JAPANESE HISTORY

Tokugawa Japan 1600-1878

1 Control system

2 Collapse of Tokugawa Shogunate

3 Downfall of Tokugawa Shogunate

4 Note

Meiji Japan 1878-1912

> 1 Introduction

2 Charter Oath

3 Abolition of feudalism

4 Political Modernization

5 Economic Modernization

6 Military Modernization

7 Education Modernization

8 Note - Rise of militarism

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

¡@

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

In Association with Amazon.com