What was surprising about Japan is that no other Asian nation had taken so easily to Western industrialism without succumbing to the power of the white man. Somewhat surprisingly, Japan was already full of innovation, Confucian values advocated for education, and large cities had sprung up across Japan. These early advancements were a step in Japan's rise to power. Later Japan's government was growing ineffective and corrupt. It's inability to deal with famine led to small scale uprisings, leading to the extreme burning of Osaka. When the government gave into unfair treaties from Commodore Perry and Westerners, the people were at their last straw. In China's Taiping Rebellion, China was squashed and, once again, forced under by Western power. In the Meiji Restoration, a group similarly tried to overthrow the existing order, but - as we hypothesized - Japan emerged as a strong, proud nation. Instead of just trying to fight back like China did, Japan called for a complete societal transformation. From there, it built upon the technological advancements of the Western world and established itself as a world power.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Meiji Restoration
For the most part, our class was able to understand the basic sense of the Meiji Restoration. The Japanese received some kind of influence from Western culture while at the same time retaining their own national pride. The documents spoke of Japan achieving great things that Westerners did not expect was possible. Our in-class activities gave us an idea of the end result, but the reading helped us understand why it all happened and to what extent it occurred.
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I agree with what you said about how Japan succeeded by not fighting back. It's ironic that by fighting the western influence and rebellion led to China's downfall because it seems the opposite would take place: that by allowing foreigners, a country would weaken and lose its sense of national pride. However, as we see with Japan, it is sometimes to a countries benefit to accept influence without a fight, because there really isn't any avoiding it. Japan came to realize that a change would happen eventually, and that by resisting it they would only be instilling more violence in their country and harm to their people.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what both of you said. The irony of how Japan avoided conflict with Westerners while China choked and died is almost painful. No one can say that Japan's approach to the situation wasn't creative - they completed an entire social and political reform instead of the obvious option of war. And it worked surpirsingly well.
ReplyDeleteWell because of Japan's avoidance of Westerners they played the safe card, while China took the bait of the European countries and because of them doing this they were exposed and were beaten down because of this.
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