Sino-Japanese Wars, 1895-1945

Abstract

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) shattered the traditional Confucian order in East Asia and produced a historically anomalous situation with Japan, not China, the dominant regional power. The Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945) marked Japan’s failed attempt to carve out an empire on the Asia mainland sufficient to practice autarky amidst the Great Depression. These were also two of Japan’s three wars aimed at Russian containment. (The third was the intervening Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.) The literature mainly vilifies Japanese militarism and presents China as the victim. Coverage in the English language is limited but growing. In Taiwan, and particularly China, there is a burgeoning literature that tends to focus on the Chinese side. In Japan, the literature is not as extensive and it tends to focus on the Japanese side. Yet, understanding these wars requires analyses of both sides and of their geographical neighbors, as Russia figured prominently in both Chinese and Japanese strategic thinking. Articles are a particularly useful way to bypass the polemics and focus on specific topics.