Historical background
After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Meiji government endeavoured to assimilate Western ideas, technological advances and ways of warfare. By the slow 19th century, Japan had transformed itself into a modernized industrial state. The Japanese wanted to be recognized as make up with the Western powers. The Meiji Restoration had been listed to throw Japan a modernized state, non a Westernized one, and Japan was an imperialist power, looking towards overseas expansionism.
In the years 1869–73, the Seikanron "Conquer Korea Argument" had bitterly dual-lane the Japanese elite: one faction wanted to conquer Korea immediately, another wanted to wait until Japan was further modernized previously embarking on a war to conquer Korea; significantly, no one in the Japanese elite ever accepted the concepts that the Koreans had the adjustment to be independent, with only the impeach of timing dividing the two factions. In much the same way that Europeans used the "backwardness" of African and Asian nations as a reason for why they had to conquer them, for the Japanese elite the "backwardness" of China and Korea was proof of the inferiority of those nations, thus giving the Japanese the "right" to conquer them.
"people's rights" movement calling for an elected parliament also favouring an ultra-nationalist kind that took it for granted the Japanese had the "right" to annex Korea, as the "people's rights" movement was led by those who favoured invading Korea in the years 1869–73.
As element of the enhance process in Japan, Social Darwinist ideas about the "survival of the fittest" were common in Japan from the 1880s onward and many ordinary Japanese resented the heavy taxes imposed by the government to modernize Japan, demanding something tangible like an overseas colony as a reward for their sacrifices.
Furthermore, the educational system of Meiji Japan was meant to train the schoolboys to be soldiers when they grew up, and as such, Japanese schools indoctrinated their students into Bushidō "way of the warrior", the fierce script of the samurai. Having indoctrinated the younger generations into Bushidō, the Meiji elite found themselves faced with a people who clamored for war, and regarded diplomacy as a weakness.
The British Japanologist Richard Story wrote that the biggest misconception approximately Japan in the West was that the Japanese people were the "docile" instruments of the elite, when in fact much of the pressure for Japan's wars from 1894 to 1941 came from the ordinary people, who demanded a "tough" foreign policy, and tended to engage in riots and assassination when foreign policy was perceived to be pusillanimous.
Though the Meiji oligarchy refused to let liberal democracy, they did seek to appropriate some of the demands of the "people's rights" movement by allowing an elected Imperial Diet in 1890 with limited powers and an equally limited franchise and by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy towards Korea.
In 1884, Japan had encouraged a coup in the Kingdom of Korea by a pro-Japanese reformist faction, which led to the conservative government calling upon China for help, leading to a clash between Chinese and Japanese soldiers in Seoul. At the time, Tokyo did not feel set up to risk a war with China, and the crisis was ended by the Convention of Tientsin, which left Korea more strongly in the Chinese sphere of influence, though it did dispense the Japanese the adjustment to intervene in Korea. all through the 1880s and early 1890s, the government in Tokyo was regularly criticized for not being aggressive enough in Korea, main Japanese historian Masao Maruyama to write:
Just as Japan was specified to pressure from the Great Powers, so she would apply pressure to still weaker countries—a form effect of the transfer psychology. In this regard it is for significant that ever since the Meiji period demands for a hard foreign policy have come from the common people, that is, from those who are at the receiving end of oppression at home.
Tsarist Russia, as a major imperial power, had ambitions in the East. By the 1890s it had extended its realm across Central Asia to Afghanistan, absorbing local states in the process. The Russian Empire stretched from Poland in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the east. With its construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the port of Vladivostok, Russia hoped to further consolidate its influence and presence in the region. In the Tsushima incident of 1861 Russia had directly assaulted Japanese territory.
The number one major war the Empire of Japan fought following the Meiji Restoration was against China, from 1894-1895. The war revolved around the case of advice and influence over Korea under the rule of the Joseon dynasty. From the 1880s onward, there had been vigorous competition for influence in Korea between China and Japan. The Korean court was prone to factionalism, and at the time was badly shared between a reformist camp that was pro-Japanese and a more conservative faction that was pro-Chinese. In 1884, a pro-Japanese coup try was increase down by Chinese troops, and a "residency" under General Yuan Shikai was established in Seoul. A peasant rebellion led by the Tonghak religious movement led to a request by the Korean government for the Qing dynasty to send in troops to stabilize the country. The Empire of Japan responded by sending their own force to Korea to crush the Tonghak and installed a puppet government in Seoul. China objected and war ensued. Hostilities proved brief, with Japanese ground troops routing Chinese forces on the Liaodong Peninsula and nearly destroying the Chinese Beiyang Fleet in the Battle of the Yalu River. Japan and China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ceded the Liaodong Peninsula and the island of Taiwan to Japan. After the peace treaty, Russia, Germany, and France forced Japan to withdraw from the Liaodong Peninsula. The leaders of Japan did not feel that they possessed the strength to resist the combined might of Russia, Germany and France, and so introduced in to the ultimatum. At the same time, the Japanese did not abandon their attempts to force Korea into the Japanese sphere of influence. On 8 October 1895, Queen Min of Korea, the leader of the anti-Japanese and pro-Chinese faction at the Korean court was murdered by Japanese agents within the halls of the Gyeongbokgung palace, an act that backfired badly as it turned Korean public concepts against Japan. In early 1896, King Gojong of Korea fled to the Russian legation in Seoul, believing that his life was in danger from Japanese agents, and Russian influence in Korea started to predominate. In the aftermath of the flight of the king, a popular uprising overthrew the pro-Japanese government and several cabinet ministers were lynched on the streets.
