Content of the Meiji Reform (1868-1900) ( East Asia Chapter 21)

1. Content of the Meiji Reform(1868-1900) (East Asia Chapter 21) • Centralized government • Legalized private ownership of land, introduced advanced technology from the west; • Adopted the western calendar, dress code, hair style; • Military reform—rid of inequality; • Education/overseas visit to the west; • Equality in status;

2. Japan vs. China • Japan • Succeeded in learning from the West • A blessing or a curse? • To what purpose to become a super power? • China • Reform failed (East Asia 390-391) • Why? Cixi’s role • A curse or a blessing? • Now China is strong, could China escape becoming another super power to invade other countries?

3. Social DarwinismJustification for imperialism? • a term used for various late nineteenth century ideologies predicated on the idea of “survival of the fittest”. • Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones, writing, "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."

4. Eugenics 優生學 • the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics)  or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).

5. Racial hygiene • The GermaneugenicistAlfred Ploetz introduced the term Rassenhygiene in his "Racial hygiene basics" (Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895. In its earliest incarnation it was concerned more with the declining birthrate of the German state and the increasing number of mentally ill and disabled in state institutions (and their costs to the state) than with the "Jewish question" and "de-Nordification" (Entnordung) which would come to dominate its philosophy in Germany from the 1920s through the second World War.

6. Racial policy of Nazi GermanyBetween 1935 and 1936, persecution of the Jews increased • The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. It was combined with a eugenics programme that aimed for racial hygiene by using compulsory sterilizations and extermination of the Untermensch (or "sub-humans"), and which eventually culminated in the Holocaust. These policies targeted peoples, in particular Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and handicapped people, who were labeled as "inferior" in a racial hierarchy that placed the Herrenvolk (or "master race") of the Volksgemeinschaft (or "national community") at the top, and ranked Slavs,[1][2]Romani, persons of color and Jews at the bottom.

7. Ethnocentrism种族优越感; 民族优越感 • –noun • 1. Sociology . the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture. • 2. a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one's own.

8. William Graham Sumner"held the first professorship in sociology" at Yale (College) • The term ethnocentrism was coined by William G. Sumner, upon observing the tendency for people to differentiate between the ingroup and others. He defined it as "the technical name for [the] view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it."

9. “Escape from Asia”Fukuzawa Yikichi, 1885 • East Asia 428-429 • His justification of colonialism • Japan shifted away from Confucianism and joined Western superpowers • Manifesto of Japanese imperialism

10. The first Sino-Japanese War1894-1895 • China lost Taiwan to Japanese as a result of the Treaty of Shimono’seki (427) 马关条约 • The war ended Chinese influence over Korea. China was defeated at sea as well as on land; for Chinese it is more humiliating than being defeated by the Western superpowers; “little Japan” used to be a student of China! • Triple Intervention: Russia, Germany, and France

11. Treaty of Shimonoseki17 April 1895 • Article 1: China recognizes definitively the full and complete independence and autonomy of Korea, and, in consequence, the payment of tribute and the performance of ceremonies and formalities by Korea to China, that are in derogation of such independence and autonomy, shall wholly cease for the future. • Articles 2 & 3: China cedes to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty of the Penghu group, Taiwan and the eastern portion of the bay of Liaodong Peninsula together with all fortifications, arsenals and public property. • Article 4: China agrees to pay to Japan as a war indemnity the sum of 200,000,000 Kuping taels • Article 6: China opens Shashih, Chungking, Soochow and Hangchow to Japan. Moreover, China is to grant Japan most-favored-nation treatment.

12. The second Sino-Japanese War1937 to 1945 • On September 18, 1931, Japan invaded three provinces in the northeast • On July 7th, Japan attacked Beijing; which signals its full-scale invasion of China • Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 • In 1945, Japan surrendered