A modern illustration depicts a naval battle on the Yellow Sea during the Sino-Japanese War. Illustration: Xiang Chun

A rare mainland book, reflecting on China's defeat to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95, also known as the Jiawu War), sheds light on some thorny facts about China today.

Its authors suggest China today hardly matches neighboring Japan, which, from 1868 to 1877, following the fall of its seclusionist Shogunate rulers, saw the island transfer from an isolated, feudal society to a modern, industrialized nation-state – a period of reform China is still, 117 years later, struggling to complete itself.

Truth from facts

The Original Defeat (Xiron Books) co-authored by Shi Yonggang, chief editor of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Weekly with editor Zhang Fan, attempts to restore historical truth to the topic of the Sino-Japanese War, a period that transformed historical patterns of Asia.

The book consists of three parts: competition between China and Meiji Japan before 1894, as both underwent transformation; the process and reasons for losing the war; and the rise of major Nationalist figures after defeat, such as Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, who would eventually attempt to form a government after the Qing Dynasty's (1644-1911) fall.

Shi said the theme of a reforming China, building up a powerful army and eager to learn from the West, is as familiar today as it was then. But after a year of war, including a shock naval defeat at the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894, came the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which forced China to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, pay a large indemnity, allow Japanese industry into four treaty ports and recognize Japan's hegemony over Korea.

Why was China so easily defeated by Japan, a small island nation?

"I personally believe that many [of these] problems still exist today," author Shi told the Global Times. "It's most important that China abandons its tradition, starts anew and set up universal values that match modernized courts."

When the treaty was signed, Ito Hirobumi, the Japanese representative, asked his Chinese counterpart, Li Hongzhang, why the ongoing "Self Strengthening" reforms in China had had no effect on modernization, though they had begun 10 years before. Li replied that the system in China was too stubborn and hide-bound in tradition, and officials had been unable to carry them out.

"The book's topic is not simply the war," said Shi, referring to the naval engagements. "We've focused on the Sino-Japan relationship and the entanglements between the two countries over the years."