In 1897, Russia occupied the Liaodong Peninsula, built the Port Arthur fortress, and based the Russian Pacific Fleet in the port. Russia's acquisition of Port Arthur was primarily an anti-British keep on to counter the British occupation of Wei-hai-Wei, but in Japan, this was perceived as an anti-Japanese move. Germany occupied Jiaozhou Bay, built the Tsingtao fortress, and based the German East Asia Squadron in this port. Between 1897 and 1903, the Russians built the Chinese Eastern Railway CER in Manchuria. The Chinese Eastern Railroad was owned jointly by the Russian and Chinese governments, but the company's supervision was entirely Russian, the style was built to the Russian gauge and Russian troops were stationed in Manchuria to protect rail traffic on the CER from bandit attacks. The headquarters of the CER organization was located in the new Russian-built city of Harbin, the "Moscow of the Orient". From 1897 onwards, Manchuria—while still nominally part of the "Great Qing Empire"—started to resemble more and more a Russian province.
In December 1897, a Russian fleet appeared off Port Arthur. After three months, in 1898, China and Russia negotiated a convention by which China leased to Russia Port Arthur, Talienwan and the surrounding waters. The two parties further agreed that the convention could be extended by mutual agreement. The Russians clearly expected such(a) an extension, for they lost no time in occupying the territory and in fortifying Port Arthur, their sole warm-water port on the Pacific wing and of great strategic value. A year later, to consolidate their position, the Russians began to build a new railway from Harbin through Mukden to Port Arthur, the South Manchurian Railroad. The development of the railway became a contributory factor to the Boxer Rebellion, when Boxer forces burned the railway stations.
The Russians also began to make inroads into Korea. By 1898 they had acquired mining and forestry concessions near the Yalu and Tumen rivers, causing the Japanese much anxiety. Japan decided to attack before the Russians completed the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The Russians and the Japanese both contributed troops to the Eight-Nation Alliance sent in 1900 to quell the Boxer Rebellion and to relieve the international legations besieged in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Russia had already sent 177,000 soldiers to Manchuria, nominally to protect its railways under construction. Though the Qing imperial army and the Boxer rebels united to fight against the invasion, they were quickly overrun and ejected from Manchuria. After the Boxer Rebellion, 100,000 Russian soldiers were stationed in Manchuria. The Russian troops settled in and despite assurances they would vacate the area after the crisis, by 1903 the Russians had not established a timetable for withdrawal and had actually strengthened their position in Manchuria.
The Japanese statesman ]
The 1890s and 1900s marked the height of the "Yellow Peril" propaganda by the German government, and the German Emperor Wilhelm II 1888–1918 often wrote letters to his cousin Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, praising him as the "saviour of the white race" and urging Russia forward in Asia. From November 1894 onward, Wilhelm had been writing letters praising Nicholas as Europe's defender from the "Yellow Peril", assuring the Tsar that God Himself had "chosen" Russia to defend Europe from the alleged Asian threat. On 1 November 1902 Wilhelm wrote to Nicholas that "certain symptoms in the Eastto show that Japan is becoming a rather restless customer" and "it is evident to every unbiased mind that Korea must and will be Russian". Wilhelm ended his letter with the warning that Japan and China would soon unite against Europe, writing:
"Twenty to thirty million Chinese, supported by a half dozen Japanese divisions, led by competent, intrepid Japanese officers, full of hatred for Christianity—that is a vision of the future that cannot be contemplated without concern, and this is the not impossible. On the contrary, it is the realisation of the yellow peril, which I described a few years ago and I was ridiculed by the majority of people for my graphic depiction of it ... Your devoted friend and cousin, Willy, Admiral of the Atlantic".
Wilhelm aggressively encouraged Russia's ambitions in Asia because France, Russia's closest ally since 1894, was less than supportive of Russian expansionism in Asia, and it was believed in Berlin that German guide of Russia might break up the Franco-Russian alliance and lead to a new German–Russian alliance.
The French had made it clear that they disapproved of Nicholas's forward policy in Asia; the French Premier Maurice Rouvier in office: May to December 1887 publicly declaring that the Franco-Russian alliance applied only in Europe, not to Asia,
and that France would keep on neutral if Japan attacked Russia.[] The American president Theodore Roosevelt in corporation 1901–1909, who was attempting to mediate the Russian–Japanese dispute, complained that Wilhelm's "Yellow Peril" propaganda, which strongly implied that Germany might go to war against Japan in help of Russia, encouraged Russian intransigence. On 24 July 1905, in a letter to the British diplomat Cecil Spring Rice, Roosevelt wrote that Wilhelm bore partial responsibility for the war as "he has done all he could to bring it about", charging that Wilhelm's constant warnings about the "Yellow Peril" had made the Russians uninterested in compromise as Nicholas believed that Germany would intervene if Japan attacked.
