East Asia and Imperialism

Abstract

As Qing China entered the nineteenth century, the prosperity of the previous era gave way to internal and external troubles, such as the rapid expansion of population growth, social mobility, and the resulting ineffectiveness of the governing system.

1 State Transformation in China During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

1.1 Internal and External Troubles to the 1870s

1.1.1 Opening of Ports

As Qing China entered the nineteenth century, the prosperity of the previous era gave way to internal and external troubles, such as the rapid expansion of population growth, social mobility, and the resulting ineffectiveness of the governing system. This was the case both inland and along the coast, and both foreign relations and domestic systems were plunged into turmoil at about the same time.

Foreign relations were a process that resulted in the Opium War. Order along the coast, which had been maintained with as little intervention as possible by government authorities, was collapsing, and security was deteriorating due to the rapid expansion of trading activities. Opium smuggling and the conflicts surrounding it were just one aspect of this.

It is true that the old methods of maintaining order were no longer effective. However, the only thing that changed before and after the Opium War, regarded as the starting point of “modern history” in the Chinese speaking world, was the existence of treaty-based amicable relations. From the Western point of view, this was the establishment of new international relations, (Fairbank 1969) but from the standpoint of the Qing Dynasty, it was a continuation of the previous method of maintaining order. The reorganization of rules and procedures in the form of treaties merely prevented conflicts from occurring.

This was true for both the Opium War in the 1840s and the Arrow War (also known as the Second Opium War) in the 1850s. Therefore, it was still inconsistent with the Westphalian system and modern international relations (Banno 1964).

1.1.2 Civil Wars

The internal situation in China was far from peaceful, either. After the suppression of the White Lotus Rebellion in the early nineteenth century, it became customary for civil society to take up arms, regardless of right or wrong, and law and order worsened.

At the same time, secret societies that dealt in prohibited goods such as salt and opium proliferated, leading to repeated uprisings against the Qing government (Kuhn 1970). From the mid-nineteenth century onward, the Taiping Rebellion and other major civil wars broke out simultaneously in various regions, and it took around two decades until the 1870s for the situation to be brought under control. Some estimates put the death toll at 70 million during this period.

Although these were long and tragic wars, there is no time, and perhaps no need, to go into the details. The reason for this is that there was no major change in the political or economic system or in the structure of society. It was the same armed groups that started these civil wars as suppressed them, and their particular stance (i.e. whether they were for or against a particular cause) determined the fate of Qing China.

The social structure that formed the nucleus of these groups remained virtually unchanged before and after the civil wars. What did change was the way the groups were organized. Provincial governors took control of armed groups as volunteer armies to maintain security in the field. In order to maintain the armed forces, they were entrusted with a great deal of political and financial discretion.

From the beginning, the rule of the Han Chinese during the Qing was left to the provincial governors, while the leadership and control of the Beijing government was also effective. The balance of power that had been maintained was, however, clearly tilted in favor of the provincial governors after the end of the civil wars. It might be said that, as a result of the instability of ever-expanding Chinese society, political initiative shifted from the Manchu central government to the Han provincial authorities without changing the institutional and systemic framework to suppress the unrest (Okamoto 2019a).

1.1.3 The Tongzhi Restoration

This period of stabilization is called the Tongzhi Restoration because it coincided with the reign of the Tongzhi Emperor. The era name Tongzhi, which means “joint rule,” is suggestive of the system and reign of the time.

China’s traditional system of government was based on an imperial autocracy, and Qing rule is seen as a typical example of this. However, the Tongzhi Emperor was young, and his position was shared by his mother and the Prince Regent. The actual administration was carried out by the provincial governors, who were entrusted with greater discretion than before, in collaboration with the Beijing government. In the area of foreign affairs, the powers that had concluded treaties with the Qing government had a cooperative relationship with it through the so-called “Co-operative Policy.”

In this way, the essence and framework of the system did not change in China after the internal and external troubles of the mid-nineteenth century. In the transition of events up to the 1870s, the kind of state of affairs that was inevitable under the traditional system was resolved by reorganizing the internal and external regimes into a system of joint governance in the manner of a minor change (Wright 1957).

1.2 Conflict with Japan to the 1890s

1.2.1 Meiji Japan

This stability, however, began to falter in the 1870s. Volatility in European international politics eventually spread to East Asia, where conflicts and contradictions with the major powers began to emerge. In particular, conflicts over borders frequently occurred. The most notable of these was the conflict with Japan.

In this same period, Japan underwent the Meiji Restoration and reformed its national system. It was Li Hongzhang, the leader of the provincial governorships, who kept a close watch on Japan’s modernization and Westernization. Li Hongzhang took into account the history of Japan’s threats to China, such as past incursions by Japanese pirates and the Japanese invasions of Korea and tried to prevent a repeat of these threats. This came with the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Amity in 1871.

The Sino-Japanese Treaty of Amity, the first treaty between Japan and China, was a way for Japan to establish new international relations, while from the perspective of the Qing government, it was a way to prevent external conflicts that had been occurring since the Opium War. This is evidenced by the article in the treaty that stipulates the mutual inviolability of what is termed “land belonging to the state.” This “land belonging to” one state included not only the areas effectively controlled by the Qing government, but also its tributaries such as kingdoms of Korea and Ryukyu, which were called shuguo (lit. dependent states). The Japanese, however, had in mind sovereign states with demarcated borders, and therefore did not think that this idea of “land belonging to the state” included China’s tributaries. This difference in the order system would determine the rest of history.

1.2.2 Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands

In the same year that the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Amity was signed, a castaway from Miyako Island in the Ryukyu Islands was killed by natives in southern Taiwan. This incident exposed the discord between Japan and the Qing.

The Qing government took the position that the indigenous people of Taiwan were not under its direct control, but Japan, seeking to hold these indigenes accountable for the incident, considered Taiwan to be “Terra nullius” under international law and sent troops into Taiwan to attack the indigenous people. In the eyes of the Qing government, this invasion was nothing more than a violation of the treaty and an invasion of “land belonging to the state.” Thereafter, the Qing focused on building a navy to counter the Japanese, who could not be deterred by treaties.

