The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 in its International Dimension

On 31 July 1894 the Tsungli Yamen gave notice of its intention to break off relations with Japan over events in Korea. On the following day an Imperial Edict was issued in Tokyo announcing the outbreak of war between Japan and China. It followed some months of bitter confrontation which resulted from the so-called Tonghak Rebellion in Korea in May. On 15 July 1994, a hundred years after one of Britain's initiatives to mediate between the various parties to the dispute, a symposium was held at the Suntory-Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines to assess the state of historical research on the subject in the presence of 40 experts on the subject. Any war is necessarily many-sided; and it was not possible to cover in an afternoon session all the aspects of the Sino-Japanese war, its origins, its diplomacy and the peace-making which resulted. The Centre is privileged to be able to publish papers relating to the symposium. Professor Keith Neilson is professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada and an expert on relations between Britain and Russia, one of the important ingredients of the crisis of 1894-5. He is the author of a forthcoming study 'Britain and the last Tsar: Anglo-Russian Relations, 1894-1917'. Mr John Berryman belongs to the University of Wolverhampton and is a long-term student of British naval policy towards far eastern affairs in this period.