Britain, Japan and China, 1876–1895

East Asian International Relations before the First Sino–Japanese War

Yu Suzuki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429755491
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book revises the conventional wisdom about the Anglo-Japanese relationship in the late nineteenth century that these two countries were bound by mutual sympathy and common interests, and therefore the common ground which led to the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, had already existed in the 1880s. Such understandings fail to take account of the fact that the Qing dynasty of China had emerged as the strongest regional power in East Asia by reasserting its influence as the traditional suzerain of the region in the years prior to the First Sino-Japanese War. The British and the Japanese governments clearly recognised that it would become difficult to maintain their interests in East Asia if they antagonised the Qing by challenging its claim of suzerainty over Korea. It was difficult for them to come to closer terms when their priority before 1894-5 was to maintain good relations with China, and when they were also experiencing numerous diplomatic difficulties with each other.

1Anglo-Japanese relationship and Korea before the Imo mutiny

Although the ruling Tokugawa regime of Japan had established a trading relationship with Britain in 1613, this partnership lasted only for ten years.¹ British merchants closed their trading post in Hirado in 1623 due to the lack of commercial prospects in Japan, and on the other hand, the Japanese side gradually prohibited most of the European commercial agents from visiting Japan by the mid-seventeenth century. After that, the Tokugawa regime allowed only the Dutch East Indian Company to trade with Japan, and the merchants were not permitted to enter anywhere else except a small artificial island in the port of Nagasaki.

It was in the mid-nineteenth century that the relationship between these two countries was re-established through the signing of treaties. This was induced by the increased demand in Britain for spreading ‘free trade,’ a concept which was becoming widely popular by the 1830s. By this time, many Britons started to perceive overseas trade as something that could offer everyone in society an opportunity to expand their fortunes, and therefore believed that the chance to engage in such enterprises should be offered to everyone, not just a small number of chartered companies.² As a result, they started to think that the existing trading systems in East Asia had to be amended.³ In the early nineteenth century, only a limited number of Western merchants were permitted to engage in trade in both China and Japan, and their activities were confined to small trading posts; Canton (modern day Guangzhou) in China and Nagasaki in Japan. Western merchants could not access the East Asian markets freely, as they could buy and sell goods only through local merchant guilds. The local restrictions on missionary activities were also becoming unpopular amongst the Western population. The British government concluded that they must respond to the voices calling for liberalisation of the interaction between Western and East Asian countries. They turned their attention first to China before Japan, as the former was regarded as the most important country in the region.

The British decision-makers were often reluctant in accomplishing their objective through the use of force or acquisition of territories in East Asia. For a governing administration, any decision to fight a war is always associated with political risk, as it is so easy for the Parliamentary opposition to criticise such action from moral standpoint. In addition, a military campaign in a region so distant from Europe could become a serious burden for the Treasury. If Britain ended up acquiring territory, then a larger amount of the budget would be required on a permanent basis for administrative purposes. The government might be compelled to increase the amount of tax to finance these costs, which would have most likely lead to popular dissatisfaction. British decision-makers were accordingly reluctant to pursue their interests through measures associated with large costs and political risks. This was particularly the case in East Asia, as the region was not regarded as being as important to the British interest as the Middle East or India. They could remain perfectly content if the ruling regimes in East Asia offered reasonable opportunities to engage in commercial and missionary activities to British individuals.

However, when persistent British demand for the liberalisation of the Canton system were met by consistent rejection from the ruling Chinese dynasty, the former decided to resort to force of arms. The Opium War broke out in 1839, and the Treaty of Nanjing was signed by two parties in 1842 after the British victory. Through this treaty, the Qing dynasty consented to opening four additional treaty ports in addition to Canton, ceded Hong Kong to Britain, and disbanded the Chinese merchant guilds. In 1843, the Qing also complied with several additional requests from the British side. First, they agreed to place the British residents in China under consular jurisdiction. Whenever British subjects were involved in legal issues in China, their cases would be examined by the British authorities at courts set up in their diplomatic establishments, instead of being placed under the local judiciary system. Then, both parties agreed that the tariff rates of the goods traded in China would be determined through negotiations between each other. The contents of treaties that the Qing signed with other Western nations shortly after were almost identical to the Anglo-Chinese treaty, and all of the powers, including Britain, also consented to a most favoured nation clause. This clause stipulated that whenever the Qing granted new concession to one country in the future, it must grant the same right to all of the other treaty powers, thus preventing any Western nation from gaining an exclusive advantage over the others.