Japan demanded that the Ryukyu Islands, which had been under the control of the Satsuma clan and had been undergoing assimilation with Japan, stop paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty. While this was part of Japan’s modernization efforts, it also signified the subversion of the existing external order of Qing China, and the conflict between Japan and the Qing once again intensified.

In 1879, Japan responded to the Qing authorities’ protest against the cessation of tribute and seized Shuri Castle, abolished the Ryukyu Domain, and established Okinawa Prefecture in its place, thus completing the so-called “Ryukyu Disposition.” However, the Qing Dynasty refused to recognize this measure, and the conflict between Japan and the Qing continued.

It is not that the Qing government at that time attached any particular importance to the Ryukyu Islands. It was concerned that the destruction of the Kingdom of Ryukyu, a “dependent state,” would spread to other “dependent states” that were more important for its geopolitical security concerns.

1.2.3 The Status of the Dependent State and the Sino-Japanese War

Vietnam and Korea were representative of this. To begin with, dependent states had only a ceremonial hierarchical relationship with the Qing dynasty and had a certain degree of autonomy in their internal and external affairs. However, in the 1880s, Li Hongzhang, who was in charge of the foreign affairs of Qing China, reserved the right to protect and interfere in the military affairs of the two countries, and attempted to make them into “buffer states,” so to speak. The world powers that had a strong interest in the autonomy of the two countries did not easily approve of the policy of the Qing government, which led to confusion in negotiations, frequent disputes, and even war.

France, which had been pursuing the colonization of Indochina, contested with Qing China over the right of military protection over Northern Vietnam, and in the mid-1880s, the two sides became embroiled in war. This was the Sino-French War.

At the same time, a power struggle with Japan on the Korean Peninsula led to an armed conflict. At that time, both sides exercised restraint and did not engage in a full-on war. However, ten years later, the Sino-Japanese War began when Japanese troops attacked the Qing troops during the civil war in Korea.

All of the above conflicts can be likened to a kind of allergy manifested by the modern international order to the Qing government’s attempt to transplant the unchanged old order system to the application of military protection. Defeated Qing China found it impossible to maintain the old system. The Sino-Japanese War coincided with the Second Industrial Revolution and the era of imperialism. In consequence of China’s defeat in 1895, the scramble for concessions of imperialist powers spread to China, and the sense of crisis over the division of the country occurred and led to a change in the existing system.

1.3 Toward Revolution: The Journey to 1912

1.3.1 Fanbu and China

These problems appeared intensively in Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang, places where Han Chinese originally did not live and which were known as fanbu (lit. outlying regions). Tibetan Buddhists, Muslims and other peoples practiced customs and ruled differently from the Han Chinese.

However, these regions, caught in the middle of the Great Game being played between Britain and Russia, became the focus of international politics. In the midst of this situation, the Qing government, especially the Han officials, who took advantage of the Muslim defection to reconquer Xinjiang, translated the Tibetan and Mongolian fanbu into English as “colonies” and began to position them as subordinate territories.

These movements accelerated early in the twentieth century as the sense of crisis increased and the momentum for change grew. The Chinese adopted Japan’s concepts translated into Chinese from the West and began to aim for the construction of a centralized nation-state using the Meiji Restoration as a model and medium (Okamoto 2019b).

It was at this time that the country name Zhongguo (lit. China) finally took root. Terms such as “nation,” “state,” “sovereignty,” and “territory” were all modern translations of Chinese that came from Japan and were political concepts that had never existed before. Thus, Tibet and Mongolia were positioned as inseparable “territories” over which “China” had “sovereignty,” and the move to centralize power in China proper also accelerated (Okamoto 2017).

1.3.2 The Quest for a Nation-State

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the construction of a nation-state and constitutional government became the irreversible course that “China” was aiming for. Regardless of the form of government it was aiming for, both the government and the people were united in calling for patriotism and a sovereign state.

This was true not only of the most radical revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, but also of the constitutionalists who wanted to preserve it, and even of the Qing government authorities. In the end, all three parties agreed to eliminate the Qing court and form a republican government. This was the 1911 Revolution. Therefore, no matter how the regime or political system changed in the years that followed, China’s stance on this point never wavered. This has been true even up to the present day (Okamoto 2020).

However, at least at that time, such a stance was far removed from the reality of the situation. Tibet and Mongolia gained de facto independence in the 1911 Revolution and continued to be at odds with China. Even in China proper, each province wielded its own considerable power. The 1911 Revolution had been accomplished as a result of the independence of the provinces from the central government, and this turned into a war of competing factions that led to political turmoil. The unification of the nation-state was still a pipe dream. The struggles of the Republic of China, which had been born without substance commensurate with the name both in domestic politics and in foreign relations had begun.

2 The History of the Republic of China to the Second Sino-Japanese War

2.1 The Xinhai Revolution and the Establishment of the Republic of China

In the early twentieth century, the Qing Dynasty fell in China due to the Xinhai Revolution. This closed the curtain on over two thousand years of monarchical rule in Imperial China, and a new form of government called the Republic of China was established. This new country was constructed as a modern sovereign nation, but agreement could not be reached within the country for just how a modern nation should be structured, and the nation building process brought with it many difficulties.

