Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Zeng Guofan and especially Li Hongzhang, the two main heroes of
the civil war with the Taipings, emerged as enthusiastic advocates of
Self-Strengthening and emphasized selective adaptation of Western
technology, particularly military technology. Many Chinese during
the Self-Strengthening period were convinced that China could retain
all of its traditional heritage and needed only to learn how to make
and use the superior weaponry of the West to overcome foreign domi-
nation. The Chinese provinces utilized foreign assistance and consul-
tation to modernize the Chinese military and to establish arsenals,
shipyards, mines, textile mills, and telegraph lines. A modern Chinese
navy began to take shape. These modernization efforts appeared
impressive but ultimately proved to be limited in scope and vision
because they had very little leadership or coordination from the Qing
central government, which had been greatly weakened in the wake
of the Taiping Rebellion. Provincial rather than national in scope,
self-strengthening efforts failed because they were not accompanied
by all of the sweeping changes necessary for effective modernization.
The advocates of self-strengthening were too selective in what they
sought to learn from the West; they did not understand that the key
to the West's great military power was not based on technological
superiority alone but also on its social, political, and economic sys-
tems. Experience ultimately showed that equaling the West in military
power would entail many more changes in China than the Self-
Strengtheners were willing to contemplate. As a result, China, toward
the end of the nineteenth century, was woefully unprepared for its first
modern military clash with a much more effectively modernized state:
Japan.
THE FIRST SINO-JAPANESE WAR 1894-1895
War between China and Japan, over Korea, which had been a tribu-
tary state to China since early Ming dynasty times, broke out in 1894.
A newly modernizing Japan insisted in the 1870s that Korea was an in-
dependent state. In essence, Japan wanted to transfer Korea from the
Chinese to the Japanese orbit. Japan's desire to dominate Korea inten-
sified in the 1890s, and in July 1894 a Japanese warship sank a Qing
ship in Korean waters. On August 1 China and Japan declared war
on each other. Thousands of Japanese troops landed in Korea, and
much to the surprise of the international community, the smaller but
faster, and better-trained Japanese navy defeated the Qing fleet. The
provisions of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed in April 1895,
