Shimonoseki, Treaty of

(1895)

   Signed on April 17, 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki ended the Sino-Japanese War in which a modernized and westernized Japanese military had defeated handily the antiquated forces of the Qing Dynasty. The treaty was negotiated by Count Hirobumi Ito for the Japanese and Li Hongzhang for the Chinese, and imposed harsh terms on a defeated China. The Chinese were forced to pay an indemnity of 200 million taels of silver and to recognize the autonomy and independence of Korea, as well to cede Formosa (present-day Taiwan) and the Pescadores Islands to Japan. In addition China was to cede Port Arthur and the Liaodong Peninsula, and open new treaty ports in Shashi, Chongqing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. The harsh terms of the treaty prompted the so-called Triple Intervention by Russia, France, and Germany, which pressured Japan to renounce its claims to Port Arthur and the Liaodong peninsula in return for a larger Chinese indemnity.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Kim, Key-Hiuk. The Last Phase of the East Asian World Order: Korea, Japan and the Chinese Empire, 1860–1882. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980;

    Morse, H. B. The International Relations of the Chinese Empire. 3 vols. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1918;

    Myers, Ramon H., and Mark R. Peattie, eds. The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

   ADRIAN U-JIN ANG