Imperial Japan

Tokugawa Era

250 years of peace—processions—centralization of power and economic expansion

Meiji Restoration

Period of westernization for Japan

Treaty of Kanagawa

Treaty with US over trade and relations between the countries

First Sino-Japanese War over Korea 1894

• Korea closest part of Asia to Japan

• Japan worried that Russia might gain control

• Japan wins the war and shocks the world

Treaty of Shiminoseki

Control of Korea, Liaotung Peninsula, and Taiwan

What do Russia, France, and Germany do?

Combined pressure force Japan to give up Liaotung Peninsula to Russia

For Japan to maintain independence and receive equal treatment in international affairs…

it was necessary to strengthen its military even farther

By 1904/1905 Japan is much stronger…

• Russia threatens to assert control over Korea

• Japan attacks and wins, victory shocks

• Japan—first imperial power in Asia

Efforts to unite Japanese people

• Meiji leaders—create a civic ideology around the emperor

• Shintoism says emperor is semi-divine (descended from sun gods/gods that created Japan)

• Replaced Buddhism as national religion

• Honoring emperor unites Japan

• Emperor’s advisors are really in control

• As Japan is uniting, China is dealing with rebellions

Becoming more Western

• Parliament

• National education system (moral duty to emperor as a core subject)

• Voting rights for the majority of the population (not women)

• Legal system modeled after France and Germany

Effect on Japan’s future

• Powerful enough to become a colonial power

• During WW1 Japan is allied with Britain and takes the German islands in the Pacific

• Continued success led to a very powerful country by WW1