Modernization of Japan

1. OBJECTIVE!!! Modernization of Japan To show how the policy of Imperialism had a world wide effect, especially in the modernization of Japan

2. Global Impact • Countries colonized by Western powers are still badly damaged today by the experience. • In Africa today, people still feel the effects of 19thcentury imperialism. Hollywood vs. Real Life

3. Global Impact • Western powers also radically altered countries that they never officially colonized. • Two of these are Japan and China. • The Japanese have a reputation for adopting other cultures and using them to their own advantage. • This may explain why contact with the West made them much stronger.

4. Japan’s Feudal society • From about 1185 through the mid-1800s, Japan was organized into a feudal society. • What is a feudal society? • Feudal Society = one in which local lords govern their own lands, but owe loyalty and military services to a higher lord.

5. Japan’s Feudal society • Shogun= highest lord or military dictator. • They gave land to local lords(daimyo) in exchange for their loyalty. • Japan does have an emperor…does he have any political power?.......... • NO! Ceremonial Leader - Symbolic • What occupation do most people have in non-industrialized countries??? • The majority of Japanese citizens were farmers.

7. Japan’s Feudal society • The daimyo, the local lords, maintained order in their lands through the services of warriors known as samurai.

8. China’s Unequal Treaties • The Opium Wars of 1839-1842 taught Japan a lesson Open Up on its own terms to the West.

9. Japan Learns a Lesson • In 1862, just before the start of the Meiji period, Tokugawa sent officials and scholars to China to study the situation there. A Japanese recorded in his diary from Shanghai… • . • “The Chinese have become servants to the foreigners. Sovereignty may belong to China but in fact it's no more than a colony of Great Britain and France”

10. End of Isolation • The Industrial Revolutionand the imperialist pressures ended Japan’s isolation. • In 1853, U.S. warships under the command of Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Harbor. • Perry presented the Japanese with a letter from the President requesting open tradebetween the two countries.

11. United States Arrives in Japan • Never before had the Japanese seen ships steaming with smoke. They thought the ships were "giant dragons puffing smoke." • They did not know that steamboats existed and were shocked by the number and size of the guns on board the ships. • American ships became known as the “black ships” and they carried the “big black guns.”

12. United States Arrives in Japan • Commodore Perry brought examples of Western technology to leave with the Japanese in order to impress them with Western power and science. • A telegraph link was set up between Perry’s flagship and the Japanese royal palace. • He even set up a miniature railroad along the Japanese coast and whirled Japanese officials around on its tracks.

13. Perry Returns • The technological and military significance of these gifts was not lost on the Japanese. • Perry was told to come back later for an answer to President Fillmore’s requests (Perry was not pleased)... • Several months later Perry came back, bringing with him the entire Pacific fleet with 7 warships as a threatening sign of American naval power. • Perry sailed into Edo (Tokyo) harbor and ordered his guns to be trained on the city. • The Japanese got the message.

14. Tokugawa Shogunate Response • The Tokugawa government realized that their country was in no position to defend itself against a foreign power, and Japan could not retain its policy of isolation without risking war. • Two Japanese ports were opened to American ships and trade.

15. The path to the Meiji Restoration • Americans got low taxes on imports and the rights to extraterritoriality. • Representatives from Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia soon pressed for similar terms. • Like the Chinese, the Japanese felt humiliated by the terms of these unequal treaties.

16. Meiji Restoration • For centuries, the Japanese government was controlled by a shogun (“great general”) from the most powerful families in Japan…the emperor was marginalized and had little real power. • But the sudden arrival of foreign powers created a domestic crisis in Japan that caused the collapse of the Tokugawa…for many questioned the shogun’s right to rule Japan as “subduer of barbarians.”

17. Meiji Restoration • Many Japanese responded positively to normalizing relations with the U.S. but many traditionalists, led by the imperial court, did not. • A popular slogan was kaikoku joi, “open the country to drive out the barbarians.” In other words, learn from the West so they can be defeated. • Another was “Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians.”

18. Emperor Meiji assumes power • Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th and final Tokugawa shogun, bowed to political pressure and “put his prerogatives at the Emperor's disposal” and resigned on November 9,1867. The Emperor formally declared his political power on January 3, 1868 • Meiji Restoration lasted from 1868-1912. • The Meiji period ended the series of military governments that had dominated Japan since 1185. • It marked the birth of a new Japan.

19. Meiji Period • Meiji = Enlightened Rule • Meiji leaders studied Western countries for ways to reform and modernize Japan.

20. Modernization Through Selective Borrowing • Popular Board Game • Start by leaving Japan and studying in various Western capitals • End by returning Japan and becoming a prominent government official

21. Industrialization in Japan

22. Meiji Period • New government modeled after Germany. • Centralized with Legislative Branch and strong Executive Branch • They took the United States’ public education system as a model for their own.

23. Meiji Period • New Military • Expanded and acquired new modern equipment such as guns and battleships… • I wonder where they got that idea?? • All Japanese men had to serve in the armed forces for three years. • What good does this do??

24. Meiji Period • Like Western capitalists, they built factories and then sold them to investors. • A national railroad system was built to carry goods and workers to the new factories. • Under Meiji Rule, Japan rapidly became an industrial society and important world-trading partner.

25. Think About It… • Why do you think it was so simple for Japan to become a major trade industry? • Think “Location.”

26. Imperial Japan • Japan even learned the benefits of becoming a colonial empire. • Why would they engage in this policy? (Motivators) • T…………..Territory • E…………..Economics • N………….Nationalism

27. Imperial Japan Japan had improved so much that they were even victorious in not one, but two wars. Sino-Japanese War Russo-Japanese War

28. Imperial Japan