أَعُوذُ بِاللّٰهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the name of ALLAH, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

"The Other Great Game": The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia By Sheila Miyoshi Jager

Sheila Miyoshi Jager (19 Nov 1963) is an American historian and a Professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College, author of two books on Korea; Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea and "Narratives of Nation-Building in Korea": The Genealogy of Patriotism. A specialist on modern East Asian and Korean history and politics, she has written for the New York Times, Politico, and the Boston Globe.

Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s "The Other Great Game": The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia offer a comprehensive analysis of the intricate geopolitical dynamics that shaped the Korean Peninsula and the broader East Asian region from 1858 to 1910. The Other Great Game is a book that successfully provides a comprehensive interpretation of the late 19th and early 20th century on the Korean Peninsula and wider region. The book received the prestigious Robert L. Jervis and Paul W. Schroeder Best Book Award in 2024, underscoring its significant contributions to international relations and historical scholarship. It also received the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History (RUSI) in the same year.

In the nineteenth century, Russia participated in two “great games.” One, well known, pitted the tsar’s empire against Britain in Central Asia. The other, hitherto unrecognized, saw Russia, China, and Japan vying for domination of Korea. This eye-opening account argues that the contest over Korea set the course for the future of the global order.

After centuries of isolation, Korea became a prize in the Sino-Japanese War at the close of the nineteenth century and the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of the twentieth. Japan’s victories not only gained the Meiji regime a colony but also dislodged Imperial China from regional supremacy. As the fate of the declining tsarist empire was sealed by its surprising military defeat, the United States and Britain sized up the new Japanese challenger.

A vivid story of two geopolitical earthquakes sharing Korea as their epicenter, "The Other Great Game" rewrites the script of twentieth-century rivalry in the Pacific and enriches our understanding of contemporary global affairs, from the origins of Korea’s bifurcated identity—a legacy of internal politics amid the imperial squabble—to China’s irredentist ambitions and Russia’s nostalgic dreams of recovering great-power status.

The main theme of Sheila Miyoshi Jager's "The Other Great Game" is the intense late-19th to early-20th century geopolitical rivalry over the Korean Peninsula, which acted as the epicenter for the decline of China’s Sino-centric order and the rise of Japanese, Russian, and Western power, thus creating modern East Asia. This book derives from multiple sources across time and space. It makes use of various primary sources — multi-lingual government publications, memoirs, and journalistic accounts — as well as historical monographs published in different languages in multiple time periods.

Prof. Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s "The Other Great Game" narrates the epic story. The book appropriately begins with Korea’s struggle against the encroachment of the Western powers in the mid-century, taking place against the backdrop of its own domestic problems and, more importantly, Russia’s historic drive to East Asia crowned with the establishment of an outpost in 1860 — what became known as Vladivostok. Even though Korea became a de facto protectorate of Japan after the Russo-Japanese War, Jager extends her coverage to 1910, when the Hermit Kingdom was finally annexed by the Empire of the Rising Sun. This spelled an end to a historic era of East Asia — tellingly, the Qing Empire met its end one year later.

Prof. Sheila Miyoshi Jager in the book "The Other Great Game" makes two moves that set this regional history apart. First, she gives Russia its due as an East Asian power, and second, she centers the story on Korea. Overall, Jager’s insistence on explaining Russia’s policy toward China, Korea, and Japan is a testament to her persistence, acumen, and reach as a historian. Jager begins the book with a narrative of Russian expansion, which culminated in the Qing Empire ceding the territory commonly known as the Russian Far East today. In 1860, the Russians also founded the city of Vladivostok — “Ruler of the East” — on the southern tip of this newly acquired territory.

At least in part, the Russians were motivated by fear that their British rivals in the original Great Game might obtain territory or concessions along what was then China’s northeastern coast. Taking advantage of the Qing Empire’s weakness amid the Taiping Rebellion from 1850 to 1864 and the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860, St. Petersburg convinced Beijing to give up the territory that would become known as the Russian Far East. As Jager notes, these acquisitions brought the Russian Empire to the border with Korea for the first time. She claims that this was inherently threatening to China and Japan and set the stage for the “convulsions” of The Other Great Game. Introducing the story this way allows Jager to link the original Great Game between Russia and Britain with The Other Great Game’s central motif.

