Hundred Days' Reform in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895, not long after the First (1839–1842) and Second (1856–1860) Opium Wars; this blow came as a major shock to the Chinese, because Japan had been regarded as a tributary state, was much smaller than China, and was regarded as inferior. China also fought France in the Sino-French War from 1884 to 1885. Moreover, the defeat of China by Japan led to a scramble for "privileges" in China by other foreign powers, notably by the German Empire and Russia, further awakening the conservatives. Before the First Sino-Japanese War, China engaged in technological modernization only,
Apostolic Nunciature to China China is nominally in charge of the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in Taiwan and mainland China, as part of the Republic of China. In 1922 Celso Benigno Luigi Costantini was appointed by the Holy See as Apostolic Delegate to China, without diplomatic status. Apostolic Nunciature to China The Apostolic Nunciature to China is the diplomatic mission of the Holy See to the Republic of China, now commonly known to most of the world as Taiwan, which as far as the Vatican is concerned, is the state of "China". Due to this difference in diplomatic recognition of "China", unlike