Notes From 'Japan Faces the World'
Pages 3 - 11
Background + Historiography
Historiographical Overview of Modern Japan
Pages 3 - 11
Background + Historiography
- 1868 samurai joined together to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate
- The samurai believed that the government, wasn't equal when facing Western imperialism which threatened their country
- They would restore direct imperial rule and create a new government to challenge the Western and preserve Japanese sovereignty
- 1868 Meiji Restoration revolved around the goals that would help shape Japan through the first half of the 20th Century
- Meiji slogan - 'Rich country, Strong Army' - Represent an effort to modernise and industrialise the country to gain equality with the approval of the West
- Completing the 'restoration' enabled Japan to successfully avoid Western domination
- The Meiji 'Revolution' altered Japanese society, Japanese economy and Japanese government
- The 'Revolution' also changed Japan's position in Asia and the international community
- The greatest promise of Meiji was the creation of a political democracy
- Meiji leaders were young and energetic so they were a very ambitious group - The formed a series of reforms to strengthen Japan against the West
- They didn't focus on preserving Japan's culture but on preserving Japan's nation instead
- Meiji abolished the rigid traditional class system which had divided society for centuries by ruling the samurai aristocracy and subservient commoners
- 1868 Imperial Charter Oath
- The Meiji promised that 'all classes high and low shall unite' and be given the opportunity to 'fulfill their aspirations' (Quoted in Schirokauer 1978: 418)
- Land reform gave peasants' titles to the land they had worked on and the freedom to grow which crops they wanted to
- A new tax system was payable in money and relieved peasants' from the need to grow rice for their payments to the daimyo overlords
- Education was made compulsory - Four years for boys and girls which then became six years
- A new banking system made low-interest loans available for entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurs were encouraged to promote industrialisation
- The government now involved itself with entrepreneurial activities such as, shipbuilding, mining and chemical manufacturing - This was later sold off to private investors
- 1881 A constitution which the Emperor had originally promised was now also giving the people of Japan hope.
- The main point of Meiji Restoration was to build a strong state not necessarily Democracy
- Fukuzawa Yukichi - Leading Japanese advocate for Democracy in the early Meiji era - 'The only reason for making the people in our country today advance toward civilisation is to preserve our country's independence.' (1973: 151)
- Meiji leaders wanted to gain Western strength but were more focused on rapid progress towards industrialisation
- 1890 Meiji Constitution - Document shaped political order and political culture for the next five and a half decades
- Controversy in the Meiji period was whether or not the pattern of government was an English model - Strong legislative branch and an weak executive or an German model - Weak legislature and a strong executive
- People who openly supported the liberal government were forced to resign from the government
- 1890 Constitution resulted in a strong executive branch
- The Constitution was Emperor-centred and gave him imperial power, the Emperor could declare war, make peace, conclude treaties and legislate edict.
- The Emperor was 16 at the time of the Restoration and it was known that the Meiji leaders wouldn't let him use his power without his own initiative
- The Meiji system put the government in a strange position
- A constitutional clause made the Army and Navy independent of civilian control and only answerable to the Emperor
- Questions over who was really in control of the Military as the Emperor wasn't expected to take initiative
- The Emperor seemed to have authority but didn't really have any power at all
- 1894 - 1895 Sino-Japanese War - Japan's first test of success
- Korea - 'A dagger pointed at the heart of Japan'
- Japanese focused on keeping Korea free of foreign domination
- China seemed fine with taking a more prominent role in Korea and Japan initiated war
- Fukuzawa - The Meiji liberal commented on the success of the war saying 'Unimpassioned thought will show this victory over China as nothing more than the beginning of our foreign policy.' (1948: 359)
- In the peace settlement Japan won huge indemnity (government invested this into spur industry), but several territorial concessions including Taiwan
- 1895 Taiwan established colonial rule
- Japanese faced Western racism after defeating Russia as well
- Japan was succeeding Meiji period goals
- Industrial production continued steadily with a combination of the government and the growing entrepreneurial class
- 'The secret of success in business, is the determination to work for the sake of sacrificing oneself' (Morimura Ichizaemon, quoted in Marshall, 1967: 36)
- There was a growing demand for factory workers so both men and women left the fields to work in factories this resulted in a growing politicised population
- The government wanted to mobilise population, so national goals could be achieved
- Early 1900s the government had a more sophisticated and politically concerned population which might threaten progress and a series of social welfare and labour laws e.g national health insurance, child labour laws, labour meditation laws
- The government quickly robbed the people of political development
- 1914 World War One broke out at Japan was clearly the dominant nation in Asia and declared war on German
- The Japanese targeted German-leased territories in China
