JAPANESE HISTORY
Tokugawa Japan 1600-1878
2 Collapse of Tokugawa Shogunate
3 Downfall of Tokugawa Shogunate
Meiji Japan 1878-1912
> 1 Introduction
All rights reserved - 2003- By C.F.Cheng
MEIJI MODERNIZATION
Steps:
Destruction - abolition of feudalism
Construction - modernization
Aim:
to win equality with the west
Means:
rich country, strong army
Reason:
- defense (fear of foreign invasion)
- to avoid national humiliation (China's resistance to changes only brought humiliation & defeat and Japan was in danger of foreign attack)
- unequal treaties (eg. extra-territoriality)
- foreign powers obtained many privileges from Japan (national right was violated)
- Self-sufficiency (to make Japan independent of outside supplies or foreign loans)
- Centralized govt (stability)
- Meiji leaders came mainly from the lower or middle rank of the samurai class, they had experienced in both the corrupt Tokugawa feudal rule & the pressure of western imperialism
- modernization was the only way to save Japan
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The new Meiji government
- lower samurai from Choshu, Satsuma, Tosa, Hizen formed the Meiji oligarchy
- young, ambitions, aggressive, nationalistic, more eager for change
- a great Japan under their leadership
- introduced new policy for Japam
- political: indirect & incomplete control over the country
- economic: insufficient state revenue for full-scale modernization
- military: absence of national army, changes in 1853-68 had shown that expelling the barbarians was impossible
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