Introduction of Japan as a World Power (Russo-Japanese War)
The Russo-Japanese War is also known as “the first great war of the 20th century”, which grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian and Japanese Empires over Manchuria and Korea; where the Japanese military were unexpectedly victorious over the Russian forces, transforming the balance of power in East Asia and resulting in Japan’s entry as a world power.
In 1868, Japan underwent the Meiji Restoration, in which the Meiji government began to embrace Western ideas, technological advances and customs, putting an end to the shogunate system in Japan and in less than half a century, Japan emerged from isolation and transformed into a modern state, hoping to preserve their power and be recognized as an equal to the Western Powers.
Following the Meiji Restoration, Japan fought in the Sino-Japanese War from 1894-1895, over the issue of control and influence over Korea under the Joseon Dynasty. After a peasant rebellion, the Korean government requested for Qing Dynasty troops to be sent in and stabilize the country; Japan responded to this by sending their own forces to Korea and installing a “puppet” government in Seoul. This angered the Chinese and led to the Japanese troops attacking Chinese troops on the Liaodong Peninsula and nearly destroying the Chinese navy in the Battle of the Yalu River; this lead to the Treaty of Shimonoseki between Japan and China, who ceded the Liaodong Peninsula and Taiwan to Japan. After the treaty was signed, Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to withdraw the Liaodong Peninsula, where the Russians would take their place and build the Port Arthur fortress and base their Pacific fleet in the port, while the Germans occupied Jia...
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Japan led a ruthless assault in the Pacific for fifteen years. This small island was able to spread imperialism and terror to neighboring countries through means of force and brutality. Japan even attempted to combat and overcome European and Western countries such as Russia and the United States. Even with an extreme militaristic government, Japan was unable to achieve the glory it was promised and hoped for. The Pacific War analyzes Japan’s part in the war and what the country could have done to prevent such a tragedy.
Japanese aggression originated in the fall of 1931 when the explosion of a section of the South Manchurian Railway in northern China occurred, causing Japan’s Kwangtung Army, who was guarding the railroad, to exchange fire with the Chinese Army and then proceed to occupy all of Manchuria. Soon after, the Kwangtung Army set up a puppet government and renamed the region Manchukuo. The Chinese Army claimed that the Japanese purposely blew up part of the railroad to initiate a confrontation and therefore a reason to occupy Manchuria.2 Later, in 1937, Japan decided to go ahead with plans to further invade China, and conquered most of the northern and eastern regions within a year. This was later t...
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Chinese and Japanese faced much internal conflict, but while China faced a combination of economic setbacks and political weakness, the Japanese were riddled with wars along their countryside. First, the Chinese emperor was too weak in comparison to his bureaucracy, which ended up making most of the decisions for the last Ming dynasty emperor. This was due to the emperor’s realization that having a title as Son of Heaven did not mean he had all the power of the empire. Instead he lived a laid back life where the bureaucrats vied for power and wealth amongst themselves and he merely managed them. Like the Chinese, the Japanese also saw elites battling it out for power, but this time on the battlefield with armies of samurai. These battles put Japan in a period much like the Warring States period in early Chinese history, where families fought and fought for power almost endlessly. The political weakness in China contributed to its economic failure as well. With no force to manage to seas, pirates were free to raid trade ships and villages along the coast line, weakening the Chinese economy that relied on a transport system to supply the country. These two major forces led to China’s fragmentation and eventual takeover by the Manchu. In contrast, the battles happening in Japan were not harmful to the economy as much as they were in China. This is due to the fact that the Japanese daimyos were independent...
Feifer, George. Breaking Open Japan: Commodore Perry, Lord Abe, and American Imperialism in 1853. New York: Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2006. pp. xx, 389 p.: ill., maps; 24 cm. ISBN: 0060884320 (hardcover: alk. paper). Format: Book. Subjects: Japan Foreign relations United States /United States Foreign relations Japan.
China and Japan’s main differences in responding the Western invasion was that Japan accepted Westernization and China did not, which resulted in Japan becoming a modernized nation while China failed to do so. In order for China and Japan to keep their trade to a minimum, but also have a spread of trade goods that they wanted, each nation had opened one port specifically for trade; Guangzhou and Nagasaki, respectively (Fruhstuck, Lecture). Both countries had limited trade with the West and maintained isolation from around the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. China opened Guangzhou by the late seventeenth century but the western merchants that landed there had no rights or privileges and were confined to the borders ...
