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?