Sarah Paine: commitment

Transcript context

…no, no, they're going to keep on going. There is only one other possible location for them which is a far inferior base up in Vladivostok. The Japanese know there are three ways to get to Vladivostok. If you're coming up from the south, you're either going to go the long, long way around through La Pérouse Strait and it's awfully narrow and it's a long way around. You can go through the Tsugaru Strait which is a little wider, but it goes by a bunch of big Japanese army bases and also a very large port of Hakodate. You want to do that? That's kind of risky. So the short way is to go through the Korea Strait which is broken in the middle by the Tsushima Islands and the Tsushima Strait is to the east. It's 20-25 miles wide at its narrowest point. That's the short way which is what the Russians take. Guess what? They have a welcoming party there of all these newly refitted Japanese ships that know exactly what they're up to. The Battle of Tsushima is one of the most lopsided naval battles in human history. The Japanese just either sink or commandeer basically the entire fleet, proving the Russians had no idea of how to do naval strategy. The navy had been a product of a bunch of aristocrats. The one who ran it was a guy who was known for, what was it, fast women and slow ships? It did not work out well for them. While the negotiations are being held on whether to hold negotiations, President Roosevelt suggested to the Japanese that they try to take Sakhalin Island. You can see the tip end of the Japanese home island, Hokkaido and then there's Sakhalin. Why? Because it's much more valuable to the Russians than the Japanese and it'd be a good tradeback item in the peace negotiations. Because for Japan it's a nice fishing ground. But for Russia it's sovereign Russian territory. Horror ceding that sovereign Russian territory to anyone, let alone an Asian power given the prejudices of the day. To sum up what Japan got out of this war, it got its immediate war objective, Russian troop withdrawal from Manchuria. That's what they wanted. They get this Japanese sphere of influence in Korea. That's what they wanted. But remember at the very beginning they wanted to trade Japanese predominance in Korea for Russian predominance in Manchuria? Let's look at what they really got. They got the southern half of Sakhalin Island, Russian territory. They got southern Manchuria. It's actually arguably the valuable half, the southern half, because it has Port Arthur and Dalny and all the railways that Russians had invested there. Then it confirms the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese war that Japan is indeed the dominant power of Asia. So I rest my case. Japan did it. Smart decisions in Japan are what overturn the balance of power in Asia. ms the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese war that Japan is indeed the dominant power of Asia. So I rest my case. Japan did it. Smart decisions in Japan are what overturn the balance of power in Asia. Okay, but I promised you a counterargument. What would a smart person say who disagrees with me? Here's a perfectly good counter argument. It's great you think the Japanese are so clever, but actually China faced a perfect storm of catastrophes. Because China imploded, that's why it leaves Japan on top in Asia. The primary factor is that China's falling apart and this perfect storm of problems. I'll go through three. It's always a good number. People can remember three things. You have the civil wars afflicting China, in an age of accelerating European imperialism. Also the Manchus who ran China, they're only 2% of the population, were suffering from all kinds of dynastic decline, which I will get into. China had reached its preindustrial limits to growth. Its population kept on going up and up, but its agricultural productivity just could not feed people. So people are trying to farm really marginal lands. Either they're too vertical or they don't have reliable rainfall. You're getting massive soil erosion doing these things. You're also getting a lot of famines. Famines are both the cause and the effect of civil wars. On this map you can just see, I've named some of the big rebellions on this one. It's to give you a sense that these rebellions affect all of China. It’s not just a little here and there, but a lot everywhere. Now I'm going to give you a table. This is a simplified table which only goes 1845-1895. It's part of a much bigger table that would cover the entire 19th century. And that table is an oversimplification. So the point is this is not business as usual. In the red box, that is the height of these rebellions, 1851-1878. The biggest rebellion there is the Taiping. It's estimated that 20 million people died in the Taiping Rebellion. To put that figure in perspective… People don't know how many people died in all these things. China didn't know how many people they had, much less how many people they lost. But to give you a sense of it, in World War II it's estimated that 55 million people died. So you're talking 20 million just in the Taiping. I have no idea how all this adds up, but it's huge. The Chinese like to talk about these as being rebellions or uprisings. Give me a break. They're civil wars. A whole bunch of them want to overthrow the dynasty in Beijing. A whole other set of them want to secede from the empire. Often these minority people who just want the Han, the predominant people, to go away, or the Manchus in this era. Some of these provinces are devastated for generations. So that's point one, these civil wars. Point two is that this coincided with an era of accelerating European imperialism, where Europeans and also the Japanese are carving out massive spheres of influence for themselves. The Chinese are not going to have full sovereignty over their country for a very, very long time. The story gets even worse. This happens to China because China loses a succession of regional wars. s. The Chinese are not going to have full sovereignty over their country for a very, very long time. The story gets even worse. This happens to China because China loses a succession of regional wars. It loses the First Opium War, the Second Opium War, the Japanese snag the Ryukyu Islands. Then in the Sino-French War, China loses control over Indochina. Then in the Sino-Japanese War, they're losing their tributary of Korea. The Ili crisis is up in Xinjiang, which goes a little better for them. This is a mess. This is not business as usual. Think about one country being afflicted by this much trouble. Then it comes at a time when the Manchus are in real trouble themselves. They had ridden to power on these fabulous cavalries and tremendous operational success for a people who are only 2% of the population that they dominate. They transform China into the richest polity around the globe by the 18th century. But here's the problem. With their tremendous success in their military campaign. They're overextending China financially. Inside the round circle there, that's China proper. These are the core provinces of China that produce all the income. The Manchus came in from Manchuria up there, but they also take Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. Not Manchuria so much, but the other ones, they cost a lot of garrisoning. It costs a lot of money to garrison these places. It looks like a great success, but it's going to have problems later on. Then here's what happens to the Manchu emperors. They no longer ride at the head of their armies. The Qianlong Emperor, who's considered to have ruled at the height of the dynasty, what's he spending his money on? All sorts of interesting architectural programs. That's why people think he's great, he builds beautiful things. But these emperors are isolated. They don't have command experience, expensive spending habits. Then it gets better. So they got all these tributaries. Some of their tributaries produce really high quality opium. The emperors decide they want to sample the goods, and the people who are preparing it for them also want to sample the goods. Then the Manchu banner forces that are the Praetorian Guard of the Manchus are also sampling the goods. Then you go, why are the last Qing emperors incapable of producing offspring or have hardly any? They have huge harems, so what's their problem? Well, if you're really totally high on drugs, you can ruin yourself. So that is what goes on. No wonder they're losing these wars, if some of your key thinkers are not thinking very clearly. So the counter argument to my argument says, “Look, it's nonsense. The Japanese may have been really clever, but the real big event is this massive series of civil wars, European imperialism, and the collapse of Manchu minority rule. That would be the real thing.”…

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