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Epilogue: Perceptions, Power, and War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2010

S. C. M. Paine
Affiliation:
United States Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
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Summary

It is certain that the situation in Asia will grow steadily worse in the future …and we must make preparations for another war within the next ten years.

Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, April 12, 1895, Russo-Japanese War (1904–5)

Li Hung-chang contemplated with a woeful mien the row of Japanese officers who had accompanied the chargé d'affaires and told them in the presence of European diplomats: “In the next war we shall be beaten by you again in the same way as last time.”

German Minister to China, Edmund von Heyking, Chinese New Year's audience, February 1897

It may be that this competition in Korea will bring about the next conflict in the Pacific, and even menace the peace of the world.

Former-United States Secretary of State, John W. Foster, 1903 Pacific War (1931–45), Korean War (1950–3)

As this work has endeavored to show, in international relations perceptions are extremely important. Had China not been trounced in war, thus providing the powers with a spectacle of incompetence, the “scramble for concessions” might never have ensued. Not just perceptions by others, but also perceptions concerning others, matter. The Chinese misconstrued the balance of power both in the world at large and in their own backyard in Asia. They believed that, because they had always been dominant, so they would remain. They did not measure their own power relative to that of the Western powers and relative to Japan but assumed their own eternal superiority. They got it wrong in both cases and paid an enormous price for the mistake.

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Chapter
Information
The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895
Perceptions, Power, and Primacy
, pp. 367 - 370
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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