Beginning in the early seventeenth century, Japan went from being one of the driving forces of technological and military power in the modern world to becoming outdated, old due to a lack of technological innovation. From this Japan was able to outlast the hard times, becoming once again becoming technological powerhouse. This was because, as stated in the book, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” by author Thomas L. Friedman, they were able to find a happy median between the Lexus and the olive tree, in other words, new ideas and technology, while still maintaining traditional values of culture and race, both politically and socially. Japan was able to rebound, and regain political, social and economic stability and prosper in each after decades of internal conflict and turmoil because they, unlike similar contemporary non-western civilizations, focused on balancing new reforms with older, more historical governmental traditions.
Japan was a small nation that was in dire need of resources so it could flourish. They need iron for weapons, rubber for tires, and coal and oil for fuel. In July 1937, to capture its coal and iron reserves, Japan launched a successful and brutal attack against China. This would be the start of an assault on the Pacific region by Japan. This assault would last for three years without anyone getting involved because tensions were growing futile in the European theatre.
Already earlier, Japan followed the example of Western nations and forced China into unequal economical and political treaties. Furthermore, Japan's influence over Manchuria had been steadily growing since the end of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05. When the Chinese Nationalists began to seriously challenge Japan's position in Manchuria in 1931, the Kwantung Army (Japanese armed forces in Manchuria) occupied Manchuria. In the following year, "Manchukuo" was declared an independent state, controlled by the Kwantung Army through a puppet government. In the same year, the Japanese air force bombarded Shanghai in order to protect Japanese residents from anti Japanese movements.
In the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, China at the time confronted impending risk of being parceled and colonized by colonialist powers...
The debate over Japan’s potential instigation of World War II raged on as intensely as the aggressive policies of Japan in question. Both teams engaged in total warfare, utilizing statistics, harsh interrogations through cross-examinations, and all other weapons available to them, in order to defend their grounds from attack. But while some arguments had proven to be successfully devastating, several others had been misused, misinterpreted, or simply unstated; specifically, the contentions regarding Japan’s excluded state from global international politics, the trigger of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the rationale behind the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been substantially augmented on both sides.
During the 19th Century, China and Japan each responded differently to western penetration. China was against industrializing and did not want to create an empire like those of the western empires. Japan however learned that if they wanted to survive they had to adopt the changes that the western empires were adopting. Japan began to create an industrialized society and soon became one of the major industrial powers. China went through many rebellions and finally decided to industrialize just enough to be able to fight off the western empires. However, they did not industrialize fast enough or big enough, and they could not defeat the west. Although they responded differently, both China and Japan were affected by western penetration economically,
...ty for one that better suited its capitalistic tendency. That opportunity came in1868 when the Meiji imperial rule was able to overthrow the Tokugawa regime, setting off a political, economic, social and cultural change that transformed Japan. As Japan embraced modernity with full force, some began to realize the negative impact of modernization on the rural life, social structure and most importantly on its culture, blaming it on the western influence on its modernization. Thus as Japan neared World War II, it embraced a new sense of modernization, one that was separate from westernization, creating a nationalistic and fascist government policy. Japanese society is characteristic of plurality and opposing value systems coexisting. As new ideals and institutions arise, Japan sees itself transforming and changing at the hands of internal and external forces.
The old government of Tokugawa Japan was becoming unsuccessful in trying to stay together. After multiple changes in the way the government ran, Japan found a style that worked well for their country, imperialism. The rise of Japan as a global power in the late 1800s was the result of the use of imperialism, which had many different causes and led to consequences that in turn shaped not only Japan, but also China, Korea, and the islands of the South Pacific. Civil wars, economic disputes, and World War emerged from Japan’s use of imperialism. Japanese imperialism has molded the Pacific region into what it is today.
...high power status, Japan had to have a self-reliant industrial common ground and be able to move all human and material resources (S,195). Through the Shogun Revolution of 1868, the abolition of Feudalism in 1871, the activation of the national army in 1873, and the assembly of parliament in 1889, the political system of Japan became westernized (Q,3). Local Labor and commercial assistance from the United States and Europe allowed Japan’s industry to bloom into a developed, modern, industrial nation (Q,3). As a consequence production surplus, and food shortage followed (Q,3). Because of how much it relied on aid of western powers, Japan’s strategic position became especially weak. In an attempt to break off slightly from the aid of the west Japanese leaders believed that it would be essential for Japan to expand beyond its borders to obtain necessary raw materials.