<P> The Russo--Japanese War (Russian: Русско - японская война, Russko - yaponskaya voina; Japanese: 日 露 戦争 Nichirosensō; 1904--05) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea . The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan and the Yellow Sea . </P> <P> Russia sought a warm - water port on the Pacific Ocean for its navy and for maritime trade . Vladivostok was operational only during the summer, whereas Port Arthur, a naval base in Liaodong Province leased to Russia by China, was operational all year . Since the end of the First Sino--Japanese War in 1895, Japan feared Russian encroachment on its plans to create a sphere of influence in Korea and Manchuria . Russia had demonstrated an expansionist policy in the Siberian Far East from the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century . Seeing Russia as a rival, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence . Russia refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan . The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to its plans for expansion into Asia and chose to go to war . After negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China, in a surprise attack . </P> <P> Russia suffered multiple defeats by Japan, but Tsar Nicholas II was convinced that Russia would win and chose to remain engaged in the war; at first, to await the outcomes of certain naval battles, and later to preserve the dignity of Russia by averting a "humiliating peace". The war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt . The complete victory of the Japanese military surprised world observers . The consequences transformed the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage . It was the first major military victory in the modern era of an Asian power over a European one . Scholars continue to debate the historical significance of the war . </P> <P> After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Meiji government endeavored to assimilate Western ideas, technological advances and ways of warfare . By the late 19th century, Japan had transformed itself into a modernized industrial state . The Japanese wanted to be recognized as equal with the Western powers . The Meiji restoration had always been intended to make Japan a modernized state, not a Westernized one, and Japan was always an imperialist power, looking towards overseas expansionism . In the years 1869--73, the Seikanron ("Conquer Korea Argument") had bitterly divided the Japanese elite between one faction that wanted to conquer Korea immediately vs. another that wanted to wait until Japan was more modernized before embarking on a war to conquer Korea; significantly no - one in the Japanese elite ever accepted the idea that the Koreans had the right to be independent, with only the question of timing dividing the two factions . In much the same way that Europeans used the backwardness of Africa and Asia as a reason for why they had to conquer nations of Africa and Asia, for the Japanese elite the backwardness of China and Korea was proof of the inferiority of those nations, thus giving the Japanese the "right" to conquer them . Inouye Kaoru, the Foreign Minister gave a speech in 1887 saying "What we must do is to transform our empire and our people, make the empire like the countries of Europe and our people like the peoples of Europe", going to say that the Chinese and Koreans had essentially forfeited their right to be independent by not modernizing . Much of the pressure for an aggressive foreign policy in Japan came from below, with the advocates of "people's rights" movement calling for an elected parliament also favoring an ultra-nationalist line that took it for granted the Japanese had the "right" to annex Korea, as the "people's right" movement was led by those who favored invading Korea in the years 1869--73 . As part of the modernization process in Japan, Social Darwinian ideas about the "survival of the fittest" were common in Japan from the 1880s onward and many ordinary Japanese resented the heavy taxes imposed by the government to modernize Japan, demanding something tangible like an overseas colony as a reward for their sacrifices . Furthermore, the educational system of Meiji Japan was meant to train the schoolboys to be soldiers when they grew up, and as such, Japanese schools indoctrinated their students into Bushido ("the spirit of the warriors"), the fierce code of the samurai . Having indoctrinated the younger generations into Bushido, the Meiji elite found themselves faced with a people who clamored for war, and regarded diplomacy as a weakness . The British Japanologist Richard Storry wrote the biggest misconception about Japan in the West was that the Japanese people were the "docile" instruments of the elite, when in fact much of the pressure for Japan's wars from 1894 to 1941 came from below, as ordinary people demanded a "tough" foreign policy, and tended to engage in riots and assassination when foreign policy was perceived to be pusillanimous . Though the Meiji oligarchy refused to allow democracy, they did seek to appropriate some of the demands of the "people's rights" movement by allowing an elected Diet in 1890 (with limited powers and an equally limited franchise) and by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy towards Korea . </P>

Who ruled russia during the russo japanese war