Putting current spin on Japan's 1894 war with China
Editorials point to the similarity between the rise in militarism in Japan today and inthe run-up to the conflict of 1894-95
Diplomats and military strategists often draw parallels between current events and historical ones in a bid to influence world opinion or analyse contemporary affairs.
Beijing has shown it's keen to use war-related anniversaries to send political messages. Last week, state-run media commemorated the 120th anniversary of the start of the first Sino-Japanese war (1894-95) with a string of strident editorials harshly critical of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his security policy.
The 19th century war is seen by some historians as the point when power in East Asia shifted from China to Japan, as Tokyo claimed control of Taiwan and the Liaodong peninsula, as well as Korea, which was a Chinese tribute state. They argue that China became a victim of Japanese militarism and territorial expansion until the end of the second world war.
said the war showed the government of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) lacked an understanding of the enemy. "To win the war, you have to fully understand your enemy … This is the lesson that we should learn from this Sino-Japanese war," it said.
said Japan was "strikingly similar" to what it was 120 years ago, arguing the country, as it was in 1894, was "aspiring for an expanded overseas military presence … Its foremost target was, once again, China."
Xinhua said Japan's Emperor Meiji declared war on the Qing Dynasty in 1894 under the pretence of "peace". Similarly, Abe peppered his cabinet resolution about asserting Japan's right to self-defence with the word "peace". "It is feared this is not a coincidence," the state-run news agency said in an editorial.
, the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece, said the success of Japan's armed forces had led to a rise in the power of the nation's militarists. The lesson of the war, it said, was that China needed to have enough military power to safeguard its core interests.
But it is not only China that uses historical analogies to influence modern-day politics. Abe employs a similar tactic. He has repeatedly suggested that rising tensions between China and Japan are similar to the rivalry between Britain and Germany before the start of the first world war. Apparently Abe wants to deliver a message that a rising China is as dangerous as Germany was in 1914.
While China is worried about Japan's renewed militarism, its rivals are also uneasy with Beijing's increasing assertiveness on the world stage. Many have compared today's China with other rising great powers in recent history - Napoleonic France, Wilhelmine Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and the socialist Soviet Union.
Some in the US, the world's sole superpower, believe that if China continues to grow rapidly, America will once again face a potential competitor, and great-power politics will return in full force. To highlight this point, many historians and military strategists in the West contrast our post-cold war order with that of the last century, when the United States was committed to containing potential militarist powers. The challenge now, they argue, comes from the world's last major communist-ruled power.
One such warning comes from Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, who said the US today was in the same position as 17th century Spain or Britain circa 1900, in which dominant empires underestimated the rise of new powers. In Britain's case, it was Germany; for the US, it is China.
Historians believe that historical analogy can be used to provide explanations of modern day affairs, restructure our knowledge and make predictions about the future. Confucius once advised people to "study the past if you would define the future". If so, then the guidance that historical analogies might provide lies in another truthful phrase - that "there never was a good war, or a bad peace".
