Le Japon et la Chine

China’s and Japan’s responses to the West compared

China and Japan took a different path in modern world. Obviously, Japan was extremely successful in the 19th century. China was in total failure ?

In the 19th century, there is no notion of boundaries in China because for Chinese, China was the entire world, its center.

When the West comes to Japan

• 1853 — Gunboat diplomacy by Commodore Perry, opened the door of Japan to the West.
• 1854 —The united States signed the first treaty with Japan, a trade Treaty (Kanagawa Treaty): Shimoda and Hakodate were opened
• UK, Netherlands and Russia soon gained similar trading rights
• Difference from China (I), in Japan there is no war (in China, there was a war against the British, the Opium War), no smuggling trade, no territory conceded
• Difference from China (II), Japan reacted quickly and in a much greater answer.

China tried to reforme its military, including its technology.

Political and Social Reforms in the 19th century

• Meiji (Imperial) Constitution in 1889, the first Constitution of Japan
• Bicameral Diet in 1890
• Universal compulsory elementary education
• Universities established

The first Chinese university was established much more later than Japan, about 15 years later.

Economic reforms

• Abolition of feudalism, samurais deprived of privilege (including sword), obtained compensation
• Rapid industrialization through state-owned entreprises (SOE)
• SOEs later transferred to private companies to form Zaibatsu (large conflate rates
• Silk, cotton, machinery, railroad carriage and locomotives…

Military Reforms

• Before the Meiji era: Armies were run by local daimyo and thus subservient to a central government
• Meiji era: Modern army and navy established which were loyal to the Japanese government
• Used Prussia (Germany) as primary model
• Firm belief that if Japan was to be taken seriously by Western powers, and was to avoid China’s fate, Japan would gave to compete militarily
• Conscription (1873) all men had to serve for three years after turning 21

Predisposing Factors

• Awareness (and familiarity with) of foreign borrowing (due to insularity)
• Strong sense of identity (leading to acceptance of existence of others)
• Pragmatism (more curiosity about the Occident & more knowledge about military technology)
• Smallness and accessibility of the island (leading to faster speed of reaction), the entire nation can be mobilise much more faster than China.
• Diversity of response: division of political authority and class, wide diffusion of education
• Unity for modern nation: Vertical ties of loyalty (feudal system) reinforced by Confucian ethics
• Goal oriented Japanese versus status oriented Chinese
• Disunity result from a combination of vertical loyalty (feudal society), moral potential of all men (Confucianism)

The Tokugawa Shogunate

• Tokugawa family ruled Japan from 1603 (Tokugawa defeated Toyotomi in 1615) until 1868 — also known as the Edo period
• 1639 — foreign trade banned except to Chinese and Dutch merchants (Nagasaki) while Korea (Tsushima) and Ryukyu had diplomatic relation with Japan
• Emperor were moved to Edo from Kyoto but ruled in name only
• Actual power held by the shogun. The government is called Tokugawa Bankufu

Japanese Feudalism

• Political centralizetion: Bankufu, (Shogunate) has absolute power over Han (Daimyo) Disobedience was met with punishment including ritual suicide and the termination of the family
• Daimyo’s duties: sankin kotai, public works, taxes

Foreign Policy — External Expansion

Japanese forcing policy had a huge influence over east Asia. Japan started to ask different treatments.

Japan as regional hegemon

Japan took more or less 10 years to annexe Korea after the Sino-Japanese War.

France, Germany and Russia put pression over Japan to abandoned the control of south Manchuria so Japan abandoned it, but then try to take it back, that’s the reason of the war 10 years later

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