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1. Kenkenrokuis a Diplomatic Memoir, Originally Written in Japanese by The © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved Kenkenroku: A Diplomatic Record of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895. By Mutsu Munemitsu. Edited and translated by Gordon Mark Berger. Princeton University Press, 1983, 318 pp., $27.50. 1. Kenkenroku is a diplomatic memoir, originally written in Japanese bythe foreign minister of Japan, Mutsu Munemitsu, and covering events during and immediately after the First Sino-Japanese War. Based on a large amount of state papers and diplomatic correspond- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article/14/1/229/423247 by guest on 29 September 2021 ence, Mutsu recounted the history of the war, including the Tonghak Rebellion, Korean domestic reform, the outbreak of Sino-Japanese hostilities, battles during the war, the peace negotiations, and the Triple Intervention. As the foreign minister and then the chief negotiator at the Shimonoseki talks, Mutsu had a comprehensive, firsthand grasp of this war, especially how Japan made its military and foreign-policy decisions. Since very few scholars writing in Western languages had analyzed this critical East Asian conflict, the Japan Foundation invited Professor Gordon Berger to translate Mutsu’s work into English. Besides editing and translating the book, Bergeralso added historical notes offering more background information and checked facts against the original diplomatic dispatches. Readers can easily refer to the original materials that Mutsu used in assembling his memoir by means of the citations throughout the text. 2. The First Sino-Japanese War was a seminal event that changed the nature of inter- national relations in East Asia and had global repercussions. Accordingly, the importance of this book for researchers in modern Asian history or international relations has long been recognized. However, fewer people have perceived its relevance to international legal studies, especially the study of public international law during the late 19th century. Historian Douglas Howland did cite Kenkenroku in describing Japan’s dual strat- egy of international law and diplomacy during the First Sino-Japanese War, but few others have read Kenkenroku as a resource on international law. The main reason is that archival research is not a common methodology for international legal studies. International lawyers generally rely on secondary materials and public state papers as sources; however, those secondary materials are far from sufficient in this case, because in order to understand the nature of public international law in the late 19th century, three aspects should be observed and analyzed: states’ public arguments or justifications under international law, states’ actual practices, and states’ own attitudes astowhether theiractions could be justified on moral and legal grounds or solely by political expediency. Compared with normal dip- lomatic papers and secondary materials, which offer information only in the first two areas, Kenkenroku illustrates the real intentions underlying Japan’s statements by revealing its leaders’ internal discussions and providing Mutsu’s own analysis. In addition, as Berger explains in the introduction, this book responded to argumentsthat the Triple Intervention showed Japanese foreign policy to be a failure by arguing that the Japanese Cabinet had acted wisely and in Japan’s best interests in starting the war, in concluding it, and in accept- ing the humiliating advice of the Western powers. In the service of this purpose, Kenkenroku is remarkably frank in recounting Japan’s internal decision-making processes. One piece of evidence of his frankness is the work’s publication history: Kenkenroku was barred from publication until 1929. 3. Kenkenroku clearly distinguishes between the public justifications that Japan gave for its actions and the country’s real intentions, thereby illustrating the difference between pre- texts and justifying reasons under international law. For example, when talking about the cause of thewar, Mutsu said that “it was asserted that wewere fighting for the cause of justice and humanity, aiding the weak and checking the powerful; […] in my view, the reforms in Korea should focus primarily on Japan’s national interests. […] I never felt that Korea’s ................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Chinese Journal of International Law (2015), 229–236 230 Chinese JIL (2015) internal reform was very important in itself” (p.29). Statements like these help readers to understand how countries in the late 19th century appealed to public international law to decorate and conceal their actual intentions. 4. Fromthe perspective ofinternational law, eventhough the First Sino-Japanese Wargave Japan a ticket to enter the “civilized” world by adopting a European understanding of inter- national law, Japan was still hugely humiliated by the Triple Intervention. In addition to doc- umenting in detail the whole process of the conflict between China and Japan, Mutsu spent Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article/14/1/229/423247 by guest on 29 September 2021 three chapters focusing on the Triple Intervention to show how difficult was his final decision to give up the gains he had negotiated from China. When confronted by the far stronger Triple Powers, Mutsu hopelessly admitted that diplomacy shorn of military support could not succeed (p.250). This diplomatic defeat at the hands of the Triple Intervention con- firmed that, in reality, only force mattered in international relations. Mutsu’s recounting of Japan’s interactions with China and with Western countries demonstrates how public international law in the late 19th century was manipulated in order to serve power politics, and how stronger, colonizing powers deployed it as an instrument to justify their actions. 5. Last but not least, Kenkenroku helps us understand the collision between Western and Eastern international systems and Eastern countries’ perceptions with regard to applying Western international law. The conflict between Japan and China led to the Qing dynasty’s loss of Korea, signifying the final collapse of the traditional Chinese tributary system. Superficially, this was a war between two countries, but essentially, according to Mutsu, it marked a collision between the new civilization of the West and the old civilization of East Asia. In his eyes, China, a stubborn, conservative, and ignorant country, stuck to its old culture and system while Japan joined Western civilization (p.28). This raises a ques- tion: did Japan thoroughly accept the Western understanding of public international law, or did it simply play the Western game for practical purposes? Kenkenroku offers insights that explore Japan’s and even China’s attitude toward Western public international law. From the author’s point of view, both Japan and China regarded Western public inter- national law as having no cultural or ethical superiority in itself, but merely as resting upon a balance of power; thus both countries applied Western international law when it was pol- itically convenient for them to do so. 6. Even though Mutsu was relatively candid in revealing some internal discussions, this book must still be read critically. First, the author tried to conceal or at least play down Japan’s real intentions in waging this war. Mutsu mentioned Japan’s “initial objectives” and “long-term goals” several times in the first half of this book, but he never specified what these goals were; on the contrary, the only reason that he gave for going to war with China was to protect Korea’s independence. Only when the reader nears the end of the book and carefully examines the discussions and considerations surrounding the terms that Japan proposed for the peace treaty does it become apparent that Japan’s ultimate goal was to establish dominance in East Asia. Second, this book ignores some historical events such as the Port Arthur Massacre, showing that it is far from complete or impartial in perspective. Nevertheless, these flaws do not greatly lessen the enduring value of this primary source, not only for historians but also for students and scholars of international law, who have tended to overlook its significance. Bijun Xu The Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong [email protected] Advance Access publication 20 February 2015 doi:10.1093/chinesejil/jmv002.
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