First Sino-Japanese War Ends in a Stalemate?

A timeline I'm considering has China getting an alternate Emperor in 1875 who gives much greater support than our timeline's Guangxu Emperor, or has people working for him who give much greater support, to the second phase self-strengthening movement and reforming the country. They manage to muddle through things with one of the main butterflies being a different outcome of the Sino-Japanese War.

Now I can't be bothered going into details at the moment so insert reforms/handwavium here and just say that in this timeline things go much better for the Qing. Their fleet manages to seriously damage the Japanese one whilst being mostly destroyed in the process but denying them a lot of support for the landings at Weihaiwei or the Liaodong Peninsula which either don't go ahead or aren't really successful, Japan is able to invade and drive the Chinese army from Korea but are blocked by bloody fighting when they try to move into Manchuria. The end result is a much better, for China, Treaty of Shimonoseki - they're forced to recognise the full independence of Korea, but do not have to cede the Liaodong Peninsula or Taiwan, don't give Japan most-favoured-nation status or pay them any indemnities. For China this is still something of a mixed bag since they've been forced to a draw by a country they considered an inferior, had to release a tributary state that sits very close to their capital region, and had most of their navy sunk, but at least not lost as much as they could have for what little comfort that is.

Now knowing much about Japanese history or the society at the time how is this going to be taken in Japan by both the public and politicians? Sure they've partially neutralised the dagger at the heart of Japan that was Chinese influenced Korea but now they've still got to try and play for influence in the newly independent country with no special advantages, and lost a number of their modern fleet as the price. Could anyone give an educated guess on what this might do to the government and future policies?
 
Huh, well this is a blast from the past. :) Quick warning but the Mods aren't all that keen about people resurrecting threads that have been dead for several years. Although it's easy enough to make the mistake if you find your way to one via the search function and don't notice the dates, I've done that a few times myself. :eek:

That aside as I said in the original post I didn't really envisage them gaining Taiwan, or Formosa as it seems to of still been called then, but thinking on it again their losing the island might be possible. Depends on how the naval parts of the war go versus the on-land parts. I suppose the Japanese could wind up with it if they had managed to take it during the war but didn't want to back down during the peace negotiations if they felt they absolutely had to come out of it with at least something to show for it. Anyone else want to chime in? Who knows, might get some more interest second time around. :)
 
OTL, the entire Japanese effort was concentrated in Korea and Manchuria; with Taiwan being seized after the treaty as part of the enforcement of the treaty. So if Taiwan is not seized during the war or ceded as part of the treaty, then I think it's unlikely that it will be ceded afterwards.

While I can't comment with confidence on Japan, even such a limited defeat for China is likely to badly slow the reform and revolution process, since the humiliation of the First Sino-Japanese War was a major impetus to radical revolutionary reform culminating at the Xinhai revolution. This is still a defeat, mind, but as the lesser nature came about in part thanks to reforms taken on the part of China, you may very well have butterflied total revolution in China (probably not totally, there is the fact that the revolutionaries wish to see the Qing overthrown and a republic established on principle, but you have taken a lot of the wind out of their sales).

What this means for Japan, on the other hand, is that there is, at least for the nonce, a stronger China whom Japan cannot assume the totally superior position over, as OTL. Basically, for the next half century, there will still be a "struggle for East Asian hegemony" rather than Japan assuming that position and then defending it from all comers. It's not going to be the last round for certain, whereas before, China was the East Asian hegemon, now the waters are very uncertain, with no clear hegemon (a narrow victory alone won't assert this, I think, if only independent Korea is confirmed), perhaps you might even see extension of the European alliance system to East Asia. The major limiter for that is that whereas Japan is, in this scenario, still a victorious power, albeit a shaky one, China is still a power with foreign powers occupying large swathes of its soil, and which is still very backwards. So the extent to which that might happen is less certain.

The opposite effect could easily occur, the defeat could trigger a reaction in China. This would lead to similar events as the Boxer Rebellion. But it's getting late here, so I'll sign off for now.
 
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