WORLD HISTORY: Volume II - Chapter 22 (p753-758)

A RICH COUNTRY AND A STRONG STATE: THE RISE OF MODERN JAPAN

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the tokugawa shogunate had ruled Japan for two hundred years. They had improved the old government system and they had pushed out foreign traders and missionaries. Japan had very little contact with the Western world. They only had formal contact with Korea. They did have informal trading connections with the Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki. Japan was therefore very isolated but this did not mean that they were not developing. Most Japanese worked on farms but industry and businesses were growing fast. One reason was that there had been a long period of peace. As a result of this development, Japanese society had started to change a lot. The old social class differences were changing. In the end, these changes would end the Tokugawa's rule and destroy the old feudal system.

Some historians say that the old feudal system was beginning to fall apart and come to an end. In the government offices there were a lot of groups against each other and a lot of corruption. In the countryside there had been a lot of poor harvests because of bad weather and the people were getting angry. A lot of farmers ran off to the towns because they did not make enough money from farming. A lot of the samurai soldiers were not getting paid enough money and they were angry, too. They blamed the government for their problems. The government (bakufu) became more and more tough. They tried to crush anyone who was against them and they tried to make peasants go back to their farms.

The government also tried even harder to stop contacts with the outside world. More and more foreign ships were starting to sail near to the Japanese coast and the government ships drove them away. Japan had to import silk and other things from other countries in Asia. For many years, it had paid for those imported goods with silver and copper from its mines. However, now the mines were not producing much silver and copper and so the bakufu (government) reduced their foreign trade. Instead, the government encouraged people to produce the goods that they had previously imported. Therefore, the Tokugawa had a policy of sakoku - this means 'closed country'. They even stopped contact with many of their neighbouring Asian countries.

Opening to the World

The powerful Western countries, however, really wanted Japan to let them in to do business. There was a lot of competition between the Western powers and they all wanted to be the country to do business with the Japanese. Also, the Western powers thought that global trade would be a good thing for everyone. They all started to try to get Japan to open up.

The first country to be successful was the United States. American steamships needed a place to refuel when they sailed from the northern pacific to China and other ports. In the summer of 1853, four American warships arrived in Edo (now Tokyo) Bay. Their commander was Commodore Matthew C. Perry. He had brought with him a letter from President Millard Fillmore. The letter asked the Japanese government to open up foreign relations with the U.S. A few months later, Perry returned with even more ships. He wanted an answer. In the few months between Perry's visits, the Japanese government had been discussing the situation. Some of them said that contacts with the West would be bad for Japan politically and morally. They believed that bad ideas would enter the country. Other men in the government said that the U.S. had a lot of military strength and that they should start to have contact with the Americans. In the end, the government saw the black guns of Perry's warships and decided to give him what he wanted. They agreed to the treaty of Kanagawa. This treaty said that if any American sailors were shipwrecked near Japan, they would be returned to the U.S. The treaty also said there could be two ports in Japan which would be open to American ships. The treaty also said that there would be an American consulate in Japan. In 1858, the U.S. consul, Townsend Harris, got the Japanese government to agree to open several more ports to the U.S. and also to allow some Americans to live there. They also agreed to an exchange of ministers and to giving rights to Americans living in Japan. Soon afterwards, Japan signed similar treaties with several European countries.

A lot of people in Japan did not like the idea of opening relations with the West. They thought that Western people were barbarians. People were very much against the idea in areas of Japan which were far away from the shogunate's headquarters in Edo. Two areas like this were in the south: the satsuma REGION and the Choshu region. They were ruled by daimyo. Daimyo were lords who owned a lot of land. These areas had strong military power. Together they made the 'Sat-Cho' alliance. In 1863, the Sat-Cho alliance forced the shogun to promise to end relations with the West. The shogun went back on his promise. The Choshu soldiers then fired at Western ships in the Strait of Shimonoseki. The Westerners fired back and destroyed the Choshu. This made the rebellious samurai strengthen their military power and made them want to stop contact with the West even more. The rebel samurai got more and more power at the Chinese emperor's court in Kyoto. They decided that the shogun should resign and that the emperor should get back all his power. In January 1868, the rebel armies attacked the shogun's palace in Kyoto and said that the emperor was now the ruler of Japan again. After a few weeks, the shogunate system ended.

THE MEIJI RESTORATION

The new leaders chosen by the Sat-Cho group believed in old, traditional values but they soon realized that Japan had to change. It had to modernize. They started a big program of reforms and these reforms started to make Japan a modern, industrialised nation.

The new emperor was a symbol of this new age for Japan. He was young and he had chosen the name 'Meiji' when he became emperor. The name means 'enlightened rule.' He had become emperor when his father died in 1867. The period of time after the Tokugawa rule is often called the 'restoration' meaning that the rule of the emperor was 'restored' or 'brought back' but in fact, the new emperor was controlled by the Sat-Cho group just like the shogunate had controlled the emperor before him. The new capital of Japan was changed from the emperor's old base in Kyoto to Edo (now called Tokyo which means 'eastern capital') and the emperor's court was moved to the shogun's palace in the centre of the city. This gave a strong message that the government in Tokyo now held all the power not the emperor.

