THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH

BY 1893, SINO-WESTERN relations had reached a plateau or, what Robert Bickers calls, ‘a sullen sort of stasis’. Whilst there were growing signs of ‘anti-foreignism’ in some quarters, to many Western observers, the country seemed to be slowly ‘awakening’, with an army and navy modernising under Robert Hart's influence and a range of other reforms generated by the Self-Strengthening Movement. And, from the perspective of Chinese officials, ‘the Qing had made remarkable progress in its ability to cope with a new world order’. Although a resurgent Japan had now entered this new world, few anticipated that it would so easily end China's suzerainty over Korea, let alone that this would have such far-reaching geo-political implications with, in the words of T.G. Otte, the China Question becoming ‘the most pressing international issue’ over the next ten years.

As China sought to recover from its humiliating defeat, so the Western powers began intensifying their presence, helping themselves to territory and establishing zones of influence in which the country's industrial and mineral resources could be exploited. Whilst the risk of its dismemberment accelerated pressure for change, leading to the ‘Hundred Days’ Reform in 1898, the movement was quickly extinguished. In a complex power struggle, the Kuang-hsu Emperor was effectively excluded from any further political influence and increasing anti-Western sentiment culminated in the Boxer Uprising and the Siege of the Legations in the summer of 1900.

Throughout these events, Britain's objective was essentially threefold: to ensure that it remained the pre-eminent international power in East Asia, whilst at the same time allowing an open door for trade, to safeguard China's territorial integrity and, finally, to support the Qing's attempts to introduce reform and start building a modern infrastructure. Although the policy was dictated by the Foreign Office, it was both influenced and required implementation by the three key institutions based in Peking – the Legation, the CMC and, increasingly, the Hongkong Bank.