On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China was formed at Nanjing with Sun Yat-sen as the Provisional President. However, a powerful Qing Dynasty government faction still existed in Beijing. In February, talks were held between the Qing and the Republic of China with mediation by the United Kingdom at a peace conference between north and south governments. The Qing dynasty dissolved and was absorbed into the Republic of China (1911 Revolution / Xinhai Revolution). This marked the end of two thousand years of long-standing Imperial Chinese monarchical rule, but the Qing Dynasty emperor Puyi was allowed to continue residing in the Forbidden City under the Articles of Favorable Treatment. The Republic of China asserted the proclamation of Five Races Under One Union and inherited Qing Dynasty territory. Yuan Shih-kai, who assumed the position of Provisional President from Sun Yat-sen, inherited the Qing Dynasty bureaucracy, the Beiyang Army, etc. Bolstered by a reorganizational loan amounting to £250 million from a five-nation consortium consisting of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia, he launched the Beijing government of the Republic of China. Before the establishment of the Yuan Shih-kai regime, a Provisional Constitution for the Nanjing based government had been established. This constitution constrained presidential powers and recognized a strong level of power among the legislature, which included the various ministries and many regional representatives. In the spring 1913 election, the Nationalist Party won. However, Nationalist Party leader Sung Chiao-jen was assassinated in front of Shanghai Station, and Yuan Shih-kai worked with elected legislators in an attempt to dissuade the legislature from constraining the presidency. Yuan was officially installed as president in 1913, and in autumn of that year, other nations also recognized the government of the Republic of China. Unlike the elites in the various ministries who had envisioned a decentralized administration in which the various ministries hold power and a republic in which the president does not hold power, Yuan Shih-kai is thought to have envisioned a centralized constitutional monarchy. And subsequently, he began to seek ways to become an emperor (Kawashima 2010, pp. 142–151).

2.2 From the World War I Era to the 1920s

World War I, which erupted in Europe in 1914, brought new difficulties for Chinese politics in the foreign diplomacy arena. And after the death of Yuan Shih-kai, domestic politics experienced disorder over the issue of joining the war. While the Beijing government did achieve a certain level of diplomatic success through participating in World War I, it faced an even more difficult level of problems in the arena of governmental administration. However, the Chinese economy did show growth during the war period, and the Chinese economic quarter began bolstering the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Guangdong.

When World War I first erupted, China was hosting foreign naval bases of both sides on domestic leased territory and originally declared neutrality in the war. However, Japan was already involved in the war. Together with British forces, Japan advanced into Shandong, attacked the German naval base in Jiaozhou Bay and the entirety of the Shandong province to occupy that area until 1922. In January 1915, Japan hit the Yuan Shih-kai regime with the Twenty-One Demands. This called for conditions such as the extension of rights in Manchuria, including control of the South Manchuria Railway (Mantetsu) that Japan had acquired through the Russo-Japanese war, and the acquisition of Germany’s rights in Shandong. This sparked a strong anti-Japanese movement within China. The Yuan Shih-kai regime reacted by rejecting Group V of the Demands, which contained the harshest requirements. It leaked information to English language newspapers and engaged in tenacious negotiations, but finally acceded to Japan’s demands in early May. Meanwhile, the Great Powers developed strong misgivings towards Japan for approaching China on its own, without coordination, and failing to disclose a portion of the negotiation demands (Kokubun et al. 2017, pp. 16–17).

The theater for World War I was mainly in Europe, and this generated positive conditions for the economies of the US, Japan, and China. Particularly in China, European product imports decreased, value skyrocketed, and the effects were the same as if high tariffs had been imposed. Thus, the competitive strength of Chinese products, supported by an inexpensive labor force, increased, and a progressive switch to import substitution industrialization began. Together with specialist workers returning home from abroad, people who shouldered the ethnic industries growing during this period formed the support base for the Chinese Nationalist Party. In the 1910s, Chinese domestic development progressed in places like Xinjiang and Manchuria, and the transportation network also expanded. Also, Chinese merchants and migrant workers spread into the Americas, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Siberia. They sent money to their hometowns in China (Overseas Chinese Remittance), and that money funded construction for the villages from which these overseas Chinese hailed.¹ Additionally, in and after World War I, many young people went to France under programs designed to fill the local labor shortage in which school fees were waived for working in factories (“Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement”).

Fig. 1

Western style building on the Kinmen Islands (photographed by the author)

Yuan Shih-kai gave up on attempting to restore the monarchical system in China and died in 1916. In the following year of 1917, the Republic of China entered World War I under the leadership of Tuan Ch’i-jui. Therein, domestic politics were decisively severed over war participation. Sun Yat-sen and some national legislators opposed the Beijing based government and founded a central government in Guangdong (Military Government of the Republic of China). Furthermore, Japan issued large loans to the Tuan Ch’i-jui regime (Nishihara Loans), which used the financing to successfully unify China, dispatching military force even to Outer Mongolia and Siberia. In 1918 the war ended, and the Republic of China was on the winning side. It attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and argued for the return of German territory in Shandong province to China and nullification of the Twenty-One Demands ​​(Kawashima 2004, pp. 264–265). However, China did not succeed, and domestic outrage sparked the May Fourth Movement.

2.3 The Nanjing National Government

The Nanjing National Government united China. In 1928, under the Dang Guo system (Party-State System) in which the Nationalist Party headed the government, the Nanjing National Government aimed to construct a nation-state even more thoroughly than the Beijing government had accomplished and purged local military leaders, including the Communist Party. However, there was demand from within the country for a transfer to constitutionalism. Due to external factors, such as the Mukden Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War, that nation-building goal was forced to course correct.

In 1919, Sun Yat-sen and his allies formed the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT). They received aid from sources including the Comintern (Communist International) and amassed power. In 1924, they held the 1st National Congress of the Chinese Nationalist Party, announced the Three Principles of the People, and called for efforts such as, “alliance with the Soviet Union, accommodation with the Communist Party of China, and assisting peasants and workers.” The Chinese Communist Party was formed in 1921 and, based on instruction from Comintern, it had party members participate in the Chinese Nationalist Party Convention as Nationalist Party members. However, in 1925, Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing while visiting as part of his quest to unify China. His final requests articulated issues such as the necessity to remedy unequal treaties (Kawashima 2010, pp. 219–220). Two months after his death, a large-scale protest (May Thirtieth Movement) was sparked by the shooting of workers by a British Shanghai Municipal Police officer. Against this backdrop, the NRA (National Revolutionary Army) headed by Chiang Kai-Shek launched the Northern Expedition in 1926. In the process of the expedition, the army gathered local military forces under its umbrella, proposing “Revolutionary Diplomacy” in a bid to regain the reins of a fractured China. The United Kingdom did return some of its interests, such as the British Settlement. However, in March 1927 the NRA launched attacks on several places, including the consulate offices of foreign countries in Nanjing, and engaged in violence and looting (Nanjing Incident). When the Northern Expedition army reached North China, Japan dispatched its military three times from 1927 through 1928, citing the need to protect Japanese citizens living there (Shandong Expedition). During the Jinan Incident of May 3, 1928, Chinese and Japanese forces came to blows. Then, on April 12, 1927, during the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-Shek purged suspected Communists (April 12 Incident).

