An episode which heightened Japan’s sensitiveness in her foreign
relations marked the peace settlement. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki,
China had agreed to cede Japan the Liaotung Peninsula in South
Manchuria. Germany, Russia and France objected to this territorial
cession, and backed their objections by an ultimatum to Tokyo
threatening war. Japan was forced to submit, and in exchange for
a slight increase in the indemnity, the territory was returned to
China. More than the pre-Restoration bombardments of Kagoshima and
Shimonoseki, more even than the galling yoke of the unequal treaties,
this “tripartite intervention” rankled in Japanese hearts. This sense
of humiliation was not lessened in 1898, when Russia secured from China
a 25-year lease of the southern tip of the disputed Liaotung Peninsula
and proceeded to fortify Port Arthur and join Harbin to Dairen by a new
railway line.