From Uniting Russia To Resist Japan To Uniting Japan And Britain

It became clearer that the Qing Government was declining quickly after the Sino-Japanese War had ended in April 1895. For the aim of saving the dangerous situation and striking Japan, the Qing Government tried to take advantage of Russia's instigating interference in Japan's seizing the Liaodong Peninsula with Germany and France to unite Russia to resist Japan. The diplomatic plan of the Qing Government was reflected in the first negotiation for borrowing money between China and Russia. Li Hongzhang visited Russia to congratulate Nicola II's crowing according to the Qing Government's order in !896. So Russia took what China and Russia might make a treaty for resisting enemy as a political bait and seduced the Qing Government to give up the basic principle that the eastern part of the Siberia Railway must be built by China rather than Russia and make a great concession in this problem on the sovereignty. Then Russia got the right of building the railway across Manchuria. Though the Qing Government sold its interests for achieving the aim of uniting Russia to resist Japan, its diplomatic policy fail because Russia took advantage of the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty to develop its interest in China and the other countries especially Britain couldn't accept this fact that the balance among these countries' interests in China had been destroyed by Russia. So the Qing Government had to take diplomatic measures to keep balance the competition for interest in China among such these countries. The second and third negotiation in borrowing money reflected that the Qing Government felled into such a diplomatic delima. The Jiaozhou Bay Incident broke out in 1897. The Qing Government wanted Russia to mediate the dispute between China and Germany according to the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty at once. But Russia destroyed this treaty and forced the Qing Government to permit Russia to rent Lushun and Dalian. What Russia had done declared that diplomatic policy of uniting Russia to resist Japan failed. Many countries including Germany, France, Russia and Britain wanted to carve China by way of getting settlements and dividing sphere of influence in China. Facing the serious crisis of partition , China's government and public all tried to change diplomatic policy. Because both of Japan and Britain took measures to prevent Russia from monopolizing China and sent some officials to make influence to China's government and public. The diplomatic idea of uniting Japan and Britain was first choice of the local governors. Reformers, gentlemen and merchants. During Hundred Days Reform, reformers tried to make the idea become the diplomatic policy. Zheng Guanying, a representative figure of Chinese gentlemen and merchants, initiated founding the Asian Association with help of Japan. All these reflected the nongovernmental society were discontented with the Qing Government's diplomatic policy of uniting Russia and wanted to protect their interests through uniting Japan and Britain. But the 1898 coup suspended this course of changing diplomatic policy. But the political division had been shown in the field of diplomacy.This thesis studies the diplomatic change that happened during the time between 1895 and 1899. In other words, the thesis analyzes the China's diplomacy in complicated environments where many factors acted together and made influence on one another deeply. We can know how the Qing Government adjusted its diplomatic policy and some political groups including court officials, local governments, intelligentsia, gentlemen and merchants made their own influence on diplomacy for their own interests. The thesis takes the specific incidents as the section for studying and organizes structure according to the order of the diplomatic events.The thesis is divided into introduction, seven chapters and conclusion.The introduction mainly describes the motivation of research work, the status of relevant academic research at home and abroad, as well as the idea of this thesis and the basic framework.Chapter One discusses thoroughly how the Qing Government get close to Russia and suspected Britain after Japan had been forced to give up the Liaodong Peninsula by Russia , France and Germany. The idea of uniting Russia to resist Japan was suggested by Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong. We will pay enough attention to the Qing government's diplomatic inclination to Russia during the first negotiation for borrowing money. We can reveal the blindness of the Qing Government's diplomatic policy.Chapter Two discusses the difficulty faced by the Qing Government putting uniting Russia into effect during Li Hongzhang went to Russia to negotiated with Russian Government on the secret treaty in 1896. We will know how Li Hongzhang yielded to Russia at cost of the sovereign of Manchuria just for Russia's seducing in the negotiation. The public opinion called in question on the Sino-Russia Secret Treaty.Chapter Three discusses the obstruction which the Qing Government faced during trying to realize the diplomatic policy of uniting Russia to resist Japan. The second and third negotiation on borrowing money showed that Britain did its best to keep its interest in China and hindered the Qing Government to unite Russia. The Qing Government didn't want Russia to get more interest in China. This thought was showed through the negotiation on borrowing money for building the Beijing-Hankou Railway between China and Belgium.Chapter Four discusses the course of the Qing Government's failing in the diplomatic policy of uniting Russia under the background of the Jiaozhou Bay Incident of 1897. This chapter concerns about that the Qing Government's passive attitude to the current of partition in 1898.Chapter Five tries to analyze how the high local officials changed their diplomatic attitude after the failure of the diplomatic policy of uniting Russia to resist Japan. They wanted to unite Japan and Britain to keep Russia from developing its interest in China.Chapter Six discusses how the reformers, gentlemen and merchants tried to achieve the diplomatic policy of uniting Japan and Britain with the influence of Japan and Britain. Then we know how the public society made their own influence on the Qing Government' diplomacy.Chapter Seven focuses on the sudden turn of the Qing Government's diplomatic attitude after the 1898 coup d'etat. Through the social stratum's different attitude to Beresford's visiting China, we can know how the political division was developing in the field of diplomacy.In the summary part, we give a further reflection on the questions embraced in the failure of diplomacy in China. We will try to explain why the relation of the Qing Government and the western countries became tenser and tenser.