The Nanjing National Government, launched in Nanjing by the Chinese Nationalist Party in 1927, employed the Dang Guo system (Party-State System), in which the party leads the government. In 1928, the Northern Expedition army entered Beijing, and the Beijing government fell. Leader Chang Tso-lin escaped to Mukden (Shenyang) by train but was killed by the Kwantung Army (an important incident in Manchuria, a.k.a. Chang Tso-lin Explosion Death Incident). Chang Tso-lin’s son, Chang Hsueh-liang inherited his father’s power base, and at the end of that year, he clarified his support of the Nanjing National Government (Northeast Flag Replacement), and the Chinese Nationalist Party unified the entire country. The government formed was based on urban specialist personnel and native capital from organizations including the Zhejiang financial clique. It constructed a governmental foundation with the infusion of a portion of Beijing government bureaucrats.

The NRA aimed to “purge” actors, including regional military powers and the Communist Party, and militarily expand the territory under their control. Additionally, they attempted to directly control cities and agricultural villages through means such as organizing urban commerce groups and implementing the Rural Reconstruction Movement. Also, through efforts such as the New Life Movement, they tried to guide behavior and lifestyle norms towards those of the ideal “citizens” of a modern nation. On the financial front, the NRA succeeded in reviving tariff autonomy in 1929 as a result of tariff conferences that the Beijing government had been pursuing. This stabilized their financial resources and was helpful in protecting and nurturing domestic industry. China adopted a silver standard and did not initially feel much impact from the Great Depression that started in 1929. However, in 1931, the United Kingdom broke away from the gold standard, and the price of silver rose. This sparked troubles such as export paralysis, a decrease in Overseas Chinese Remittance, and foreign investment. As a result, silver flowed out of China and commodity prices fell. This is the backdrop against which the fabi (authorized paper money) currency was considered necessary (Ishikawa 2010, pp. 70–71).

Fearing the threat of the USSR and the perceived threat towards treaty interests by the Nanjing National Government, the Kwantung Army sparked the Mukden Incident on September 18, 1931, and in a short period of time occupied the entire region of Manchuria centering on the area along the railway. In response, Chiang Kai-shek pulled Chang Hsueh-liang back to safety in China proper. Declaring a policy of “maintaining internal security and repelling foreign invasion,” Chiang Kai-Shek initiated several internal and external initiatives. Internally, he avoided direct military engagement with Japan while “purging” local military leaders, including Communist Party loyalists, expanding directly controlled territory, and transforming it into a hub for resisting Japan. Externally, with a focus on the concept of collective security, he brought claims of League charter violations and treaty violations by Japan to the League of Nations and the Nine-Power Treaty member nations. Upon receiving this claim from China, the League of Nations dispatched the Lytton Commission. In January 1932, which was during the investigation period for that commission, the January 28 Incident (Shanghai Incident) occurred, and in March, the nation of Manchukuo was established with Hsuan-tung Emperor Puyi as its magistrate. The Lytton report was submitted to the League of Nations. After representatives from both Japan and China fought in debates, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations out of dissatisfaction with the League resolution.

The Mukden Incident concluded with the 1933 Tanggu Truce. And though there was no active warfare between 1933 and the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japan’s advance into North China continued, simultaneous to several peace negotiations being held between the two countries. During this period, the Nanjing National Government continued eliminating local military leaders and the fighting to purge Communist Party loyalists while also preparing for war with Japan. And even when issuing the silver standard backedfabi currency in 1935, they required the handover of silver to the coffers of regional governments and military forces and issued paper notes as collateral. Meanwhile, the Communist Party founded the Chinese Soviet Republic in Ruijin in Jiangxi province, but after being attacked by the Chinese Nationalist Party, they transferred to Yan’an in Shanxi province from 1934 through 1936 (Long March) (Ishikawa 2010, pp. 123–129, 133). Against this backdrop, Chiang Kai-shek visited Xi’an in December 1936 to motivate Chang Hsueh-liang, who was not achieving the expected military success in terms of attacking the Communist Party. However, Chang Hsueh-liang held Chiang under house arrest, and together with Chou En-lai of the Chinese Communist Party, he persuaded Chiang Kai-shek to authorize the United Front and resist the Japanese (Xi’an Incident). But after being released, Chiang Kai-shek did not necessarily throw his full weight into the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

2.4 The Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II

When the Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, the capital Nanjing was occupied by Japan and the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was conducted from Chongqing. However, construction of a National Mobilization initiative without thorough governing of basic society proved difficult. And externally, the United Kingdom, the US, and the Soviet Union were not joining the fight against Japan. The Pacific War finally commenced in 1941. China was declared a member of the United Nations Big Four, and its international status rose through factors such as developing a framework for postwar Asia. However, the status of the Nationalist Government progressively dropped both domestically and from an international viewpoint as well.

