著者
森田 吉彦
出版者
JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
雑誌
国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)
巻号頁・発行日
no.139, pp.29-44,L7, 2004

During the Sino-Japanese negotiations of the mid-nineteenth century, from the Shanghai voyage of the official ship <i>Senzai-maru</i> in 1862 to the treaty conclusion in 1871, one of the first problems was understanding the past and future conditions of the East Asian world order.<br>At first, Japan wanted China to allow Japanese merchants to go and trade there, in the same way as Chinese merchants had been able to come and trade in Japan since the "national isolation" period. However, in addition, China had to argue about whether or not they should treat an Eastern country like Japan like a Western non-treaty country. Although there were also opinions such as in Japan, that they wanted to exclude the Western monopoly for commerce and, that in China, they should be more flexible toward neighboring Japan, their talks did not advance.<br>But in Japan, people like Nagura Nobuatsu continued groping for the possibility of Sino-Japanese strategic cooperation, and this agreed with Iwakura Tomomi's idea of national strategy. On the other hand, in China, people like Li Hung-Chang continued to think about a strategic dynamism between China, Japan and the West. In the 1869-70 argument in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan, Nagura aggressively claimed that Japan must promote "<i>tsüshin</i>" (a traditional communication, which needed no new treaty) relation with China. He was opposed to the prudent opinion that Japan needed to create a Western-style treaty with China so as not to arouse Western suspicion. Under his initiative, preliminary negotiations regarding diplomaticrelations with China were accepted. It was also significant that when China had changed her attitude, Li Hung-Chang refuted objectors pointing out that Japan had not been a tributary state. He advocated a plan to bind Japan and contain the West.<br>The Sino-Japanese Amity Treaty of 1871 was almost unchanged from the original China draft. It also lacked a (one-sided or bilateral) most favored nation clause, and it was not only the second article that caused Western powers to become suspicious of the Sino-Japanese alliance and press for the prevention of a ratification. It was symbolic that the Chinese word "<i>tiaogui</i>" was used and not "<i>tiaoyue</i>" (the usual translation of the word "treaty"). From the beginning, the treaty was planned as special. A most important point was that China had deleted the sovereign names of both countries so that they did not stand on an equal footing. Also, in the latter part of the first article, China aimed to restrain the Japanese regarding the Korean Peninsula, but they hid the Chinese meaning of the words in the treaty. The Japanese will to build an even relationship with China as a traditional communication or a treaty was suppressed.