Spark for Sino-Japanese War was triggered in Seoul

BY HIROKI FUKUDA THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Sino-Japanese War and the ceding of Taiwan to Japan

The Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul. In 1894, Japanese troops stormed the palace and seized it after a three-hour shootout, setting the stage for the Sino-Japanese War. The gate pictured here is inside the four main walls on the north, south, east and west. Armor and weapons of 15th-century palace guards, replicated for tourists, can be seen at the palace. (HIROKI FUKUDA)

Jeon Bong Jun

Munemitsu Mutsu (1844-1897) (NATIONAL DIET LIBRARY) A Meiji Era (1868-1912) diplomat and politician from the feudal Kishu domain (present-day Wakayama Prefecture), Mutsu joined forces with Ryoma Sakamoto, founder of the shipping and trade company Kaientai and leader of the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate. As a diplomat, he partially revised unequal treaties between Japan and the United States. He was foreign minister at the time of the Sino-Japanese War. A statue of Mutsu stands at the Foreign Ministry in honor of his steller diplomatic achievements. However, in the city of Lushun in China's northeast Liaoning province, site of a massacre during the Sino-Japanese War, a portrait of him identifies him as a "villain."

Choe Je U

Alarmed at the battering China took under the Qing Dynasty through repeated wars with Western powers, including the Opium War, the Meiji government rushed headlong into modernization to avoid falling into a similar predicament.

The stories presnted here examine the Sino-Japanese War that catapulted Japan to the ranks of the Great Powers at the expense of its Asian neighbors. Japanese tend to conveniently forget, but this war, which began on the Korean Peninsula, resulted in the Japanese military making enemies not only of the Qing Dynasty army, but the Korean people as well.

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While I was traveling in South Korea and China researching the Sino-Japanese War, the politicians and academics I talked to invariably voiced utter puzzlement whenever the topic of conversation turned--either at my initiative or theirs--to the just-passed U.S. House resolution to demand an official apology from the Japanese government for the sexual exploitation of Asian women, known euphemistically in this country as "comfort women," by the Japanese military during World War II.

"Why?" they asked me, of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's quibbling over whether those women had been actually "forced" into servitude in the strict sense of the term. And just as baffling to these Chinese and Korean politicians and academics was the fact that the person Abe apologized to while visiting the United States was President George W. Bush. They also could not understand why a group of Japanese, including suprapartisan Diet members, had taken out a full-page ad in The Washington Post to challenge the content of the proposed House resolution.

"That defied common sense," said Kang Chan Il, a South Korean legislator. Kang's reaction was more shocked disbelief than outrage.

Obviously, this sort of Japanese behavior hardly endears the nation to its Asian neighbors. Kang, a scholar-turned-politician who has published works on contemporary Asian history, noted that South Korea, China and Japan have yet to get over their "mistrust of 100 years."

He further pointed out that the Sino-Japanese War, which ended 112 years ago to be exact, also lies within that parameter.

The war represented not just a head-on crash between Japan and China. For the people of South Korea, it was an invasion of their land by Japan, and that is how the South Koreans have always remembered it. The Korean Peninsula was the first theater of that war.

Palace seized to drive out Qing army

The "Korea boom" in Japan may have peaked, but it has made Korean movies and TV dramas permanent fixtures on the Japanese entertainment scene today. Many Japanese make weekend trips to Seoul as a matter of course.

The Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul is a tourist attraction, and I am sure many Japanese have visited it. In effect, this is where the Sino-Japanese War began.

In the small hours of July 23, 1894, a band of Japanese soldiers tried to blow up one of the palace gates. The attempt failed, so the soldiers attacked it with hatchets until it finally gave in, enabling them to storm the palace grounds and open other gates. A three-hour firefight with Korean palace guards ensued. By the time the Japanese seized control of the palace, dawn had already broken.

There is no record of this shootout in the Imperial Japanese Army's official annals of war. For a century, the incident remained just a footnote of history--an accidental minor skirmish--until Akira Nakatsuka, professor emeritus at Nara Women's University, discovered a draft document of detailed military history at the Fukushima Prefectural Library.

Why did the Japanese military seize the Gyeongbok Palace? To put it simply, the purpose was to oust the "uncooperative" Korean political leadership and replace it with one that would ask Japan to drive out the Qing Army from Korea. It was certainly an "uncouth" thing to do, but such were the times. In fact, Japan grew even more uncouth in the ensuing years that led to its surrender in 1945.

At the time of the Gyeongbok Palace incident, the arms of Japan and China were being deployed in Korea. The direct cause of their deployment was the Donghak Peasants' Revolt in southern Korean in the spring of 1894, led by Jeon Bong Jun, a follower of the Donghak (See Fact File) school of political thought. The peasants had had enough of ruthless exploitation by landlords and the ruling elite.

Having had trouble suppressing the revolt, the Korean government requested the suzerain Qing Dynasty to dispatch its troops. Not to be outdone by China, Japan also sent troops.

Seeing these developments, the Donghak peasants' army struck a deal with the Korean government and peace was restored, albeit temporarily.

