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Reviews of Books and Films
wave of the late Ming corresponds to the cultural
flowering of that same time? I doubt it, yet the
parallels and what they might say about the Jianyang
trade are ignored.
Although her tendency to give topics such as these
short shrift may call into question her characterization
of the study as a "social history of the book" and
perhaps points to topics for her own future work, it
does not detract from the important contribution Chia
has made. This is an important study that should not
be ignored.
HUGH R. CLARK
Ursinus College
S. C. M. PAINE. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895:
Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 412. $55.00.
It may well be that one "can't tell a book by its cover"
or even by its title. While S. C. M. Paine protests that
her book is not a military history (p. 19), there is much
to recommend it as such. Paine may not have had
access to the concise reports from the battlefield by
neutral military observers for which researchers pray.
However, her gleaning of contemporary reports available to the Western press in the region greatly increases the general understanding of numerous battles
and how the two sides conducted their warfare.
Using details extracted from British, American,
French, and Russian newspapers from 1894 through
the end of hostilities on May 8, 1895, Paine concludes
that Japan's winning the war was less significant than
how China had lost through gross errors and ignorance. Beginning with the sinking of the British-owned,
unarmed troopship, the Kowshing (Gaosheng) led by
Chinese generals too unseasoned to see their folly
against three Japanese warships, the reader is introduced to Chinese blunders. The fact that the Kowshing
had to be rented out from British taipans Jardine and
Matheson also reveals modernizer Li Hongzhang's
failure to create an imperial, steam-driven merchant
marine. The Japanese strategy for modernization had
included incentives to the private sector, resulting in
the sixty-ship Mitsubishi merchant fleet that carried
Japanese troops to the Korean and then Chinese
battlefronts. While the Chinese defeat at Weihaiwei,
Shandong, is rightly featured, this reviewer was more
impressed with what Paine exposes at the prior
Pyongyang seige in Korea. There, China's apparent
advantage of having a line of twenty-seven forts constructed with moats and trenches along a river should
have blocked the Japanese crossing. According to
Paine, this was one of the strongest Chinese efforts,
replete with cavalry charges and continuing fire from
superior rifles and modern field guns by some of the
best of the foreign trained forces. However, the four
Chinese commands involved were unable to collaborate and allowed the Japanese to feint a frontal assault
while crossing the river upstream unopposed. Staying
on the defensive limited Chinese options in this war, as
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
did Qing punishment for failures by demotion or
decapitation. Chinese leadership often seemed frozen
into nonaction. Paine also reveals that Chinese planners ignored the need to intercept Japanese troop
shipments on the sea, bottling up their best warships
with superior cannon within vulnerable fortified harbors. Details on the battles make this work a welcome
contribution despite the author's disclaimer, perhaps
to anxious uninformed editors. She argues convincingly that although historians might prefer that wars
could be ignored, "wars matter" (p. 370). Wars expose
weaknesses and strengths and are expressions of civilizations.
Through numerous examples, Paine highlights the
chaotic lack of Chinese unity against Japan, even after
Japanese troops invaded Chinese territory. Readers
can experience the high cost paid that forced Chinese
elites to imagine the need for a modern nation-state
for survival. The Manchu/Chinese division was highlighted in the paucity of Manchu support to Chinese
troops in the field. After Pyongyang, the glaring inattention demoralized Chinese troops, who thereafter
thought about retreat rather than diehard resistance.
During the retreats a pattern of Chinese abandonment
of supplies and firepower emerged. In numerous instances, the Japanese, whose long supply lines from
home were problematic, could simply live off the
largess left by defeated forces. Chinese naval fiascos
added to the new Japanese fleet Western-built Chinese
warships, ten at Weihaiwei alone. At that defeat,
Chinese orders to scuttle their ships were obstructed
when their sailors mutineed, an occurrence also experienced earlier on the Kowshing and then in the
breakdown among Chinese troops at the modern
fortress of Port Arthur. These defenders looted their
city before it fell to Japan. Paine has sifted through a
mountain of reports, providing the reader with glittering nuggets. This is also the case with the truce and
peace settlement at Shimonoseki.
Although Paine also disclaims the book as a diplomatic history, she provides a wealth of detail about the
long truce negotiations and Li's shrewd encouragement of the tripartite intervention to check Japan's
appetite for fruits of battle. Also included throughout
the book is much on Russia's eastward obsession and
the intricacies of Western strategies. Exposing the
various prewar and postwar Western perceptions of
China and Japan while blaming Confucianism for
China's debacle seems less effective by comparison.
Targeting Confucianism as the primary cause of intellectual obstructionism ignores the Confucian concern
for self-improvement and moral reform that stirred
Kang Yuwei and then Mao Zedong.
DONALD A. JORDAN
Ohio University,
Athens
CHARLES A. LAUGHLIN. Chinese Reportage: The Aesthetics of Historical Experience. (Asia-Pacific: Culture,
FEBRUARY
2004