what was one result of japans decision to adopt western technologies and become industrialized

The Meiji Restoration and Modernization

In 1868 the Tokugawa shôgun ("neat general"), who ruled Nihon in the feudal period, lost his power and the emperor was restored to the supreme position. The emperor took the proper name Meiji ("aware rule") equally his reign name; this effect was known as the Meiji Restoration.

The Reign of the Meiji Emperor

When the Meiji emperor was restored as head of Japan in 1868, the nation was a militarily weak country, was primarily agronomical, and had little technological development. It was controlled by hundreds of semi-contained feudal lords. The Western powers — Europe and the United States — had forced Japan to sign treaties that express its control over its ain strange merchandise and required that crimes concerning foreigners in Nihon be tried not in Japanese just in Western courts. When the Meiji flow concluded, with the expiry of the emperor in 1912, Japan had

· a highly centralized, bureaucratic government;
· a constitution establishing an elected parliament;
· a well-adult transport and communication organization;
· a highly educated population costless of feudal course restrictions;
· an established and apace growing industrial sector based on the latest engineering science; and
· a powerful army and navy.

Japan had regained complete control of its foreign merchandise and legal system, and, past fighting and winning two wars (one of them confronting a major European power, Russia), information technology had established full independence and equality in international affairs. In a little more than a generation, Japan had exceeded its goals, and in the process had inverse its whole society. Japan's success in modernization has created bully interest in why and how it was able to prefer Western political, social, and economic institutions in so short a time.

One answer is found in the Meiji Restoration itself. This political revolution "restored" the emperor to power, but he did not rule directly. He was expected to accept the communication of the group that had overthrown the shôgun, and information technology was from this group that a small number of ambitious, able, and patriotic immature men from the lower ranks of the samurai emerged to take control and establish the new political system. At start, their merely strength was that the emperor accustomed their advice and several powerful feudal domains provided military support. They moved quickly, however, to build their own military and economic control. By July 1869 the feudal lords had been requested to give up their domains, and in 1871 these domains were abolished and transformed into prefectures of a unified central state.

The feudal lords and the samurai class were offered a yearly stipend, which was later changed to a ane-fourth dimension payment in government bonds. The samurai lost their form privileges, when the government declared all classes to exist equal. By 1876 the government banned the wearing of the samurai's swords; the former samurai cut off their top knots in favor of Western-style haircuts and took upwards jobs in business and the professions.

The armies of each domain were disbanded, and a national regular army based on universal conscription was created in 1872, requiring iii years' military service from all men, samurai and commoner alike. A national land tax arrangement was established that required payment in money instead of rice, which allowed the government to stabilize the national budget. This gave the government money to spend to build up the strength of the nation.

Resistance and Rebellion Defeated

Although these changes were fabricated in the name of the emperor and national defense, the loss of privileges brought some resentment and rebellion. When the top leadership left to travel in Europe and the United States to study Western means in 1872, bourgeois groups argued that Japan should reply to Korean'south refusal to revise a centuries one-time treaty with an invasion. This would help patriotic samurai to regain their importance. Simply the new leaders apace returned from Europe and reestablished their control, arguing that Nippon should concentrate on its own modernization and not engage in such foreign adventures.

For the side by side xx years, in the 1870s and 1880s, the top priority remained domestic reform aimed at changing Nihon's social and economical institutions along the lines of the model provided past the powerful Western nations. The concluding blow to bourgeois samurai came in the 1877 Satsuma rebellion, when the government's newly drafted army, trained in European infantry techniques and armed with modern Western guns, defeated the final resistance of the traditional samurai warriors. With the exception of these few samurai outbreaks, Nippon's domestic transformation proceeded with remarkable speed, energy, and the cooperation of the people. This phenomenon is one of the major characteristics of Japan's modern history.

