ABSTRACT
As far as international war relief by the Red Cross was concerned, the Sino-Japanese War was the first war that took place outside the European Continent. Because of the geographical distance, western Red Cross societies could hardly be involved in actual relief activities during the war. However, they were interested in the extent to which the western or ‘civilized’ idea of humanity was successful in the Far East, where there was no tradition of Christian philanthropy.1 From the Red Cross’s point of view, the Sino-Japanese War was, in fact, a conflict between the ‘civilized’ and the ‘uncivilized’: while Japan had acceded to the Geneva Convention in 1886 after conforming to Western standards of medicine and military forces and had a single national Red Cross society with centralized, strong administration, China was neither a signatory to the Convention nor the ‘civilized’ state that could satisfy the requirements for accession. There was a limited Red Cross movement at the approach of war, but its alleged Red Cross society was organized exclusively by foreigners.2
