Seldom does history offer a more dramatic unfolding of international relations than the evolution of the East Asiatic question, of which the China-Japan War of 1894-1895, the Boxer campaign of 1900, and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 are but successive stages of a continuous and broadening process. The scene of this development now covers those countries which are among the most resourceful in the world and which comprise one-third of the human race. The future is unknown. The origin of the drama, however, may at least in part be traced to the adoption of a new career by Japan. Having been singularly well trained by her long history in the past, and impelled by the dictates of her vital interests, Japan had resolutely entered upon the new career, and had step by step committed herself to an open and progressive policy from which there could be no return, and which had to be carried forward against all obstacles, if she would exist and grow as a nation. This change of Japan's course of life was a cause of her wars with China and Russia; by it the history of the Far East radically changed its character and opened its new volume. At first, the determined attitude of new Japan immediately caused a breach which continued to widen until the war of 1894-1895 came as a logical result--for it at once appeared that Japan had torn herself away from the ancient East Asiatic civilization, of which China was the mentor and Korea the greatest pupil, but of which Japan had never been so slavish a disciple as not to develop her original traits. As soon as Japan proved receptive of Western arts and sciences, there was resentment on the part of China and Korea, which felt as if Japan had deserted the historic community of the East and turned a renegade and servile imitator of the inferior civilization of the barbarian. To an equal extent Japan desired, even unconsciously, to demonstrate that her new career not only was not misguided, but also was the only possible way to preserve herself and save the East. Conflict with China became acute when Japan desired to open to the world the tightly sealed kingdom of Korea, over which China claimed suzerainty. Japan's attempt to open Korea, then, should be taken as the starting point of our account of the war of 1894-1895. To complete our general survey, it may again be emphasized that the same problem which caused the breach of 1894 also produced the conflict of 1904. The interests at stake had, indeed, grown wider and deeper during the ten intervening years, and Russia was a far more powerful and aggressive power than China, but the fact still remained that, from Japan's standpoint, her vital interests were at issue in 1904 as they were in 1894, and, from that of the world, the conflict raged now as it did then between an open and an exclusive policy.