On July 7, 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident erupted in the outskirts of Beijing. Afterwards, small incidents continued to occur in the Beijing outskirts. When the Second Battle of Shanghai broke out on August 13, genuine warfare began. To avoid the application of the US Neutrality act, Japan and China did not issue an official declaration of war. The Japanese army was sorely taxed by Chinese forces, which had been trained by German officers. But on December 13, when Japanese forces entered Nanjing, they massacred non-combatants and prisoners (Nanjing Massacre). The Nationalist Government, along with bureaucrats and intellectuals, had already relocated from Nanjing to Chongqing in Sichuan province (Chongqing Nationalist Government), which was territory directly under control by the Nationalist Government. The government laid down a National Mobilization initiative and prepared for a long-term commitment to the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, but they could not completely initiate a family registration system and were limited in their response. Also, with cooperation from the Chinese Communist Party, they were able to create a system for engaging in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (United Front), but trust between the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party did not reach sufficient levels. Additionally, the Nationalist Party had promised a transfer to constitutionalism directly before war commenced and had to handle the pressure to become democratic while engaging in war.

In terms of foreign policy, while receiving support from the United Kingdom, the US, and the USSR through means such as the Allied supply route, Chiang Kai-shek continued working diplomatically with the expectation of war against Japan breaking out with the Great Powers (Zhang 1991, pp. 252–257). When World War II erupted in Europe in 1939, an alliance gradually formed between Japan, Germany, and Italy, but the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II were separate wars. However, when Japan advanced into northern French Indochina to cut off the supply route and then into southern French Indochina, Chiang Kai-shek began to rely on support from the United Kingdom to the Yunnan province through the Burma Route. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Malay Peninsula on December 8, 1941, commencing war with the United Kingdom and the US, and the Pacific War erupted, Chiang Kai-shek declared war on Japan the very next day, December 9. Japan, which viewed the Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing to be the official Chinese government, did not officially declare war on China. In January of 1942, China became a member of the United Nations and was designated as one of the Big Four.

The Chinese front was a three-way stalemate between the Chongqing Nationalist Government, the Yan’an Communist Party government, and Japan, which held the area from North China to Jiangnan, the major rail areas, and major port cities, along with its allies the Nanjing Wang Jingwei Regime and Manchukuo. However, along the front of the Pacific War, from mid-1942 onward, Japan progressively weakened, and the Allied Nations began formulating a postwar vision. At the end of November 1943, leaders of the United Kingdom, the US, and China held talks in Cairo (the Cairo Conference), announced their postwar vision for East Asia (the Cairo Declaration), and laid the foundation for the subsequent Potsdam Declaration. By 1944, the movement towards forming a postwar international united organization accelerated among the Allied Nations. In 1945, World War II ended, and the United Nations was formed at the San Francisco Conference. China became a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

However, the United Kingdom and the US believed that in order to end the war with Germany and Japan, the cooperation of the USSR was indispensable. Therefore, in February of 1945, a conference was held at Yalta between the United Kingdom, the US, and the Soviet Union (the Yalta Conference). Therein, the USSR was included in the fight against Japan, but China was not invited to the conference. This indicated a decrease in the status of China regarding the war against Japan. At the end of July, the Potsdam Declaration was issued to Japan from the US, the United Kingdom, and China. Then, in August of the same year, the USSR invaded Manchukuo inbetween the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. On August 14, China entered the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance and accepted the independence of Outer Mongolia, albeit with conditions, and China later rescinded this acceptance.

Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration and surrendered unconditionally. However, the USSR strengthened its influence on the entire northern region of China, including Manchuria, Outer Mongolia, and Xinjiang. Conflict would become unavoidable between the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party, which received support from the USSR. Additionally, the transition to constitutionalism also became a major issue.

3 Japanese Meiji Restoration and Modernization

3.1 The Incrementally Strict National Isolation and Peaceful Opening

In the Age of Discovery in which Spain and Portugal came to Japan in their quest to set out into the East Asian maritime region, Japan produced and supplied large quantities of silver for use in trade transactions and was deeply embedded in international commerce networks (Yamaguchi 2006). From the end of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century, the Toyotomi regime and the Tokugawa shogunate ordered national isolation. But this did not completely ban communications and commerce. Instead, it focused mainly on being wary of, and expelling, Christians. Thus, the law tolerated docking by foreign ships for the purpose of trade, and trade continued with the Netherlands, China, and the Ainu. Regarding Korea, acceptance was given to delegates visiting mainly during the succession of the shogun.

It was the eighteenth century when the situation started to change. First, resources to transact trade dried up. This is because silver production decreased, and production of substitute copper was also sluggish. The need for trade also decreased. This is because raw silk, which was the main imported product, was being produced domestically, and the cotton trade was also maturing.

Matsudaira Sadanobu, who headed the shogunate administration at the time, decreased Dejima trading with the Dutch East India Company and tightened national isolation. Tightening national isolation also dovetailed with the self-justification of the shogunate, which saw it as protecting the emperor and the people from foreign nations (Jansen 1989, 2000). However, the financial situation of the shogunate was in the process of worsening, and they were not able to build defensive power that could stand up to the West. Moreover, Japan is an island nation, and both Edo, home to the shogun, and Osaka, home to the economic center, were located on coasts and fragile against maritime threats. Information about the Qing Dynasty’s defeat in the First Opium War had also spread, and the shogun’s cabinet was deeply concerned.

The steamboat fleet commanded by American Commodore Matthew Perry (the “Black Ships”) appeared at Uraga in 1853, and in the next year the shogunate signed the Treaty of Peace and Amity and promised to treat visiting ships and people with humanitarian respect. Japan also signed other similar treaties with the major European Powers.

However, the West desired free trade without intervention by administration officials. The shogunate accommodated this as well, and in 1858, it entered into the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with United States Consul General to Japan Townsend Harris. Japan established diplomatic relations, and trade was allowed in Kanagawa (Yokohama), Hyogo (Kobe), Nagasaki, Niigata, Hakodate, Edo (Tokyo), and Osaka. Allowing residence, travel, and commerce in any interior area other than the areas specified above was not required in the treaty terms. The Netherlands, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France immediately followed suit. During the next decade, other European nations also entered into similar treaties.

