Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/67

 first article declared her "an independent State enjoying the same rights as Japan," and subsequently to make with the United States (1882), Great Britain (1883), and other Powers treaties in which her independence was constructively admitted. China, however, did not intend that Korea should exercise the independence thus conventionally recognised. A Chinese Resident was placed in Söul, and a system of steady though covert interference in Korea's domestic and foreign affairs was inaugurated.

Japan suffered chiefly by these anomalous conditions. In all her dealings with Korea, in all complications that arose out of her comparatively large trade with the peninsula, in all questions connected with her numerous settlers there, she found herself negotiating with a dependency of China, and with officials who took their orders from the Chinese Representative. China had long entertained a rooted apprehension of Japanese aggression in the peninsula — an apprehension not unwarranted by history — and that distrust tinged all the influence exerted by her agents there. Much space would be required to recapitulate the occasions upon which Japan was made sensible of the discrimination thus exercised against her. It is enough to say that such occasions were numerous, and that by degrees her indignation was roused. No single instance, indeed, constituted a ground for strong international protest, but the Japanese people gradu-