The book is strongest when discussing the convergence of external and internal forces on the Korean peninsula. It is well known that the Japanese launched their wars against China and Russia in order to secure their dominance in Korea. Yet even readers familiar with that fact might have only a passing knowledge of how the breakdown of Korean society and politics — accelerated by the imperial powers’ insistence on “opening” the country — enmeshed the Russian, Chinese, and Japanese empires. Once entangled in the internal politics of Korea, each great power found it difficult to extricate itself. Japanese officials found themselves facing a series of internal Korean rebellions and eventually felt compelled to embark on further imperial expansion to secure their new borders and to control the large numbers of Korean diaspora living in Manchuria and the Soviet Union.

The tensions between China and Japan had roots going back to 1876, when Japan successfully concluded the first Treaty of Friendship and Amity with Korea. This was Korea’s first step away from its traditional subordination to China on foreign policy matters. Having avoided outright colonization or major concessions at the hands of Western great powers, Japan appealed to certain segments of the Korean elite, who saw the Japanese — rather than the beleaguered Chinese — as a model of building internal strength by adopting Western-style modernization. In contrast, in the 1880s, the Chinese had helped quell two rebellions — one anti-Japanese and one fomented by Japanese officials, which nevertheless led to agreements with Tokyo that further weakened the Qing’s grip on Korean politics.

The precipitating event for the Sino-Japanese War was the Tonghak Rebellion, “a peasant revolt” that “threatened to topple the inept Seoul government.” China and Japan both agreed to send in troops to protect the government from the rebels, but the Japanese used the intervention as a pretext to launch a war on the Qing Empire. Despite the Chinese forces’ numerical superiority, the Japanese rattled off a string of victories using modern military tactics and more effective weaponry. Meanwhile, the Sino-Japanese War turned the Tonghak Rebellion into a full-blown civil war in Korea, resulting in the deaths of up to 50,000 Koreans, maybe more, and leading to endemic instability on the peninsula. After the war, Japan received Formosa (Taiwan) as a colonial prize and replaced China as the most influential foreign power in Korea.

Then Russia made its move. Enlisting France and Germany, in what became known as the Triple Intervention, the Russians pressured the Japanese to give up hard-won territory on the Liaodong Peninsula. Meanwhile, one of the first things Japanese officials did in their newfound position of influence was to engage in a coup attempt and assassination plot against Korean Queen Min, who arguably wielded more power behind the scenes than her husband, King (later Emperor) Kojong. After her assassination, Kojong took refuge in the Russian Embassy, setting the stage for the confrontation between Russia and Japan.

In her conclusion, Jager briefly traces the political developments between Korea’s annexations through the end of World War II, with some insights on the present-day political situation of each participant in the Other Great Game. Of Moscow’s alliance with — one might even say reliance on — Beijing, Jager only concludes with a rhetorical question: “Is it any wonder . . . that today’s Russia looks east to Asia as Vladimir Putin seeks to recapture the glories of his country’s imperial past?” She concludes with a version of the quotation from Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “In Europe we were hangers-on and slaves, while in Asia we shall be masters.” Yet as Chris Miller underscores in his recent book on Russian “pivots” to Asia, Russia’s designs in Asia have usually ended in failure and disillusionment. What Putin seeks in Asia now is not imperial glory, but to bind Russia to China, the burgeoning and sympathetic great power across its border.

U.S. Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt, on his way back to his homeland from Tianjin in September 1880, identified the Pacific Ocean as one of the main markets for American goods and noted that a potential treaty with Korea “becomes another link in the chain which binds the East with the West.”

The period from the late 1870s into the late 1880s offered Korea an opportunity for increased independence in its foreign policy, but a combination of internal political disputes and great-power interests — especially from China and Japan — squandered Korea’s chance at increased independence. More importantly, Jager's "The Other Great Game" spells out close connections between regional geopolitics and domestic issues facing the Korean state, expounding on individual actors from various nationalities and classes who furnish multiple vantage points on contemporary events.