However, the Japanese army would not pull out, having taken the Gyeongbok Palace by force in July. Two days after seizing the palace, Japanese troops engaged in a firefight with China off the coast of Pungdo, near Inchon, in what is now known as the Battle of Pungdo. Japan was desperate for any excuse to go to war with China. While some in the Meiji government called for caution, the pro-war Foreign Minister Munemitsu Mutsu prevailed.

Not only had the Koreans lost their Gyeongbok Palace to Japan, but their land had become a theater of war. As the Japanese army advanced north while fighting the Qing army, it also launched a campaign to obliterate the Donghak peasants' army. After the Gyeongbok Palace incident, the "invading army of Japan," rather than the "misguided Korean government," became the sworn enemy of the Donghak peasants, who would bide their time for the next revolt.

First example of people's power

Jeolla province, birthplace of the Donghak peasants' army, is about three hours south of Seoul by express train. While in Jeolla, I visited Kwangju, the largest city in the province and the site of the 1980 Kwangju Incident (See Fact File). A plaque at the memorial cemetery proclaimed this place as the "heart of Korean democracy." A video being shown there included footage of battles fought by the Donghak peasants' army. The scenes are extolled as the "beginning of the people's struggle" that eventually led to the Kwangju Incident.

For years, the Donghak Peasants' Revolt was referred to as Togaku-to-no-Ran (Donghak Disturbance) in Japan. But in South Korea, it is perceived as a bona fide "revolution," not a mere "disturbance." Although the peasants were long regarded as "traitors," they came to be re-evaluated in a new light over time. In 2004, under the Roh Moo-hyun administration that sought a comprehensive review of history, a special law was passed to redeem their honor. Today, the revolt is called the Donghak Peasants' Revolution and it is regarded in the same light as the French Revolution at the memorial hall dedicated to the peasant fighters.

The peasants fought, first in protest against Korea's class system, and then to repel the Japanese who tried to rudely overrun their land. Given that the peasants' army established a primitive form of self-government in the territories that came under their control, one might say they were forerunners of democracy.

Militarily, however, the peasants were no match for the Japanese army. According to Lee Yong Il, a researcher at Memorial Hall of Donghak Peasants Revolution, the peasants were mostly armed with bamboo spears. They were lucky if they had guns that were only slightly more advanced than matchlocks.

The main firepower of the Japanese army consisted mainly of magazine guns, which technically meant that one Japanese soldier was equal to 100 peasant soldiers. The toll among the latter was said to be anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000, but more than one South Korean expert believes the number could have been 10 times more. The ultimate tally is still inconclusive, but government surveys of the descendants of the peasant soldiers will continue until 2009 as part of the ongoing drive to redeem their honor.

Collapse of Sino-centric world order

The Donghak peasants' army was determined to expel foreign enemies, but there is no indication that it fought the Qing army. Why did the peasant warriors go only after the Japanese army?

At the time, China was Korea's suzerain, and Korea was China's tributary. Korea sent missions to the Qing court to present tribute, and the Qing court reciprocated by granting its stamp of approval to the Korean king. This practice of presenting tribute to the Chinese court implied that China was boss and Korea was vassal, but Korea was still an independent state.

Guo Tiechun, an assistant professor of historiography at Liaoning Normal University I met in Dalian, China, noted, "The system of presenting tribute to the Chinese court had nothing to do with controlling or exploiting the tributary state, as China did not meddle in the tributary's domestic affairs."

The relationship was certainly not one between equals, and it was flawed by today's standards. However, it was not a particularly uncomfortable relationship for the tributary, either.

Korea was not the only nation that deferred to China. Actually, all of East Asia was in it together. Vietnam, Japan, the Ryukyu kingdom (present-day Okinawa) and everyone else belonged to this Sino-centric world. China was not even the name of the nation in the present sense of international law. National borders were much more blurred back then than now.

The Sino-centric world order began to crumble at the hands of the Great Powers of Europe, but it was the Sino-Japanese War that dealt the final blow.

While China sat in the center of that world, basically letting everyone mind their own business, Japan started insisting on its rights and joined in the imperialist contest of line-drawing. This led to a big showdown with China.

Of course, China was not just a laid-back suzerain, and there was internal discord in Korea--sometimes violent--over whether to maintain the status quo or seek reform. Thus, when Japan attempted to break off Korea from the Sino-centric world order and tried to win support for its war at home and abroad by insisting that the war represented a choice between civilization and barbarism, Japan's argument was not entirely irrational in the world at the end of the 19th century.

But gazing at the blue sea off the coast of Weihai that Japan invaded during its war with China, I could not help regretting the loss of the "loose, comfortable unity" of East Asia back then. And I also thought that, ever since Japan took the big step toward the invasion of the rest of Asia with the Sino-Japanese War, Japan has perhaps remained "outside Asia" psychologically.

Professor Chung Jae Jeong, whom I met at University of Seoul, reflected on the path Japan has taken since the end of the Sino-Japanese War and observed that Japan is a country that "fortifies its internal unity by stressing the threat from its surrounding nations."

He continued, "To date, Japan has never come up with a slogan that will win the empathy of its Asian neighbors, nor has it indicated values that are common to all Asians."

