She Was Also To Grant Certain Commercial
Concessions, Including The Admission Of Ships Under The Japanese Flag To
The Chinese Lakes And Rivers, And The Appointment Of Consuls.
In view of
the completeness of Japan's triumph, these conditions could not be
considered onerous, but they, undoubtedly, disturbed the balance of power
in the Far East, and, had they been permitted to stand, would have
effectually thwarted Russia's plan of advancing southward, and of
obtaining an ice-free port.
The Czar's government, accordingly, determined
to interpose, and, having secured the co-operation of its French ally, and
also of Germany, it presented to the Mikado, in the name of the three
powers, a request that he should waive that part of the Shimonoseki Treaty
which provided for the surrender of the Liau-Tung Peninsula. It was
proposed that, in return for the renunciation of this territory on the
Chinese mainland, the pecuniary indemnity should be increased by
$30,000,000, and that Wei-hai-Wei should be retained until the whole sum
should have been paid. The demand was, obviously, one that could not be
rejected without war against the three interposing powers, and the odds
were too great for Japan to face without the assistance of Great Britain,
which Lord Rosebery, then prime minister, did not see fit to offer. The
Mikado, accordingly, submitted to the loss of the best part of the fruits
of victory, retaining only Formosa and the Pescadores, the value of which
is, as yet, undetermined; with the money indemnity, however, Japan has
been enabled so greatly to strengthen her fleet that, when all the vessels
building for her are completed, she will take rank as a naval power of the
first class in the Pacific.
For some time after the revision of the Shimonoseki Treaty, the Chinese
seem to have imagined that the Czar had intervened from disinterested
motives, but Count Cassini, the Russian minister at Pekin, eventually made
it clear that the interposition would not be gratuitous. In what form the
payment for Russia's services should be made was, for some time, the
subject of debate, but, before Li Hung Chang left China in the spring of
1896, as a special embassador to attend the coronation of Nicholas II. at
Moscow, the heads of a convention had been drawn up, and, on Li's arrival
in Russia, he signed an agreement which embodied the concessions to be
made to the Czar in return for his services. This secret treaty gave
Russia the control of the Liau-Tung Peninsula, which she had ostensibly
saved, at the cost to China of $30,000,000, and the St. Petersburg
government was also to be allowed to build a branch of the Trans-Siberian
Railway through Manchuria to Talienwan and Port Arthur. A period of
eighteen months elapsed before the details of this momentous agreement
became known. On the return of Li Hung Chang to Pekin, he not only failed
to recover the viceroyship of Chihli, but he found his relations with the
Emperor Kwangsu quite as unsatisfactory as they had been after his return
from Shimonoseki.
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