Discuss how Japan Industrialized after the Meiji Restoration. What were the consequences for its neighbours?

Answer:

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 launched a deliberate, state-directed programme of industrialisation that within half a century made Japan the first non-western industrial power. That transformation brought upon its neighbours the burden of Japanese imperialism.

The state-led strategy

• The slogan fukoku kyohei, rich country and strong army, defined the national purpose.
• Feudalism, the han domains and samurai privileges were abolished.
• The land tax reform of 1873 gave the state a stable revenue for investment.
• The Iwakura Mission of 1871-73 studied western institutions and technology systematically.
• Foreign experts (oyatoi gaikokujin) were hired to transfer skills.

Building industry

• The state established model factories in silk, cotton, cement and glass.
• Railways, telegraphs, shipyards and arsenals were built with public funds.
• From the 1880s these enterprises were sold cheaply to private hands.
• The great zaibatsu, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda, grew from these transfers.
• Silk exports earned the foreign exchange that financed capital imports.
• Universal education created a literate and disciplined workforce.

Consequences for the neighbours

• Victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 took Taiwan and ended Chinese influence in Korea.
• Victory over Russia in 1905 made Japan the first Asian power to defeat a European one.
• Korea was made a protectorate in 1905 and annexed in 1910, enduring harsh colonial rule.
• The Twenty-One Demands of 1915 sought to reduce China to dependence.
• Manchuria was seized in 1931 and China invaded in 1937, with immense civilian suffering.
• Japanese occupation of South-East Asia followed in 1941-42.

A double legacy

• Japan's rise inspired Asian nationalists, who saw that the West could be matched.
• Yet the same power was turned against Asians, as colonised peoples soon discovered.
• Its wartime occupation nonetheless shattered European prestige and hastened decolonisation.

Costs at home

• Rural taxation bore much of the burden of early industrial investment.
• Factory conditions, especially for women in the silk mills, were harsh.
• The zaibatsu concentrated economic power in a few family combines.
• Militarism grew as the army gained influence over civilian government.

Meiji Japan therefore industrialised through deliberate state initiative, selective borrowing and heavy investment in education, achieving in decades what had taken Europe a century. As historians observe, the tragedy of that achievement was that the strength acquired to resist western imperialism was turned to imperialism of its own, at appalling cost to Japan's neighbours.