The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 : Perceptions, Power and Primacy

Rating:
Summary: The Sino-Japanese War as Seen by the Western Press
Review: First I would say that this is a highly readable history of the Sino-Japanese War and Paine has obviously done her research. I have even bought my own copy because I find the middle section, in which she discusses the progress of the war itself, to be one of the most detailed, if not the most detailed, accounts available in English. As Paine justly points out, there is a dearth of studies in western languages on the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Perhaps this would not have been the case had it not been superceded by the Russo-Japanese War (a war in my mind far less significant than the Sino-Japanese War in terms of consequences, the Russo-Japanese War simply put the period on a sentence already formed: Japanese hegemony in Northeast Asia), and then by a half century of far more bloody conflict. Yet the Sino-Japanese War is significant because it forms one bookend to the following half-century that would end in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. It is significant because it marked the clear emergence of Japan as a "modern" and "civilized" (I'll leave the definitions to others) nation and the eclipse of China, and more importantly the traditional China-centered world order of East Asia. It also marked the beginning of the end for hapless Korea, though she was not perhaps as hapless as some would posit.
Paine's study is readable and informative. It also makes some good points, and argues against the study of Stewart Lone ("Japan's First Modern War") that the Sino-Japanese War was a failure for Japan despite its ostensible victory. Paine sees the war as a significant step in Japan's long term goal of imperial aggrandizement, and though Japan may have "lost the peace" of 1895, in the long run the war was a major step in Japan's progress towards regional hegemon.
A word of warning however. Paine calls her work a study of secondary sources (namely the western press of the period) of the war, something that is not at all reflected in the book's title. Paine relies almost wholly on accounts of the war from period newspapers, most signficantly the Japan Weekly Mail and the North China Herald as well as a handful of other prominent western journals and periodicals. Not consulted are military or diplomatic records or to any significant degree other secondary scholarly studies. As the Japan Weekly Mail was pretty securely in the pocket of the Japanese government and there were a plethora of petty rivalries undedrmining the reporting of the western press, such a firm reliance on the western newspapers is problematical, even if fascinating.
In the end I recommend this book with reservations. It's scholarship is admirable and welcome.

Rating:
Summary: Japan on top now, but will China be next?
Review: Paine's book shows how Japan used Westernizing reforms and the emerging International System to defeat China and become the dominant Great Power in East Asia. Almost immediately, the perception of Japan as a poor and weak island nation changed. The European powers and the United States began to treat Japan as an equal. Within ten years, Japan went on to defeat Imperial Russia, the first time an Asian power had beaten a Western nation since the Mongol invasion.

In this well-research and provocative book, Paine shows how Japan's victories were not so much due to her own strengths--which were considerable--but to her enemy's weaknesses; this led Japan to misjudge American power during World War II. Today, China strives to undo the consequences of the Sino-Japanese War by challenging Japan and reinserting itself on the top of the Asian pyramid. The big question is whether it will do so economically or militarily. Either way, the Asian status quo introduced after the Sino-Japanese War is likely to change.

Although designed for a general audience, specialists in Asian history could easily cut the introductory chapters and head straight for the "meat." The concluding chapters, in particular, provide an excellent summary of how and why Japan successfully modernized, as well as a highly relevant discussion of why China was--until recently that is--unable to do so. This book is required reading for all students of Asian history.