In this way, Japan developed experience interacting with the West in the beginning of the early-modern period. From the late Edo period onward, Japan had attempted to tighten national isolation, but had also learned that it did not have the power to accomplish that. This culminated with the arrival of Perry’s Black Ships, and Japan was able to open up in a gradual and relatively advantageous way without going through war.

This was a favorable time to trade with the West. The United Kingdom had just quelled the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and was engaged in colonizing India and building railways. After winning the 1856–1860 Second Opium War (the Arrow Incident), the United Kingdom and France opened up Yangtze River watershed ports to the West. Inland China and India linked to international markets, and Asian trade expanded. It was in this environment that Japan opened its ports. Moreover, the American Civil War commenced in 1860, and raw cotton exporting came to a standstill. Japan was only able to supplement a small part of the global supply shortage for raw cotton, but nevertheless did reap massive profits from exporting (Metzler 2020).

3.2 The Joi Movement

However, the idea that strict national isolation was a part of Japanese tradition was already firmly embedded in Japanese culture, and the decision to open the ports received strong criticism. In particular, the emperor’s disapproval of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, and his refusal to grant royal permission to sign the treaty, heightened opposition. The Sonno Joi Movement (translated into English as a movement to “revere the emperor and expel barbarians”) criticizing the shogunate for making that decision on its own and opposing the resultant opening of ports spread, particularly among lower-ranking warriors.

At the time, the population of Japan was about 30 million people. Samurai families made up 7% of all households. Amidst the long period of peace in Edo, where once warriors had been the core, now the role of bureaucrat was central. 7% was appropriate for soldiers, but too many as bureaucrats. Therein, low-ranking warriors were poor, and some had to farm to survive. Prospects for upward mobility were extremely rare. Even still, those samurai felt pride in being on the outskirts of the political elite, and there was a feeling of resistance towards becoming a farmer or merchant. Hardship and unhappiness drove some low-ranking warriors to answer a new calling, leaving their master’s house to become ronin. Thus, the Sonno Joi movement became more radicalized. These masterless samurai roamed all over the country, propagandizing about a perceived crisis to the independence of the Japanese, and the idea of the Japanese as one people began to spread.

Some daimyo even employed Sonno Joi as an official governing policy. Choshu (current Yamaguchi Prefecture) is an exemplative case of this. In 1863, it fired on foreign ships passing through the Shimonoseki Straits in an attempt to expulse foreigners. However, the subsequent year Choshu underwent a counterattack from the fleets of the Four Powers of the United Kingdom, US, France, and the Netherlands, which resulted in reconciliation. Choshu was also militarily engaged by shogunate forces twice, in 1864 and 1866, but did not back down. Furthermore, the second engagement ended in a Choshu victory, considerably cutting away at shogunal authority.

The Joi Movement experienced a shift in its core purpose from expelling foreigners to overthrowing the shogunate (Beasley 1955, 1972). As symbolized in “Shinron” (New Theses 1825) by Aizawa Seishisai, the Joi concept actually started forming several decades before Japan opened the ports, when Russian and British ships started entering waters close to Japan. It was not merely an emotional sense of abhorrence towards foreigners, but also cultivated the aspiration towards a unified nation with the emperor at its summit (Totman 1980; Watanabe 2012).

3.3 Political Change and Civil Conflicts

Some daimyo deployed the Kobu Gattai (Cooperation of the Imperial Court and the Shogunate) movement in an attempt to allow the emperor and the shogun to coexist. However, the shogunate was not able to employ this movement effectively. The proponents of this movement were powerful daimyo with relatively large domains, including Satsuma (current Kagoshima Prefecture), Echizen (current Fukui Prefecture), and Tosa (current Kochi Prefecture). The shogunate distanced these kinds of powerful daimyo and excluded them from governance decisions. Thus, the Kobu Gattai movement included within it a feeling of opposition to unilateral action by the shogunate and a desire for the shogunate to listen to opinions more broadly than before when making governing decisions. The shogunate repeated the betrayal of using the Kobu Gattai proponents to slap down the Joi Movement and then distancing those proponents from governance decisions afterwards. Satsuma was outraged and began coming to terms with Choshu and allying with them in an attempt to overthrow the shogunate. In fact, one factor contributing to Choshu victory in battle against the shogunate was its ability to purchase rifles from the United Kingdom through the mediation of Satsuma.

The shogunate realized that it could not successfully respond to the threat of the West under its old system. Similar to Choshu and Satsuma, the shogunate underwent reform centered around the modernization of its military. However, it was still hampered by the many constraints of its old framework and was unable to be fully successful in this endeavor (Hoya 2020). When the American Civil War ended in 1865, the supply of raw cotton rose to an excess, and a global depression occurred. For more than two decades afterwards, import excess was the norm for Japanese trade. For a shogunate on the edge of survival, this was immensely unfortunate timing (Metzler 2020).

Considering the above, it is clear that a wide political spectrum shared the future vision of discarding an inefficient framework and striving to unify the nation. The major point of contention was whether the leader of this unified nation should be switched to the emperor (which would actually mean power being held by Satsuma and Choshu) or if authority should remain in the hands of the Tokugawa shogunate. On January 3, 1868, the Imperial Court under the guidance of Satsuma issued the declaration of Restoration of Imperial Rule. Subsequently, armed clashes of a scale that was not immensely large broke out in the Kyoto area. When the tide turned against the shogunate, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu decided to abstain from fighting. Afterwards, a civil strife called the Boshin War continued until spring of the following year, but the death count did not even reach ten thousand. The two sides shared a common larger vision but quarreled over politics, and when victory and defeat became apparent, a major civil war was avoided (Mitani 2017).

Thus, the situation was resolved without necessitating the intervention of foreign powers. Some in the shogunate wanted to put down the rebellious domestic forces using force borrowed from the great European powers (particularly France), but this desire did not spread to the mainstream (Ishii 1966).

