The first was the famous Okuma Doctrine, the idea that Japan should pay back Japan's past cultural debt to china by assisting China with modernization. Probably this was a romanticist version of the Pan-Asianism; it could also be seen in a more realistic way: the Triple Intervention which Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula led to its second thinking: Japan was well aware of the potential confrontation between the East and the West, therefore the yellow races of Chinese and Japanese should form a "Racial Alliance" to fight against their mutual enemies. The third was that Japan wanted to expand its political influence and economic privilege in China by maintaining a good relationship with the Qing government.
Due to the mutual interests, China and Japan experienced unprecedented intimate relations from 1898-1907 right after the first Sino-Japanese War. Two significant movements best demonstrated this relationship. One was that an increasing number of Chinese students got education in Japan. From the first thirteen students in 1896 to approximately 8,000 students in 1906, the peak year, a large number of Chinese students went to Japan to have education in various areas, particularly in medical and military training. Later, some students abroad became Chinese official elite or influential scholars. For instance, Luxun, a noted thinker and writer in the twentieth century, was send to Japan for studying medicine in 1902. The other significant movement is the introduction of Toa Dobun Shoin (East Asia Common Culture Association) whose main purposes were to promote Sino-Japanese cultural exchange and to train Japanese for business and diplomatic services. However, the relationship between China and Japan soon deteriorated after the Russo-Japanese War. According to the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, Japan succeeded to all former Russian rights in south Manchuria, the leasehold on Port Arthur and Dairen.