Credo

In an effort to unite the Japanese nation in response to the Western challenge, the Meiji leaders created a civic ideology centered around the emperor. Although the emperor wielded no political ability, he had long been viewed every bit a symbol of Japanese culture and historical continuity. He was the head of the Shintô religion, Japan's native religion. Among other beliefs, Shintô holds that the emperor is descended from the sun goddess and the gods who created Japan and therefore is semidivine. Westerners of that time knew him primarily every bit a ceremonial figure. The Meiji reformers brought the emperor and Shintô to national prominence, replacing Buddhism equally the national organized religion, for political and ideological reasons. By associating Shintô with the royal line, which reached back into legendary times, Japan had not only the oldest ruling business firm in the world, but a powerful symbol of age-old national unity.

The people seldom saw the emperor, notwithstanding they were to carry out his orders without question, in honor to him and to the unity of the Japanese people, which he represented. In fact, the emperor did not rule. It was his "advisers," the small group of men who exercised political control, that devised and carried out the reform program in the name of the emperor.

Social and Economic Changes

The abolition of feudalism made possible tremendous social and political changes. Millions of people were suddenly free to choose their occupation and move about without restrictions. By providing a new environment of political and financial security, the government made possible investment in new industries and technologies.

The government led the mode in this, edifice railway and shipping lines, telegraph and phone systems, three shipyards, ten mines, five munitions works, and fifty-three consumer industries (making sugar, glass, textiles, cement, chemicals, and other of import products). This was very expensive, however, and strained government finances, and then in 1880 the authorities decided to sell most of these industries to individual investors, thereafter encouraging such activity through subsidies and other incentives. Some of the samurai and merchants who built these industries established major corporate conglomerates called zaibatsu, which controlled much of Nippon's mod industrial sector.

The government also introduced a national educational arrangement and a constitution, creating an elected parliament called the Diet. They did this to provide a good surround for national growth, win the respect of the Westerners, and build back up for the mod country. In the Tokugawa period, popular education had spread speedily, and in 1872 the authorities established a national organisation to educate the entire population. By the stop of the Meiji period, about everyone attended the costless public schools for at least half dozen years. The government closely controlled the schools, making sure that in improver to skills similar mathematics and reading, all students studied "moral preparation," which stressed the importance of their duty to the emperor, the country and their families.

The 1889 constitution was "given" to the people by the emperor, and only he (or his advisers) could change it. A parliament was elected beginning in 1890, but just the wealthiest one per centum of the population could vote in elections. In 1925 this was changed to let all men (but not yet women) to vote.

To win the recognition of the Western powers and convince them to modify the unequal treaties the Japanese had been forced to sign in the 1850s, Nippon changed its entire legal organization, adopting a new criminal and civil lawmaking modeled after those of French republic and Germany. The Western nations finally agreed to revise the treaties in 1894, acknowledging Nippon as an equal in principle, although not in international power.

The International Climate: Colonialism and Expansion

In 1894 Nihon fought a war against Prc over its interest in Korea, which Mainland china claimed every bit a vassal state. The Korean peninsula is the closest part of Asia to Nippon, less than 100 miles past body of water, and the Japanese were worried that the Russians might gain command of that weak nation. Japan won the war and gained control over Korea and gained Taiwan as a colony. Nihon's sudden, decisive victory over China surprised the world and worried some European powers.

At this time the European nations were beginning to claim special rights in China — the French, with their colony in Indochina (today's Vietnam, Laos, and Kingdom of cambodia), were involved in South China; the British also claimed special rights in S China, almost Hong Kong, and later the whole Yangtze valley; and the Russians, who were edifice a railway through Siberia and Manchuria, were interested in North China. Afterwards Japan'south victory over Communist china, Japan signed a treaty with Cathay which gave Nihon special rights on People's republic of china's Liaotung peninsula, in addition to the command of Taiwan. Just Nippon'south victory was short lived. Within a week, French republic, Russia, and Germany combined to pressure Japan to give up rights on the Liaotung peninsula. Each of these nations then began to force People's republic of china to give it ports, naval bases, and special economical rights, with Russia taking the same Liaotung peninsula that Nihon had been forced to return.

