Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

INTRODUCTION • 11
Japan, China, and the Russian Far East, and these countries regularly
competed for control over Korea. Too weak to defend itself by the late
19th century, Korea was at the mercy of its bigger and more powerful
neighbors. Japan defeated the decaying Qing Dynasty of China in this
“First Sino–Japan War” and gained control over the Korean Peninsula
as a condition of the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1895. Japan then participated
with the United States and European powers in putting down the
Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, and earned international praise for its
military discipline.
Less than four years later, Japan went to war against Russian military
forces stationed in China and Manchuria in the Russo-Japanese War of
1904–1905. On land, the Russian and Japanese armies were nearly
evenly matched. At sea, however, the Japanese Imperial Navy completely
destroyed the Russian Fleet. Japan’s victory over Russia demonstrated
the success of the policies of industrialization and modernization
adopted during the early Meiji Era. Japan, a relatively small nation, had
defeated the huge Russian Empire! The early 20th-century was also an
era of so-called scientific racism, a widespread but absurd idea that
races had a scientific hierarchy with Caucasians at the top and Asians
close to the bottom. According to “scientific racism,” the Asian nation
of Japan should never have defeated a white nation, such as Russia.
Japan’s victory stunned much of the world, and Tokyo soon became a
hub for Asian students and activists who wanted to learn how to build
an economy and military that could stand up to the Western powers colonizing
their countries.
The United States became a major power at nearly the same time. It
formally gained control of Hawaii and defeated the decaying Spanish
imperial forces in Cuba and in the Philippines between 1898 and 1903.
The situation in Hawaii involved political negotiations with Japan because
of the large number of Japanese immigrants on the islands. The
military and diplomatic victories by Japan and the United States in the
1890s and early 1900s demonstrated to the world that both countries
were rising powers, while some European countries, particularly Russia
and Spain, were declining.
By the closing years of the 19th century, both Japan and the United
States had emerged as imperialist powers in Asia and the Pacific. They
were not alone. Great Britain, Russia, Germany, and France were all
playing their part in an imperial scramble whose focus unmistakably