"Mistrust of 100 years" indeed. In South Korea as well as China, the criticisms voiced against Japan by the people I met seemed to me to come more from their sense of impatience with Japan than any historical grudge.

Fact File: The Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)

Japan's Meiji government defeated Qing Dynasty China in this war over control of Korea. The war cost Japan more than 13,000 lives and about 230 million yen. The corresponding figures for China are not known.

The Meiji government's fixation with controlling Korea can be explained by a policy speech delivered by Prime Minister Aritomo Yamagata during the first session of the Imperial Diet in 1890. Yamagata argued that while it was crucial to protect Japan's "line of sovereignty" (national borders), Japan must also protect its "line of interest" which includes the area most likely to affect the nation's line of sovereignty.

At the time, Korea was that "line of interest." Japan was feeling the threat of Russia, which was about to begin work on its Siberian railway. Russia also had its eyes on Korea.

Since the conclusion of the 1876 Treaty of Amity with Korea, Japan had been trying to sever Korea's dependent relationship with China on the pretext of "Korean independence," but Japan also had the ulterior motive of controlling Korea because of its importance as a market.

Power struggles broke out within Korea between pro-China and pro-Japan forces. In 1884, the Qing army suppressed a Japan-backed coup d'etat led by Kim Ok Gyun. The rivalry between Japan and China came to a head in the Sino-Japanese War.

Fact File: The Treaty of Shimonoseki

After a succession of Japanese victories on land and at sea, China and Japan concluded the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895. On the Japanese side, Hirobumi Ito and Munemitsu Mutsu represented the emperor. The Chinese signatories included Li Hung-chang.

Under this treaty, China (1) recognized the independence of Korea, (2) ceded the Liadong Peninsula and Taiwan, and (3) paid Japan a war indemnity of 200 million Kuping taels (about 300 million yen).

During the signing of this treaty, however, Russia, France and Germany intervened, forcing Japan to withdraw its claim on the Liadong Peninsula.

This sowed the seeds of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).

Fact File: Donghak

The Donghak (Eastern learning) ideology was established by Choe Je U (photo) in 1860. Professor Pak Meng Su, who teaches courses on Donghak at Wonkwang University in North Jeolla Perovince, noted: "The class system still ruled in Korea at the time, but Choe preached the equality and dignity of all people, inspiring peasants who were being discriminated against."

The Donghak movement also aimed to correct misgovernment, and its slogan was "Drive out the Japanese and Westerners."

Fact File: The Kwangju Incident

Having taken power in a coup d'etat in December 1979, President Chun Doo Hwan declared martial law in May 1980.

One of his first acts was to have then-opposition leader Kim Dae Jung and others arrested.

When pro-democracy students and protesters took to the streets of Kwangju, the army sent tanks to break up the demonstrations. According to the South Korean government, 193 people were killed in the bloodbath that ensued.

World events

At the time of the Sino-Japanese War in the final decade of the 19th century, European imperialism reigned supreme. The progress of industrialization spurred the European powers to scramble for colonial expansion in search of markets for their manufactured goods and suppliers of raw materials.

Africa was being carved up and colonized by Britain, France, Germany and others in the 1880s. In Sudan in the 1890s, Britain's "North-to-South" expansion policy clashed with the French "East-to-West" policy. In South Africa, the Second Boer War erupted in 1899 over British gold and diamond mining rights.

Asia, too, became an arena of European colonial expansion. The Franco-Chinese War (1884-1885) resulted in Vietnam being incorporated into French Indochina in 1887 as a French protectorate. There were tensions between Britain and Russia over their respective ambitions in Asia. Japan joined the ranks of the European powers after the Sino-Japanese War and formed an alliance with Britain, which became a prelude to the Russo-Japanese War.

The United States was a lesser presence in Asia at the time. In the Pacific, however, the United States drove the Hawaiian monarchy into extinction in 1893 and annexed Hawaii five years later in 1898. And that same year, the United States went to war with Spain and took the Philippines and Guam. Drawing upon its military might, the United States also brought Caribbean nations under its control through what was known as Big Stick Diplomacy.

East Asia chronology

1840: First Opium War

1867: Japan's feudal system ends, a new government is formed

1871: Treaty of Amity is concluded between China and Japan under equal terms

1873: The "Meiji 6 Political Upheaval" defeats proponents of armed suppression of Korea

1874: Japan dispatches troops to Taiwan

1875: The Kanghwa Incident

1876: Opening of Korean ports under the Korea-Japan Friendship Treaty

1882: The Imo Military Revolt in Korea strengthens the Qing Dynasty's influence on Korea

1884-85: The Franco-Chinese War results in Vietnam becoming a French protectorate

1884: The Kapsin Incident in Korea. Japanese and Qing armies clash

1885: Japan and China conclude the Tianjin Treaty, agree to notify one another prior to dispatching troops to Korea

1894: The Donghak Peasants' Revolt triggers the Sino-Japanese War

1895: Empress Myeongseong of Korea is assassinated by Japanese agents

(IHT/Asahi: August 24,2007)