Japan

Called Nippon sometimes or Nip hehe

• Background
  • ancient culture like Korea/China
  • unknown to the West until 1542, the Portuguese discovered a highly advanced culture with art, novels, intricate social and family systems, Buddhist religion, etc
  • By 1640, GBR, France, Spain, Portuguese and Dutch all traded with Japan, but christian missionaries began to interfere with Feudal Politics. By 1640, Feudal Clan was ended with victory of Tokagwans
  • Established absolute rule called the Shogunate. The Shogun expelled the Europeans except for a small Dutch enclave at Nagasaki
  • Japan closely studies western institutions through the Dutch connection. Tokugawans move the capital from Kyoto to Yedo (Tokyo). Old Feudal Lords called the Daimyo, are forced to live in Tokyo 6 months a year. Daimyo and military retinues called the Samari become a leisure class and pursue Hedonistic pleasures.
  • the Daimyo and Samari became immersed in material goods and come slowly indebted to a rising merchant class who demand political power and extended trade opportunities
• Matthew Perry 1853
  • Background
    • impoverished gentry (Daimyo/Samari)
    • a weakening Shogun and a rising merchant class
    • Perry's arrival with an armed flotilla and demands an "open door"
  • Trade
    • The Shogun signs a trade deal, but the Japanese realize the Shogun has signed an unequal treaty or a "bad deal" with unequal treaties
    • The Japanese feel shafted, moreover, the Westerners disrespect Japanese customs and laws and only obey their own. This is called extraterritoriality.
    • the shogun has signed bad treaties and will prove unable to defend Japan
    • Dissident Diamyo of Choshu and Satsuma are already unhappy with the Tokugawans, so they seize the opportunity to reject both the West and the Shogun. They refuse to trade with GBR, who open fire on their seaside palaces
    • digress into a civil war w/ daimyo fighting the traditionalist shogun forces.
    • By 1867 the shogun abdicates by force and Daimyo replace him with the emperor
  • Meiji Restoration 1868
    • there was the realization that if Japan doesn't modernize on a Western Basis, then culture, language, national identity, and social structures will be destroyed by the Europeans.
    • They modernize to save their cultural identity. undergo the most rapid industrialization in world history.
    • Factory, ports, rails, and telegraph. The Daiymo became factory owners and commercial developers, the Samurai was the military and civil service
    • Shinto religion becomes a patriotic duty
    • the Japanese model their army on the Prussians, their navy after GBR, and their government was a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature called the Diet organized after the French model (upper and lower houses)
  • Post Meiji Restoration and onwards
    • From 1868-1895 Japan transforms into a modern state and supasses A-H in production and Russia in exports
    • they militarily become scarily powerful in their region
    • Japan begins to embrace imperialist expansion, so they need natural resources and need territory for excess population.
    • in 1895 theres a war with China called the 1st Sino-Japanese War; Japan expands into Korea and Manchuria.
    • in 1905 Japan goes to war with Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. The Russians suffer a massive defeat