ABSTRACT
A curious gap in the English-language literature on East Asian history is that it tends to offer little analysis of the international politics of the region in the thirty-five years or so between the end of the Second Opium War in 1860 and the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5. In the East Asian environment before the First Sino-Japanese War, Britain and Japan had to prioritise establishing a good relationship with Qing instead of each other. Economic historians point out that trade friction developed between Britain and Japan from the late 1880s onwards as the British merchants were started to be driven out of the Japanese market, and the Japanese products started to be exported into East Asia. In addition, because historians know that the Qing was ultimately defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War, it is tempting to assume that Qing imperialism in the 1880s was a complete failure.
