchuria and connect it with the South Ussuri branch railway. Only Russian and Chinese subjects could be its shareholders. The Chinese government was to take over the road after eighty years without payment, or with a due payment after thirty-six years. It was also agreed that both imports and exports between China and Russia carried by the new railway should pay only two-thirds of the regular tariff rates of China.
No sooner was the first sod of the railway cut on its eastern extremity than events occurred which led to a further extension by the Russians of the railroad toward the most strategic points in the Liao-tung peninsula which they leased—points which had so recently been retroceded by Japan, on Russia's advice, for the peace and independence of China and Korea. It belongs to the history of China to recount how, at the murder by a mob of two German Catholic missionaries in Shan-tung, the government of the kaiser succeeded in March, 1898, in wresting from China a ninety-nine-year lease of the Bay of Kiao-chow and its hinterland, together with railway and mining concessions between the shore and Tsi-nan-fu. This was a signal for the advent of a remarkable series of territorial demarcations to be made by the rival powers of Europe which had been no less eager than Germany to seize the first opportunity to carve out their respective "spheres" of influence or interest on the soil of the feeble Chinese empire. The act of Germany disturbed the balance of power in the Far East which could not be restored until the aggressive passions of all competing powers should have been satiated. Great Britain obtained in February a pledge never to alienate to any other power any portion of the extensive provinces adjoining the Yang-tse River. This was followed by the lease to Russia for twenty-five years, subject to renewal, of Port Arthur and Ta-lien-wan. The Russo-Chinese agreement signed on March 27 declared that the lease constituted no prejudice against the Chinese sovereignty over the territory, but was designed for the protection of the Russian navy in the waters of North China. It must be remembered that Russia with her immense dominion of Siberia had up to this time possessed no adequate naval station on its shores which was not bound by ice during the winter months. Now at length she secured the almost ice-free Port Arthur and Ta-lien-wan, of which the former and a portion of the latter were agreed to be used exclusively for naval purposes, while the remaining portion of Ta-lien-wan was to be opened to the merchant vessels of all nations. The agreement further provided that a branch line might be built by Russia from the Manchurian railway to Ta-lien-wan and, as was later stipulated, to Port Arthur, and, if necessary, also a line from the open port of Niu-chwang to the Yalu River on the Korean border. A special agreement was further concluded on May 7 to supplement the one of March 27, which has been described. The Russian lease on the tip of the Liao-tung peninsula induced Great Britain, on July 1, to obtain under similar terms on the opposite promontory of Shan-tung the lease of the Bay of Wei-hai-wei. This port had still been under the occupation of Japanese troops, pending the final payment of the Chinese indemnity, but was now cheerfully evacuated by them to be replaced by the forces of the power with which the relations of Japan had already begun to be especially amicable. In South China the rivalry between France and Great Britain was manifested afresh by the proposed opening of the West River and concessions in Yunnan obtained by the latter, and the sphere created on the Kwang-chow Bay by the former. Japan also secured the pledge of non-alienation of the province of Fuh-kien, which lies opposite her new territory of Formosa.
It is necessary in order to comprehend the situation with any degree of clearness, sharply to distinguish the nature of the Russian concessions in Liao-tung from those of all the other "spheres" in North and South China. It was alone in the former instance that new naval posts of great moment were directly connected by a railroad with the military centers of an enormous and contiguous dominion which represented an expansion through centuries. The creation of naval posts on the strategic points of the peninsula would be sufficient, as was avowed by Russia herself three years before, to threaten Peking, render the independence of Korea illusory, and continually imperil the peace of the Far East, and its dangers must further be measured by the immense pressure which might be exercised with the military resources of all the Russias that lay behind Liao-tung and were now connected thereto by rail.