The Transformation of Japanese politics

The new leaders started to make big changes in Japanese political, social, economic and cultural institutions and values. The first thing the new leaders did was to abolish anything that was left of the old social order and give more power to themselves. They took power away from the daimyo, or big landowners by saying that a title could not be passed on to a lord's sons. The new leaders gave the daimyo money to compensate for this and also made the daimyo governors of the lands they used to own. About 8% of the population were samurai, or soldiers. The new government gave them a lump sum of money to replace their traditional stipends. However, they were not allowed to wear their swords. Their swords were a symbol of their hereditary status.

The Meiji started to make a political system that was quite similar to Western systems. They passed the Charter Oath of 1868. This promised to have an assembly but still have rule by the emperor, too. They also said they wanted to stop 'evil customs' of the past and bring in modern, international practices. They said it would make the emperor's rule stronger. The Meiji still gave the top jobs in the government to the daimyo (lords and big landowners) but they also gave very important jobs to modern-thinking samurai. These samurai were called the genro, or 'older statesmen' from the Sat-Cho group.

Over the next twenty years, the Meiji studied the Western political systems. A man called Ito Hirobumi led a group of politicians to several Western countries like Great Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States. They studied the political systems there. As time passed, a few different political parties became important in Japan. The most important were the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party. The Liberal Party wanted to follow the Western liberal democratic system of politics. They believed parliament should have the highest authority in the country and represent the people. The Progressive Party wanted power to be shared between the legislative and executive parts of the government. There was also another party, an imperial party. They wanted the emperor to have all the authority and power in the country.

The Constitution of 1890

During the 1870s and 1880s, these political parties all tried to get the most power. Ito Hirobumi, the man who had studied the political systems of lots of Western countries, was not sure himself if the Western system of liberal democracy was right for Japan. In the end, the Progressive Party became the most powerful political party in Japan. In 1890, the Meiji constitution was made law. It was based on the same system as Bismarck had started in Germany. The power was in the executive part of the government. The Meiji said that the constitution was a 'gift' from the emperor. This pleased the imperialist party, who supported the emperor. The top Meiji would choose members of the cabinet. They would also choose the upper house of parliament. This upper house would have the same amount of power to make laws as the lower house. The lower house would be called the Diet and its members would be elected. The main idea and belief of the state was kokutai, which was the idea that the Japanese state was unique and based on the authority of the emperor. A German advisor suggested that the old religious practice of Shinto should be made into the national religion. The Meiji liked the suggestion and old, traditional Shinto rituals were performed at important events in the emperor's court.

The result was that the Japanese political system seemed to be democratic in many ways but in fact it was very traditional. The power was still held by a small, ruling group of people. The old ruling class still kept its power but they allowed modern ways and values to exist at the same time.

Meiji Economics

The daimyo did not own their large amounts of land anymore and the government had to think of a new system of land ownership. They wanted to change the rural population from being serfs into being citizens. The government brought in a new programme. They said that the old daimyo lands now belonged to the tenant farmers (tillers). They gave government bonds to the previous owners as compensation for losing their land. One reason for the new policy was that the government needed to get some money. At the time, the government got most of its money from customs fees. These fees were 5% of the total value of the product. This was agreed with the foreign trading powers. To solve this problem, the Meiji leaders brought in a new agriculture tax. It was a yearly tax of 3% of the value of the land. The new tax brought in a lot of money for the government but it was bad for the farmers. Before this, they had paid a fixed percentage of their harvest to the landowner. As a result, in bad years, many peasant farmers could not pay their tax and had to sell their land to rich neighbours. In the end, the government reduced the tax to 2.5% of the land value. Still, by the end of the century, about 40% of all farmers were tenants . They did not own their own farm.

The Meiji now started to develop Japan's industries. They wanted to make sure that Japan survived against the Western imperialist nations. There had been a small industrial economy under the rule of the Tokugawa and the Meiji started to build it up. The government gave money to industries that needed it and they gave money for training and for foreign advisors. They also provided money for improved transport and communications and for an education system for everyone. The education system had a strong focus on applied science. The money they got from foreign currency came from the tea and silk they exported in the last part of the nineteenth century.

During the last part of the Meiji era, Japan's industry began to grow. Tea and silk were important industries but they also had a weapons industry, a shipbuilding industry and a sake industry - sake is a kind of rice wine. The Meiji worked closely with private owners. When a particular business or industry was doing well (or maybe when it had stopped making a profit), the government gave it completely to private owners. However, the government continued to be involved with the business, even if it was not directly involved in management. The Meiji would help sponsor new industries. They would persuade businessmen into new and risky business projects, they would help the businessmen get together the money they needed to start the business or industry. They would make weak companies join up with others to make stronger units. They would give all sorts of help and support to these new businesses. All this was part of the old Tokugawa idea that a business was only allowed to operate if the government wanted it to or if the government supported it. Some of the political leaders even had dual roles in both politics and business.

The workers, however, did not have an easy life under the Meiji reforms. The new land tax made life very hard for the rural population. Many people had to leave their farms and come to the cities to look for work. They were cheap workers for Japanese industry. Workers had to work for long hours in coal mines and textile mills often in very bad conditions. It was the same as in Europe in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. There was one report that miners working on a small island in Nagasaki harbor worked naked in temperatures of up to 54 degrees Celcius. If they tried to escape, they were shot.