3.4 Meiji Reform

Subsequently, the core of the Meiji government became skilled low-ranking warriors. As mentioned earlier, low-ranking warriors were the victims of the Edo class system. When they attained governing power, they sought to actualize free career choice (Watanabe 2012). There were repeated instances of enacting measures in which they themselves renounced the special privileges of the warrior class and dissolved the class system. Daimyo authority ended in the 1871 abolition of the clan System, and the exclusive role of the warrior as a soldier as well as the cause of revenue was eliminated through the conscription system introduced in 1873. A major portion of the Meiji reform and its success can be explained by the high education standards achieved in the Edo period and a belief in meritocracy brought about by repentance over the Edo period.

Of course, the number of low-ranking warriors who gained political power was very small, and the majority hailed from Satsuma or Choshu. The new government was an oligarchy called the Hambatsu (domain clique) government. Some individuals foreclosed from government sought to reclaim the special privileges of samurai and sparked insurgencies with no possible chance of success. However, most supported the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement and sought even further equalization. Therein, they were successful in obtaining support and participation from affluent farmers and became an unignorable source of pressure for establishing a national assembly. Two parties developed: the Rikken Kaishinto Party (Constitutional Progressive Party) and the Jiyuto Party (Liberal Party).

The Hambatsu government was unable to ignore this, and in 1889 the Constitution of the Empire of Japan was publicly proclaimed by Hambatsu leading member Ito Hirobumi and his colleagues. The following year, the national Diet was established. Initially strenuous conflicts unfurled repeatedly between the government and the majority of the House of Representatives, the Liberal Party and Progressive Party, but gradually cooperation aiming for the stable operation of a constitutional system was more and more prevalent.

3.5 Special Privileges for Foreigners

The effect aspirations towards a unified nation had in the foreign policy domain was in the problem of treaty revisions.

Through the Treaties of Amity and Commerce, Japan had adopted a conventional tariff system. This meant that Japan could not impose tariffs higher than those established in treaties. Japan also allowed consular jurisdiction. This meant that if an individual belonging to a treaty power was accused of a crime or litigated in a dispute, the consul for that treaty power would conduct a trial following the laws of that nation. For example, if a British citizen was accused of a crime in Yokohama, the United Kingdom consul in Yokohama would conduct the trial following British law.

Furthermore, Japan entered into a Friendship and Trade Treaty with the Qing Dynasty in 1871, and both countries accepted a mutual conventional tariff system and consular jurisdiction. Japan also entered into a Treaty of Amity with Korea in 1876. In this treaty, Japan achieved consular jurisdiction in Korea. Initially the agreement was mutually tariff-free, but later both parties consented to conventional tariffs.

As for the question of just how much these sorts of restrictions on sovereignty caused harm to Japan, that is a subject that requires careful consideration. Reportedly, consular trials were surprisingly fair to Japanese people (Chang 1984). And though foreigners enjoyed special privileges at open ports, because foreign residence and activity was mainly limited to those ports, there were restrictions to both the expansion of foreign trade and the percolation of foreign capital (Hoare 1994). Moreover, though treaties prohibited the closure of open ports in Japan, they did not prohibit opening new ports. Thus, Japan independently opened special trading ports. There were less restrictions on sovereignty from treaties at these ports, and Japanese merchants delved into international trade from a more advantageous footing (Phipps 2015).

However, as Meiji Japan strove to become a unified nation in the Western style, it was only natural that foreigners with special privileges would become an eyesore. The abolishment of consular trials as a means to restoring jurisdiction and the recovery of tariff autonomy as a means to recovering taxation authority were frequently demanded from Japanese government negotiation policy.

But both consular jurisdiction and conventional tariffs were bedrock provisions of the treaties, and Japan also understood that the West would not easily consent to revising them. Therein, until entering the 1880s, what the Japanese government actually pursued consistently was the restoration of administrative power (Iokibe 2010, 2012).

But what exactly did they mean by the return of administrative power? Consular jurisdiction in Japan was only invoked in cases occurring between individuals. Put in other words, there was no clear wording in treaties regarding the placement of trial jurisdiction for cases in which a foreigner had violated legal regulations that codify the relationship between the government and the individual or maintain societal order (frequently called “administrative regulations” at the time). Moreover, for administrative regulations to be applied in consular courts, treaties were handled such that permission must be obtained in advance from the foreign country. Without that permission, there was no guarantee that the administrative regulations of Japan would be observed uniformly by everyone, Japanese and foreigner alike. Revising this method of legal action in new treaties is what was meant by returning administrative power.

To actualize national unification, dexterous and powerful administration force was required. Moreover, because financial resources and competency for public works and public benefits programs were limited in the nineteenth century, regulatory administration was highly important. In order to cultivate healthy, competent, and cooperative citizens, protect and promote corporate activity and factory labor, and ensure tax revenue and military troops, the government issued, revised, and abolished decrees in an array of areas including hygiene and quarantining, speech and publishing, education, promotion of new industry, and taxation. Domestic criticism was intense against the unwieldiness of constant changes in the law, but this can also be seen as a period of trial-and-error that was unavoidable. Carrying through with these administrative regulations without engaging in prior consultation with foreign countries signified the final step in achieving national unification.

3.6 Negotiations with the West and China to Restore Administrative Authority

The West also had to mostly accept the validity of Japan’s assertions. General exemption from administrative regulations was merely a method of applying treaties that was not spelled out within the treaties themselves, except several regulations specified. Japan was merely asserting the independent right to apply the treaties in a legitimate manner, not to reject them. As a result, the assertions of Japan were accommodated in a relatively smooth manner within the framework of Western international law. However, because the administration had a direct impact on the daily rights and environment of foreigners residing in Japan, the West argued unremittingly over terms.

Japan also attempted negotiations with the Qing Dynasty as well over restoring administrative authority. The content of the Trade Regulations attached to the Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty was slightly different from that in trade regulations attached to treaties with Western countries, and this complicated trade administration. Additionally, the Japanese saw the difficulty of clamping down on illicit trade and smoking of opium by the Chinese as a problem. Furthermore, even if treaty revision attempts with Western countries were hypothetically successful, the Japanese government feared that Western countries would take back their special privileges through most-favored-nation clauses if the Qing Dynasty retained special privileges.

