China was considered the dominant asian power at the time. It was speculated they would have won against Japan. However, they lost. I feel it had to do with a lack of discipline and a corrupted military that fell in the face of a superior and well-disciplined army that was less corrupt. So, did China ever stance a chance to win? I think so, but I'm not a historian, so I'd like to hear what actual historians have to say in hindsight about China's chances and why they lost, and how they could have won the war.
China was considered the dominant asian power at the time
Could you justify this statement?
At the start of the war Japan had modernised and was establishing itself in the region, having exerted considerable influence in Korea 20 years earlier. The Qing might have been geographically large but they were already quite weak governmentally and militarily by the 1890s when the First Sino-Japanese War began. I'm not sure you could justifiably claim that China was hands down the dominant Asian power by the beginning of the decade.
In China there was a substantial amount of corruption and a lack of a powerful military, in a country where the government was already in decline and, at least to many, they knew it.
I'm not sure Japan's success in the war was much of a surprise, all things considered.