- Japan occupied the Shandong Peninsula, took control of German-built mines, railroads and other industrial matters
- They also occupied the German-help territories in the Pacific
- Japan was able to supply the other combatants with war material and gained economic growth as European and American markets opened up to Japanese goods
- 1915 Japan issued Twenty-One Demands to China because they were worried that the Chinese weakness would threaten them
- The demands signified Japan's want to establish itself on the Chinese mainland, especially in Manchuria
- Japan also wanted the rights of the Shandong Peninsula and extended Japanese power to Southern Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia
- Mid 1910s Warlord era - China was unable to guarantee Japan's demands
- The economic growth in Japan caused by WWI caused inflation and rice prices increase four times the original price
- August 1918 the high prices led to the outbreak of rioting which spread across the country
- The high rice prices resulted in the government stockpiling rice to provision troops for the anti-Soviet Siberian expedition which launched in response to the Russian Revolution and was designed to protect Japan's interests in the Manchurian railway
- To stop the rioting , the police and army were dispatched - 700,000 people rioted and tens of thousands were arrested and some were even sentenced to death
- This showed the beginning of Japanese brutality and how the Japanese government would keep its people in order
- September 1st 1923 an earthquake struck in Kanto plain which is where Tokyo sits, the earthquake ignited fires that swept across Tokyo and killed 106,000 people and injured 502,000
- Rioting broke out after the earthquake - The small Korean population in Japan took the blame for the rioting and were attacked by both police and the media for having spread rumours
- The government used this opportunity to round up many left-wing intellectuals and radical leaders, this continued until mid-September - Government stated that radical leftists caused the Koreans to revolt
- The effort to recover from the earthquake caused more financial burdens
- Mid-1920s Japan - Nation is in flux
- 1925 After the years of agitation the government answered the political demands of the public and extended suffrage to all adult males
- Government passed the Peace Preservation Law which, outlawed certain radical organisations and gave it a stronger hand to control the public with
- Japan was in-between a promise for a greater democracy and a promise for a greater control of government
- Early 1930s - 1940s Japan practices aggressive policies in Asia aimed at establishing Japanese control over the whole region
- This causes Japan to collide with the USA
- 1941 Pearl Harbour attack
- Japan's war effort declined and Japan didn't know what the future held
- The Allied Occupation set out to remake Japan's image, to demilitarise and to democratise the country but setting up far-reaching reforms - Included fundamentally altering the role of the Emperor and rewriting the Constitution, land and labour reforms were enacted
- 1952 Occupation ended
Historiographical Overview of Modern Japan
- Late 19th century to early 20th century, young nationalists from Asia wanted to learn from the Japanese about how to modernise a nation
- Thousands of men and some women travelled to Japan to observe the modernising reforms
- Japan was a young model for Asia
- Japan's modernisation was unique and the process could be replicated across Asia
- 1953 The Japanese modernisation was made possible because of the US Commodore Matthew C. Perry
- Without examples from the West, the Japanese modernisation wouldn't've been possible
- The end of WWI led a new generation of Western scholars to Japan
- These scholars observed the changes of the post-war world and saw the modernisation of many undeveloped nations
- Japan was an example of how the process of modernisation took place in a non-Western area
- Modernisation is difficult for any society
- Japan underwent social, political and economical modernisations that were linked to industrialisation - This causes Japan to lose a lot of its tradition and culture
- Japan was driven by fear to catch up to the West so that it wasn't overthrown
- Japan needed to catch-up with the first-tiered nations
- 'Rich Country, Strong Army' - Survival of the nation, brought a lot of pressure on Japanese society
- From Western perspective, Japan was a great success
- Mid-1980s - Early 1990s Scholars began to reassess their initial thoughts - Japan's modernisation had a huge amount of money to modernise, to industrialise, to militarise
- 1894 - 1945 Millions of Asians' lives that were killed by Japanese brutality
- 1931 - 1945 3 million Japanese lost in in the war
- Millions in and out of Japan also suffered from hunger, disease and homelessness caused by Japanese aggression
- Japanese citizens were deprived of a democracy
- The government refused to listen to the Japanese peoples' voices
- Industrial growth led to economic growth - City-dwellers benefited and rural areas suffered - Prewar and wartime experiences
- 1925 - 1952 Japan went through fundamental changes that link prewar and postwar Japan
- Japan used aggressive policies across Asia and imposed repression at home
- Japan achieved national strength which it had wanted since the Meiji Restoration but there was no freedom or democracy
- Communism spread in China due to the Chinese Communists who were also an anti-Japanese resistance
- The Japanese rule in Korea that had taken place for 40 years left Korea divided and unsure of how to rule
- When the Japanese lost the war they gained the chance to set up a Democracy
- Meiji goals had been completed
- 1925 - 1952 Link between the Meiji goals and the emergence of Democracy