Authored by Dr. Cao Qun, an assistant research fellow at CIIS, this book is based on his doctoral thesis, which was finished in 2012 under the guidance of Prof. Bu Ping, a famous Chinese historian specialized in the history of Sino-Japanese relations. This book focuses on Russia’s decision to fight against the Japanese in 1904 and the decision-making process before the war. The author expounded and analyzed the Russian Empire’s understanding and attitudes toward China and Japan, the development of the Empire’s expansionist Far East policy and its underlying causes, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the Empire’s decision-making procedures. The book can facilitate a better understanding of the then Russo-Japanese conflict due to their contradictory interests in Northeast China and the Qing Dynasty’s forced “neutral” stance on the conflict. A prominent feature of this book is that it has used and quoted literatures in four languages – Russian, English, Japanese and Chinese, and for that reason the views included are more balanced and objective.
The book was published in Beijing by China Social Press in July 2015.