The Japanese regime was angered by this incident and drew the lesson that for Japan to maintain its independence and receive equal treatment in international affairs, it was necessary to strengthen its military even further. By 1904, when the Russians were again threatening to constitute control over Korea, Japan was much stronger. It declared state of war on Russia and, using all its strength, won victory in 1905 (outset with a surprise naval attack on Port Arthur, which gained for Japan the control of the Prc Ocean). Japan thus achieved potency over Korea and established itself a colonial power in East asia.

The Period 1912-1941

The Meiji reforms brought slap-up changes both within Japan and in Nippon's place in globe diplomacy. Japan strengthened itself enough to remain a sovereign nation in the face up of Western colonizing powers and indeed became a colonizing power itself. During the Taishô menses (1912-1926), Japanese citizens began to ask for more vocalization in the authorities and for more than social freedoms. During this time, Japanese society and the Japanese political system were significantly more open than they were either before or after. The period has often been called the period of "Taishô democracy." I explanation is that, until Globe War I, Japan enjoyed tape breaking economic prosperity. The Japanese people had more than money to spend, more leisure, and better education, supplemented past the development of mass media. Increasingly they lived in cities where they came into contact with influences from abroad and where the traditional authority of the extended family was less influential. Industrialization in itself undermined traditional values, emphasizing instead efficiency, independence, materialism, and individualism. During these years Nippon saw the emergence of a "mass society" very like to the "Roaring 20s" in the United States. During these years also, the Japanese people began to need universal manhood suffrage which they won in 1925. Political parties increased their influence, becoming powerful plenty to engage their own prime ministers between 1918 and 1931.

At the stop of World War I, withal, Japan entered a severe economic low. The bright, optimistic temper of the Taishô menstruation gradually disappeared. Political party government was marred past corruption. The government and armed services, consequently, grew stronger, the parliament weaker. The advanced industrial sector became increasingly controlled past a few behemothic businesses, the zaibatsu. Moreover, Nihon's international relations were disrupted by merchandise tensions and by growing international disapproval of Japan'due south activities in Communist china. Just success in competing with the European powers in East asia strengthened the idea that Japan could, and should, further expand its influence on the Asian mainland by military machine force.

Japan'south need for natural resources and the repeated rebuffs from the West to Japan's attempts to expand its power in Asia paved the manner for militarists to rise to power. Insecurity in international relations allowed a correct-wing militaristic faction to control offset foreign, then domestic, policy. With the military greatly influencing the government, Nippon began an aggressive war machine campaign throughout Asia, and and then, in 1941, bombed Pearl Harbor.

Summary

The nearly important feature of the Meiji menstruum was Japan's struggle for recognition of its considerable achievement and for equality with Western nations. Japan was highly successful in organizing an industrial, capitalist state on Western models. But when Japan also began to utilise the lessons it learned from European imperialism, the West reacted negatively. In a sense Nippon's chief handicap was that it entered into the Western dominated earth guild at a late stage. Colonialism and the racist ideology that accompanied it, were also entrenched in Western countries to allow an "upstart," nonwhite nation to enter the race for natural resources and markets as an equal. Many of the misunderstandings between the Due west and Japan stemmed from Nihon's sense of alienation from the West, which seemed to employ a dissimilar standard in dealing with European nations than it did with a rise Asian power like Japan.

Give-and-take Questions

1. What were some of the political, economic and social changes that occurred during the Meiji Period?

2. What personage was at the centre of Japan's new borough credo? Why was using this personage as a symbol of national unity effective?

3. What role did the central regime play in growing industry? Providing education?

4. How did colonization touch on Asia in the late 1890's? What was the West's response to Japan's colonization efforts?

5. The terms "modernization" and "Westernization" are often used interchangeably. What do these terms mean to you? Why practise you recall they frequently mean the aforementioned thing?

6. Why is the period 1912-1945 sometimes referred to equally the "Taishô democracy"?

7. How would you depict the political situation in Japan at the cease of World War I?

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Source: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1750_meiji.htm