Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China

by Hal Brands

Consider imperial Russia. That country enjoyed an economic boom from the late 1880s to the turn of the century. Industrial output doubled, while iron and steel, crude oil, and coal production tripled. By 1900, however, a deep slump was under way. Peasants ransacked estates, workers destroyed railways and factories, and dozens of senior officials were assassinated. Russia’s rulers feared that its technological backwardness would condemn it to “industrial captivity” by more advanced nations.20 A scared, absolutist government cracked down severely: By 1905, 70 percent of the empire was under martial law and more than 10,000 people had been executed. The Russian military grew, with both the naval budget and tonnage of the fleet rising by nearly 40 percent between 1901 and 1905.21 Government-controlled banks and industries became tools of economic expansion. St. Petersburg pushed hard to strengthen its influence in East Asia, seeking colonial gains in Korea and sending 170,000 soldiers to occupy Manchuria. These moves, however, backfired: They antagonized Japan, which beat Russia in the first great-power war of the twentieth century.