Becker, Julius Lucas (2025) The Global Impact of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. European Imperialism, Diplomacy and Perception of an East Asian Conflict. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

Although the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 was a regional conflict between two East Asian empires, it held global political implications. The war led to the reversal of the regional balance of power and witnessed the rise of the Japanese Empire to the first internationally recognised great power, while Beijing was relegated to the ‘Sick Man of East Asia’. Nevertheless, the global dimension of this conflict has been largely overshadowed by the Russo-Japanese War that was fought on the very same battlefields only ten years after the conflict of 1894-95. Historical research, therefore, devoted only limited attention to the inter- national dimension of the conflict between the Qing and the Japanese Empire and touched upon its global impact primarily from the perspective of the individual imperial powers’ foreign and imperial policy. Consequently, this study seeks to reframe the conflict’s significance as a key moment in the evolution of the nineteenth-century international order. Employing a multiperspective approach, it analyses the conflict’s significance beyond the national or re- gional contexts, incorporating sources originating from both governmental and non- governmental institutions across multiple countries. The analysis reveals that although fought between two East Asian empires, the conflict had far-reaching implications for the development of international relations, heralding the emerging recognition of non-Western actors and challenging Eurocentric narratives of global order. Thus, the First Sino-Japanese War is acknowledged as a global event that reshaped traditional perceptions of East Asia and caused a re-evaluation of the imperial power’s engagement in the region. In this respect, the European great powers’ foreign and imperial policy during and after the war is not understood as the implementation of pre-existing agendas, but as driven by rapidly evolving events and the changing perception of the political situation in East Asia. Finally, the examination sheds light on the conflict’s influence on the foreign and alliance politics of the various governments beyond the regional context. It demonstrates the significant role events outside of Europe for the consolidation but also recalibration of great power alignments and reveals the interdependence between developments in East Asian and the global international system before 1914.

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