The next meeting of the Japan History Group (JHG) at the Institute of Social Science (ISS), University of Tokyo, will be held on Thursday,
30 January 2014, at 6:00 PM in Conference Room No.1(Dai-Ichi Kaigishitsu) of the Institute of Social Science main Building.

Presenter: Yu Suzuki (LSE, PhD Candidate)

Title: 'British East Asian Policy from 1880 to 1894'

Discussant: Yuichi Sasaki (University of Tokyo, PhD
Candidate)

Abstract:
As many historians of modern East Asia have already pointed out that, even as late as 1894, about half a century after the First Opium War, the decision-makers of many local East Asian countries did not necessarily consider the word "country" as being synonymous to "sovereign nation-state." They also did not necessarily see that the inter-country relationship should be conducted between nation-states whose sovereignty is theoretically equal. And as Dr.
Kobayashi Takao points out, what is interesting about British East Asian policy from 1880 to 1894 is that many British observers - including those within and outside of the government - thought that they must deal with the Chinese claim of suzerainty over their neighbours very seriously if they wanted to protect their interest in East Asia during this period. By looking at the East Asian policy of a European imperial power which had a significant commercial and naval presence in East Asia at that time, historians can get a unique insight into regional which could not be gained only by looking at the interactions between the local East Asian powers.
Yet, despite the fact that there are many works on the British East Asian policy from 1830 to mid-1860s, there are much less works on the period from 1870 to 1894, and in particular, there are even lesser litterateurs on this topic in a period from 1880 to 1894. Also these few works that do look into this period rely only on the official correspondences of the Foreign Office.
While it is undeniable that the Foreign Office documents are very important in understanding the British East Asian policy, but one cannot understand the complexity of the policy-making process without looking at other important sources which sheds light to the opinions of the individuals outside of the Foreign Office but were nonetheless important. The presentation will re-examine the existing historiography by using some of the primary sources that were previously not used.

--
--------------------------------
Dr. Naofumi NAKAMURA
Professor of Business History
Institute of Social Science,
The University of Tokyo
naofumin[at]iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp