MEIJI RESTORATION
10/26/22
ML 2500 Fall
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Western Imperialism in the Late Nineteenth Century
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UNEQUAL TREATIES WITH THE U.S.
Black Ship, 1854:
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https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/black_ships_and_samurai/bss_essay01.h
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Sakoku: "chained country,” the isolationist foreign policy of the Tokugawa
shogunate.
Nagasaki: only trade port, China and Dutch.
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THE TREATY OF KANAGAWA IN 1854
The two countries were to exchange
diplomatic representatives; Japan was
to open six cities to foreign residence
and trade; Japan had to accept low
tariffs on imported goods, etc.
Political turmoil from 1858
Boshin War, 1868 – 1869
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JAPAN IN 1868 VS 1905
Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935)
- British academic and Japanologist, in j.1873- Meiji Emperor
1904; “from Middle Ages to modern times”. (1867-1912)
Meiji Restoration, 1868
Russo-Japanese war, 1905
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190
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186
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Railroads; steam engines; telegraph capacity.
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190
5
186 9
190
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Imperial diet of Japan
1889
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MEIJI RESTORATION
Major reforms: Abolition of hereditary status distinctions, abolition
of the samurai class, creation of a conscript army and navy,
restructuring of land ownership and taxation, creation of a new
educational system, etc.
The start: the overthrow of the Tokugawa House in 1868.
The end ???
All reforms were announced by 1873/ many of those reforms did
not take effect nationwide until about 1878/ the new
constitution of 1889/ the end of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905.
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MODERN JAPAN
Soga decentralized state by
Daimyos
Globalization 1 Isolation 1 Globalization Isolation
2 2
500 900 1300 1600 1868
Meiji restoration
Meiji Restoration: Looked backwards to imperial rule to move
forwards; reestablished the authority of the imperial house.
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THE STRUCTURE OF THE MEIJI
GOVERNMENT :
• Announcement of Charter Oath, Seitaisho (provisional
constitution) of 1868, the establishment of the Grand Council of
State.
• The revolutionaries from Satsuma and Choshu monopolized
important positions. It allowed a small group to make decisions and
implement the decisions through their own ministries. (Q: what was
the role of the emperor in this new state?)
• Established centralized authority by abolishing the domains
(1871). (McClain, pp. 158). (Q: how was the abolition of feudalism
achieved? Why?)
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MEIJI SOCIETY:
•Reclassified social hierarchy: nobles (kazoku), former samurai
(shizoku and sotsu), farmers, merchants and artisans (heimin),
and eventually the outcasts as ordinary citizens.
•The downfall of the samurai as a class.
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LEARNING FROM THE WEST:
• Governmental structure.
• Universal conscription (Yamagata, on McClain, pp.161).
• Study missions/ the Iwakura Mission, 1871-1873, led by Iwakura
Tomomi (McClain, pp. 171). (Q: what was the purpose of the
missions?)
• The spread of Western culture in Japan. (McClain, pp. 175).
• Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901): the need to grasp the spiritual,
intangible essence of Western civilization if one was to learn about
Western strength. (McClain, pp.176-8).
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POWER TRANSITION
Tens of thousands of domestic causalities from the 1850s
through to the 1870s.
No stark contrast ideologies [e.g. monarchy vs democracy,
capitalism vs communism]
Who would implement radical reform in the name of emperor?
e.g. Last Shogun: Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837-1913)
→ Absence of a clash between old and new.
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EX. LAST SHOGUN (1837-1913)
https://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/147/ 17
SYNTHESIS OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN
Complementarity of the Japanese and the
Western; Japan reformed so as to look
powerful and legitimate in a modern
Western World.
Example 1: The Meiji government
commissioned modern national money
Different paper
from the Continental Bank Note Company
money issued by
in the U.S. different daimyo in
Tokugawa Shogunate
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1860s U. 1873
S. JP
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The Discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto (1500 – 1542)
Artist: William H. Powell, 1853
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US: The white Christians were destined to conquer the New
World to bring civilization and religion to naked savages.
Japan: Legendary Empress Jingu and the legendary conquest of
Korea in the 200s.
→ an imported Western way to tell the story of an ancient
Japanese legend.
→ Western model of colonizers and colonized.
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Cartoon of Empress Jingu and
Britannia.
This cartoon of legendary Empress
Jingu, invader of Korea, and
Britannia celebrate the 1902 signing
of the Anglo-Japanese alliance.
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Example 2: the creation of the modern Japanese army and the
abolition of the samurai class.
Meiji government edict announcing conscription: not a break with
tradition, but actually the restoration of Japan’s true tradition.
VS 700s: conscript army; samurais were interlopers.
→ Western concept of equal rights and equal duties for all
Japanese.
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IN SUMMARY
The synthesis of the ancient and the modern the new and the
traditional of the local and the global synthases was deliberately
crafted by the Meiji government. And it remains a distinctive
characteristic of Japan today.
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