When Japan forced through the Ryukyu Disposition in 1879, it petitioned for a revision of treaty terms in exchange for handing over Miyako Island and the Yaeyama Islands to the Qing Dynasty. In October of the following year, Japanese Minister Plenipotentiary to Qing, Shishido Tamaki, and the Qing central authority office Zongli Yamen reached an agreement, but opposition from Li Hongzhang caused Zongli Yamen to change its mind, and the following month it announced its decision to postpone affixing its seal to the agreement. The Japanese government displayed an intense backlash. However, the Qing Dynasty had actually been displaying discomfort from the start with the Japanese negotiation method of roping the Qing Dynasty into the Ryukyu problem while also forcing the Qing to keep pace with future agreements between the West and Japan.

3.7 Jurisdiction Restoration Negotiations with the West and War with the Qing Dynasty

Because the restoration of administrative authority was not advancing, from May through June in 1886 Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru consulted with the United Kingdom and Germany and switched the policy to an early actualization of abolishing consular jurisdiction altogether in return for Japan opening up its interior. If there were no more consular trials at all, the custom of consulting with foreign countries before enacting administrative regulations that was engendered by the expansive application of consular jurisdiction would also disappear. Also, the restoration of jurisdiction and the opening up of the interior signified the important accomplishment of dramatic treaty reform for Japan and for the West respectively.

For that purpose, a policy of Europeanization had to be accelerated. And this invited opposition from domestic Japanese society. This policy slightly influenced Japan’s stance towards China. The West did not want to abolish its special privileges in China. In order for Japan to put the West at ease with trust that revising treaties with Japan would not lead to a necessity to revise treaties with China, Japan had to present itself as being civilized on a completely different level than the Qing Dynasty. Japan and Qing China had been competing over influence on Korea, but Ito Hirobumi, Inoue Kaoru, and their contemporaries did assent to the superiority of the Qing Dynasty in actual fact. (For details on the relationship between Japan and the Qing concerning Korea, see Chap. 5 “Japan’s Expansion into Asia”). However, discourse criticizing the slowness of the Qing Dynasty’s own inner-reform and emphasizing the progressiveness of Japan grew strong both inside and outside of the government.

In considering the restoration of jurisdiction from the West, the compendium of legal codes in Japan and the ability of judges were deemed as insufficient, so Japan promised the additional concessions of (1) consolidating the underdeveloped legal code and displaying this to the governments of each treaty power before proceeding with consular trial abolishment and (2) installing foreign lawyers in Japanese courts for legal action involving foreigners.

These terms sparked opposition from within the government, and in 1887 Inoue was forced to cut off negotiations and step down from the position of Foreign Minister. Up to that point, Japanese foreign diplomacy had been receiving hardline pressure domestically concerning policy towards Korea and the problem of treaty revisions (Iriye 1989). However, it was not until the 1887 treaty revision problem that government policy was forced so bluntly into a turnaround and the Foreign Minister forced into stepping down.

This was excellent timing for political parties. Japanese trade had been in import excess for a long period and specialty goods such as silkworm-egg paper and traditional crafts were just barely shoring up exporting. Moreover, in the mid-1880s Lord of the Treasury and Minister of Finance Matsukata Masayoshi forced through redemption for inconvertible paper currency, and as a result, the Japanese economy suffered a deep depression called “Matsukata Deflation.” Political party organization was also pummeled, and the Liberal Party was forced to officially disband. Dissatisfaction over the Europeanization policy symbolized by Inoue was in a highly volatile state.

Moreover, currency deflation increased competitiveness among Japanese commodities, and in the late 1880s an industrial revolution revolving around light industry products occurred. That is to say, exporting and the economy were actually expanding, and economic conditions advantageous for the expansion of political strength of the parties had arrived. In particular, the old Liberal Party regained power by criticizing the blunders of Inoue.

The Progressive Party leader Okuma Shigenobu came back into power as the Foreign Minister and reopened treaty revision negotiations. However, because the abolishment of consular jurisdiction and installation of foreign lawyers in Japanese courts previously negotiated remained in Okuma’s subsequent negotiations, albeit in a diminished form, he was criticized by the Liberal Party and the conservative wing both inside and outside of the government. In 1889, Okuma was severely injured in terrorist action, and he stepped down from the Foreign Minister position. After the establishment of the national assembly in 1890, the Progressive Party began advocating a hardline stance in an interference effort against government treaty revision negotiation.

This sort of approach, when the government aspires towards accommodative and reasonable foreign diplomacy, resulted in a powerful pattern seen in Japanese political diplomacy where the opposition party mobilizes nationalist sentiment to thwart negotiations.

After the establishment of the Diet, the government switched to a policy prioritizing negotiations with the United Kingdom, with a focus on minimizing foreign role in legal proceedings. This was the highest possible hurdle for them to face but succeeding would surely mean a significant reduction of factors causing instability both domestically and internationally.

In 1894, under Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu in the second Ito cabinet, treaty revision negotiation between Japan and the United Kingdom was finally concluded. Other treaty powers also followed suit, and in 1899 the new treaties took effect, successfully restoring jurisdiction in return for opening up the interior of Japan. This was an important recovery of restricted sovereignty for the non-Western sphere from the West.

However, this did not bring peace to the non-Western sphere. The treaty relationship with the Qing Dynasty remained unchanged. In fact, instead of negotiations, the First Sino-Japanese War broke out at the end of July 1894, almost simultaneous to the conclusion of negotiations between Japan and the United Kingdom. Winning this conflict allowed Japan to acquire the same special treaty privileges in China that the West enjoyed and resolved the long-standing treaty problems between Japan and the Qing through military force. Simultaneously, Japan was able to expulse the influence of the Qing Dynasty from Korea, absorb Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, and begin its journey towards becoming an empire.