How did the Sino-Japanese war affect China?

She was defeated by Japan, a country she had originally looked down upon. This disastrous defeat brought to China a new wave of foreign imperialism. The Chinese government had exposed its own weaknesses to everybody. She was unable to resist anybody of anything. The avaricious foreign powers soon started to scramble on Chinese territories and sovereign rights. They sliced up the Chinese melon into different portions for further exploitation. The doom of China as a nation and the Chinese as a race became a nightmare to many people who were then affected by Social Darwinist ideas that the strong would become stronger and the weak weaker. The weak would then be cast away through the process of natural selection. Knowing of the grave dangers of their own nation, a new wave of intellectual awakening evolved out of the minds of the Chinese. The reform movement of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and K'ang Yu-wei worked their way up to the hundred Days Reform. The reformers demanded a full-scale renovation of the Ch'ing government. Any resistance to change was considered detrimental to the existence of China. The revolutionary movement, on the other hand, led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen gathered momentum again after the Sino-Japanese War. The revolutionaries demanded not only far-reaching reforms but also the eradication of the Manchus. The Chinese revolutionary movement was both determined by the war and a determining factor for the future of China.

Moving in parallel direction was a chain of anti-foreign activities and riots in opposition to the imperialistic challenges as brought about by the war. The Boxer Uprising was the culmination of such anti-foreign feelings. The increasing intensity of anti-foreignism must be attributed to the further and the deepening erosion of Chinese sovereignty by foreign imperialism. The allowance given to Japan and the western powers to build factories in China was a direct affront to China's domestic industries. Chinese nascent industrial enterprises were much hampered by the presence of stronger and privileged foreign counterparts on Chinese soil. Hence, Chinese anti-imperialism became a norm and the driving force for the future development of China and Chinese nationalism.