Did the Qing dynasty (Manchus) ever consider invading Japan or at least extracting some manner of tribute?

by joepyeweed
keyilan

Well there was the First Sino-Japanese War, though how you want to define an invasion of Occupied Korea as an invasion of Japan may change the applicability of that as an answer.

In 1876 there was the Treaty of Kanghwa^1 which created a Japanese presence in Korea in the form of settlements with extraterritoriality, a trendy colonial demand at the time. This wasn't well received in Korea, of course. Things in Korea weren't entirely stable during this period, and domestic complaints could easily be redirected. In 1882 there was an uprising known as the Imo Incident (壬午軍亂)^2 which left around twenty Japense soldiers dead and buildings in flames. It wasn't primarily focused on the Japanese, however it was one of a series of actions that led to the First Sino-Japanese War.

In 1894 there was an uprising known as the Donghak Peasant Rebellion (東學 農民 運動) which resulted in the Qing sending in a few thousand soldiers into Japan. This was, the Meiji government pointed out, in violation of the Convention of Tianjin (天津条約), an 1885 treaty between China and Japan which was meant to calm a growing conflict between China and Japan on the topic of their respective influences on the peninsula. Thus began the First Sino-Japanese War.

During all of this time, from 1876 onward, China was really too weak after suffering a long period of both internal strife and externally instigated conflicts to really do much militarily to stop Japan'd advances, short of the small troop deployment in 1894. The war was short in large part because China agreed to peace in order to prevent further advances of the Japanese toward Beijing.

The issue here is that some have argued that this was a plot by the Qing to reclaim their influence in Korea^3, while it can also be argued that this was the outcome manoeuvring by Japan from the beginning to begin their own colonisation. The terms of the Treaty of Kanghwa certainly support this. It's possible both arguments are completely on the mark, of course.

Under the interpretation that the Qing deployment to quell the Donghak Rebellion was intended to weaken/remove Japan's newly gained influence/control over Korea, this would probably qualify as the only clear instance of the Qing moving against Japan.

The only other attempted invasion was during the Yuan. That didn't go any better.

tl;dr: Nah not really.

See Also:

  • Dudden, Alexis (2005) Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power. University of Hawaii Press. (for an account more from Japan's view of the events)

  • Flynn, Matthew J (2008) First Strike: Preemptive War in Modern History. Routledge. (chapter 3)

  • Paine, S C M (2003) The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge University Press.

Footnotes:

  1. 江華島條約 (ganghwado joyak) in Korean, 日朝修好条規 (nitchō shūkō jōki) in Japanese
  2. "Imo" (壬午) refers to the year in which the war took place based on the traditional calendar system. Similarly the First Sino-Japanese war is also called the Jiawu War 甲午戰爭 in Chinese, Jiawu (甲午) like Imu being the year in which it was fought. The Japanese and Korean names are essentially the same as in English.