With the conclusion of the Treaty of Nanjing, the Western nations turned their attention towards Japan.⁴ After the events in China, the British decision-makers realised that any attempt to sign new treaties with East Asian countries would trigger a reaction from the local populations. In order to avoid unwanted complications, they chose to let other Western nations to initiate negotiations with Japan, and then headed over to that country after that country managed to conclude a treaty. It was the Americans who duly undertook this role. Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived at the Bay of Edo (modern day Tokyo) with a squadron of six modern warships in July 1853 and asked the Tokugawa authorities to sign a treaty, with the implication that he might mobilise his men-of-war if his request was not taken seriously. The Japanese chose to avoid war as they were well informed about the Chinese defeat in the Opium War, and concluded that they were militarily unprepared to fight a Western nation. The Treaty of Kanagawa was signed in March 1854, and in October an Anglo-Japanese version was also concluded. These treaties were expanded upon when the American-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed in July 1858, equipped with stipulations on treaty ports, consular jurisdiction, conventional tariffs, and most favoured nation. Other Western countries immediately followed the lead, and the British authorities dispatched the Earl of Elgin to Edo to conclude a treaty under similar terms.

Although the Western nations and Japan managed to sign treaties without fighting war, many people in Japan were irritated by the fact that the presence of Westerners in their country increased shortly after.⁵ Their dissatisfaction resulted in triggering xenophobic violence, and political agitation against the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had disgracefully agreed to Western terms under a threat of force, soon followed. After witnessing a number of British residents in Japan fall victim to the Japanese xenophobia, the British authorities concluded that they must respond through the use of force, or they might be driven out of Japan. A series of military campaigns were undertaken in 1863 and 1864, resulting in complete victory for the British side.

There are many studies which claim that from this point on the Japanese realised that in it was in their best interests to stop attacking foreigners and instead learn the essence of modern Western society as much as they could through foreign advisors.⁶ They also contend that key figures of the Meiji government, which took over the reign of Japan from 1868, had decided to undertake an even more thorough Westernisation of their society than the preceding regime because they held stronger admiration towards the Western world. And a cordial relationship between Britain and Japan was established and maintained throughout the nineteenth century, as the British side duly provided these specialists. The reality however was that the military campaigns in the 1860s only concretised the Japanese notion that the Western nations, including Britain, were a serious threat to their country.⁷ An incident in Tsushima, an island off the northern coast of Kyushu which was temporarily occupied by the Russian squadron until they were induced to withdraw by the British counterparts in 1861, also strengthened this notion.

The number of xenophobic incidents started to decline after the mid-1860s merely because the Japanese realised that it was too dangerous to allow incidents that could potentially become a casus belli.⁸ Likewise, their decision to make more serious efforts to achieve modernisation was based more on the self-interest of various factions within Japan, which saw advantage in acquiring knowledge and technologies from the West because they needed strength not only to protect themselves from external threats but also to take the upper hand over domestic political rivals.⁹ The Meiji regime made a more determined effort towards this direction than its predecessor, but the former's incentives to do so were not too different from the latter's; the only difference was how far they were willing to push this. On the other hand, the foreign employees did not always accept their posts in Japan out of a sincere and naïve will to ‘civilise’ the unenlightened parts of the world. In many cases, they were merely seeking opportunities which were not offered at home and were richly rewarded for their services.¹⁰

After all, many Japanese people continued to show some sense of reservation against adopting Western customs even after the Meiji Restoration, and there also was a sizeable conservative faction within the Japanese society which openly opposed doing so.¹¹ Foreigners continued to be perceived as uninvited guests throughout this period, especially as those in the treaty ports frequently caused troubles with the local population. The biggest source of frustration for Japanese officials was that the diplomats from the Western countries often intervened when they tried to introduce rules which were deemed as being necessary to administrate the interactions between foreigners and locals.¹² Regulations on various issues, from the use of port facilities and public ordinances to poaching, for example, were deemed necessary by the Japanese authorities to avoid unnecessary trouble in the vicinity of the treaty ports. However, the xenophobic violence in the late 1850s and early 1860s had left a strong impression upon the treaty port communities, and therefore they desired to be as free from Japanese authority as possible.¹³ Representing the sentiment of the treaty port communities, Western diplomats protested whenever the Japanese authorities attempted to impose regulations upon foreigners.

Amongst all of the diplomats, Sir Harry Parkes was the most vigorous in making these interventions throughout the 1860s and 1870s.¹⁴ Whenever he perceived that the Japanese were trying to introduce administrative regulations that might jeopardise the interest of treaty port population, he protested sternly that the Western residents in Japan were immune from all Japanese laws and regulations, as the Japanese government had explicitly agreed to the clause on consular jurisdiction in the treaties. He therefore argued, often in a threatening tone, that the Anglo-Japanese relationship could be seriously jeopardised if the Japanese authorities violated the extraterritorial rights of the Western residents in Japan.

The Japanese authorities did not agree with his interpretation of treaty stipulations. They interpre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• General notes and abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Anglo-Japanese relationship and Korea before the Imo mutiny
• 2 The Imo crisis and its aftermath, July 1882-April 1884
• 3 The East Asian crises, phase one: May 1884-October 1885
• 4 The East Asian crises, phase two: November 1885-February 1887
• 5 The post-crises order in East Asia, March 1887-July 1892
• 6 The road to the First Sino-Japanese War, August 1892-July 1894
• 7 The First Sino-Japanese War and the Anglo-Japanese relations
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index