First Sino-Japanese War
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The first Sino-Japanese war was fought in 1894 and 1895 over control of Korea, and it ended the long Chinese predominance in east Asia. Korea had been a tributary of China, but reformers there looked to Japan, and when the Tonghak rebellion broke out both countries sent troops. The Japanese navy destroyed the Chinese fleet off Asan in July 1894, and Japanese armies took Pyongyang and crossed the Yalu; at Port Arthur they killed the garrison and civilians, an atrocity reported abroad. The Beiyang fleet, starved of money that went instead into a palace, was annihilated at Weihaiwei in February 1895, and the empress dowager Cixi sued for peace. The treaty of Shimonoseki recognised Korean independence, ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores, granted Japan a large indemnity and opened factories in Chinese ports. The result stunned China: it began a scramble for concessions that divided the country, and the failed reform of 1898 followed. Japan gained Taiwan and the confidence to expand further, while the war marked the moment when the old tributary order in east Asia finally collapsed. Chinese diplomatic isolation afterwards drove the court to build a modern fleet and a modern army, both of which failed in 1900.