Wartime Strategy and Diplomacy: Closing the War

Abstract

The cliché of Japanese wartime discourse was of gaining dominion over the entire 400 and more counties of China. The reality, however, was that up to January 1895 the Japanese military had encountered no more than a regional Chinese force, penetrated no further than the remote north-east, and left untouched the demographic heartlands of eastern and southern China. Indeed, it seems unlikely the war had interrupted the overall business of Chinese society. A British diplomatic report as late as April 1895, while perhaps exaggerated, declared that:

Notwithstanding the number and magnitude of the reverses they have sustained, the Chinese consider the Japanese to be merely troublesome disturbers of the frontier, who are displaying a quite unlooked-for and somewhat annoying activity, but whose doings are on the whole beneath contempt. One of the staff of the Chang Shao Mission [of peace to Japan] was, on his return, asked for his opinion of the Japanese. ‘Oh, the Japanese are a very enterprising people’, was his answer …¹