The tragedy for Korea was that not only did the country have to reconcile with foreign intrusions, but its domestic politics were severely fragmented as well. Departing from a nationalist or nation-state narrative, Jager methodically sheds light on internecine strife between Tonghak (Eastern Learning) forces and government troops with Japanese support. Unable to muster consensus on the direction of social and political reforms for their country among governing elites, the Tonghaks raised arms against the government. Their battles with the Korean establishment not only resulted in enormous casualties but further widened rifts within Korean society, which great powers were able to exploit to their advantage.

The lesson of "The Other Great Game", Jager explains, illustrated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is “the return of revanchism and good old-fashioned Great Power politics.” What we should fear, according to Jager, is not a return to a Cold War-style bipolar competition between superpowers, but a multipower world akin to the imperial scramble of the turn of the 20th century. This is a perfectly valid takeaway from The Other Great Game, although it might surprise readers to find that Jager dismisses the Ukraine-as-Korean War comparison.

Will today’s Korean Peninsula be able to escape the same fate that it endured during the late 19th and early 20th centuries? A Russian scholar, V. I. Shipaev, once observed, astutely, that a factional discord — “conservatives” versus “progressives” — sapped the internal unity of Korea and allowed foreign powers to take advantage of the country, with Japan making the most strides there. It is striking to discern how contemporary South Korean politics are still beset with internal division and how the intrigues of major powers continue to shape South Korea’s geopolitical landscape.

To quote Mark Twain, “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” As was the case in the late 19th century, the East Asian order is once again undergoing transition. More importantly, the “trend of geopolitics” is taking us back to a multipolar era with multiple blocs, which overshadowed the late 19th century. Only time will tell, whether contemporary historians and policymakers would draw appropriate lessons from the perils of the Great Game. One thing is clear, though: they can always turn to Jager’s work as a guide to navigate the treacherous current of international relations in East Asia.

The western nations with considerable sea power ventured from their shores to distant lands of Africa and Asia and consolidated their economic strength through the power of the gun powder. They named their hegemonic designs with many fanciful terminologies and great game was one such term. The main aim of those pursuits was exploitation of undefended nations and subjugation of common masses unto poverty and misery.

The 19th-century "Great Game" (Tsarist Russia vs. British India) and the "Other Great Game" (Russia vs. Japan in Korea) resulted in lasting geopolitical lessons. The core takeaway for all parties was that while imperial expansion offered prestige, it brought immense economic strain, required unsustainable military expenditure, and often turned smaller nations into destabilized, unhappy "buffer states".

Russia learned that creating stable buffer states (like Afghanistan) was more efficient than attempting direct, expensive, and often failed occupation. In Korea, Russia realized its Pacific expansion was limited by the lack of warm-water ports and naval strength, leading to the humiliation of the Russo-Japanese War. Expansion into Central Asia and Korea was intended to pressure Britain, but it required huge resources, often yielding little immediate economic gain compared to the cost.

The game was won or lost on mapping, spying, and understanding local tribal dynamics. Intelligence gathering was as crucial as military force. Protecting India required immense revenue, prompting Britain to prioritize securing trade routes and controlling the "buffer to the buffer" rather than direct conquest of new regions. Britain learned that over-extending military presence into areas like Afghanistan was calamitous, resulting in high casualties and localized hostility.

Korea (Chosŏn) learned that being caught between imperial powers (Russia, Japan, China, Britain) leads to the erosion of autonomy. The 1885-1887 British seizure of Komundo (Port Hamilton) demonstrated that foreign rivalry brings immediate territorial violation. Korea’s geographical position made it irresistible to neighbors. Attempts to play one power against another (e.g., inviting Russian support to counter Japan) often resulted in deeper foreign intervention, culminating in Japanese annexation.

Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet learned that their internal affairs were secondary to European strategic interests. They were often forced to become military buffers, losing control over their own borders and foreign policy. Economic autonomy was lost as empires took control of trade routes and resources to prevent their rivals from gaining advantage.

The great games created a perpetual state of fear and paranoia, even during times of supposed peace in targeted regions. Both scenarios (central Asia and Korea) shifted the focus from old-style colonial expansion to modern geopolitics, controlling pipelines (or railroads) and energy, similar to the "New Great Game" today. As Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager notes, those struggles defined the "Other Great Game," showing that local, small-scale conflicts can trigger massive, long-term regional realignment.

NOTE: This write up has been compiled with the help of material available freely on web net from various sources.