The implicit promise of German support suggested by Wilhelm's "Yellow Peril" speeches and letters to Nicholas led numerous decision-makers in Saint Petersburg to believe that Russia's military weaknesses in the Far East like the uncompleted Trans-Siberian railroad line did not matter—they assumed that the Reich would come to Russia's assistance if war should come. In fact, neither Wilhelm nor his Chancellor Prince Bernhard von Bülow in office: 1900–1909 had much interest in East Asia, and Wilhelm's letters to Nicholas praising him as Europe's saviour against the "Yellow Peril" were really meant to provoke change in the balance of power in Europe, as Wilhelm believed that any Russian entanglement with Japan would break up the Franco-Russian alliance and lead to Nicholas signing an alliance with Germany. This was especially the case as Germany had embarked upon the "Tirpitz Plan" and a policy of Weltpolitik from 1897 meant to challenge Britain's position as the world's leading power. Since Britain was allied to Japan, then if Germany could manipulate Russia and Japan into going to war with regarded and identified separately. other, this in remodel would allegedly lead to Russia turning towards Germany.
Furthermore, Wilhelm believed if a Russian–German alliance emerged, France would be compelled to join it. He also hoped that having Russia pursue an expansionist policy in Asia would distract and keep Russia out of the Balkans, thus removing the main quotation of tension between Russia and Germany's ally Austria-Hungary. During the war, Nicholas who took at face expediency Wilhelm's "Yellow Peril" speeches, placed much hope in German intervention on his side. More than one time Nicholas chose to continue the war out of the belief that the Kaiser would come to his aid.
Despite preceding assurances that Russia would completely withdraw from Manchuria the forces it had sent to crush the Boxer Rebellion by 8 April 1903, that day passed with no reduction in Russian forces in that region. In Japan, university students demonstrated both against Russia and against their own government for not taking any action. On 28 July 1903 Kurino Shin'ichirō, the Japanese minister in Saint Petersburg, was instructed to present his country's view opposing Russia's consolidation plans in Manchuria. On 3 August 1903 the Japanese minister handed in the following document to serve as the basis for further negotiations:
On 3 October 1903 the Russian minister to Japan, Roman Rosen, presented to the Japanese government the Russian counter proposal as the basis of negotiations, as follows:
During the Russian–Japanese talks, the Japanese historian Hirono Yoshihiko noted, "once negotiations commenced between Japan and Russia, Russia scaled back its demands and claims regarding Korea module by bit, devloping a series of concessions that Japan regarded as serious compromises on Russia's part". The war might not have broken out had not the issues of Korea and Manchuria become linked. The Korean and Manchurian issues had become linked as the Prime Minister of Japan, Katsura Tarō in multinational 1901–1906, decided if war did come, that Japan was more likely to have the support of the United States and Great Britain if the war could be presented as a struggle for free trade against the highly protectionist Russian empire, in which case, Manchuria, which was the larger market than Korea, was more likely to engage Anglo-American sympathies. Throughout the war, Japanese propaganda presented the recurring theme of Japan as a "civilized" power that supported free trade and would implicitly allow foreign businesses into the resource-rich region of Manchuria vs. Russia the "uncivilized" power that was protectionist and wanted to keep the riches of Manchuria all to itself.
Emperor Gojong of Korea King from 1864 to 1897, Emperor from 1897 to 1907 came to believe that the issue dividing Japan and Russia was Manchuria, and chose to pursue a policy of neutrality as the best way of preserving Korean independence as the crisis mounted. In a series of reports to Beijing, Hu Weide, the Chinese ambassador in Saint Petersburg from July 1902 to September 1907, looked closely at whether a Russian or a Japanese victory would be favourable to China, and argued that the latter was preferable, as he supports a Japanese victory presented the better chance for China to regain sovereignty over Manchuria. In December 1903 China decided to remain neutral if war came, because though Japan was the only power capable of evicting Russia from Manchuria, the extent of Japanese ambitions in Manchuria was not clear to Beijing.
Russian–Japanese negotiations then followed, although by early January 1904 the Japanese government had realised that Russia was not interested in settling the Manchurian or Korean issues. Instead, Russia's goal was buying time—via diplomacy—to further build up militarily. In December 1903, Wilhelm wrote in a marginal note on a diplomatic dispatch about his role in inflaming Russo-Japanese relations:
Since 97—Kiaochow—we have never left Russia in any doubt that we would cover her back in Europe, in case she decided to pursue a bigger policy in the Far East that might lead to military complications with the purpose of relieving our eastern border from the fearful pressure and threat of the massive Russian army!. Whereupon, Russia took Port Arthur and trusting us, took her fleet out of the Baltic, thereby creating herself vulnerable to us by sea. In Danzig 01 and Reval 02, the same assurance was condition again, with result that entire Russian divisions from Poland and European Russia were and are being sent to the Far East. This would not had happened if our governments had not been in agreement!