1. ASIA 101
Jan 29
19th century Japan

2. Japan’s march toward modernity
First country in Asia to modernize
How?
Political institutions (state-building)
Economy and industry
Nation and nationalism

3. Review and background Asia and the West: 19th C tipping point
Chinese experience
Opium war, Treaties, Semi-colonial status
Japan under the Tokugawa
feudalistic state (bakuhan system)
urbanization, commerce, pop culture
Samurai bureaucrats

4. Japan in the first half of 19th C
Samurai in debt
Famine and social unrest
Social order breaking down
Scholarly discussion about Japan’s superiority
Emperor and Kokutai (Ebrey, 338)

5. Foreign affairs (Ebrey, 338-41)
Perry’s “black ships”, 1853
Guns, steam, and opening of ports
Treaties in 1854, 1858
Unequal Treaty, what is it?

6. Yokohama, a treaty port

7. Consequences Domestic turmoil (Ebrey, 342) Emperor enters politics
Radical activists attack foreigners
“Revere the emperor and expel the barbarians”
Open up debates about national policies, defence
Tokugawa loses legitimacy, “barbarian subduing” general

8. Meiji restoration
Satsuma & Choshu domains force Shogun to give up rule, 1867/11
“Restoration of imperial rule”

9. Popular response to uncertainties
Ee ja naika: wild, rowdy dance fest
Nationalists?

10. Building the Meiji state
What was achieved by 1868?
Basic orientations of the new state?

11. Centralization Abolish the domains (han)
from 261 domains to 72 prefectures, 1871
The end of the samurai status (and stipend), 1876
What happened to the samurai?
Census (household registers), Taxation
Why?
remove the layers of feudalism, and harness the nation under the central state

12. Rich country, strong army
State kickstarts industrialization (factories)
arms and heavy industries (railway, shipyards)
textiles: silk and cotton
are these new?
Where did the money come from?
Private silk factories in rural areas
90% of exports textiles in 1900 (Ebrey, 356)

13. Army Who fights when warrior class is no more? Conscripts (1873)
resistance from farmers and warriors: “blood tax”
nationalism?

14. How did nationalism become widespread?
Schools
compulsory education (1872)
turn kids into productive members of a nation
instill “national” values
“Imperial Rescript on Education”, 1890 (Ebrey, 359)
Confucian values
Loyalty to the kokutai (national polity)
Emperor’s portrait
Family state

15. Learn from the West “Civilization and Enlightenment”
Do away with “bad old customs”
education, food, personal appearance
Becomes an imperialist state
Fukuzawa Yukichi’s “Leaving Asia” (Ebrey, )
forces unequal treaty on Korea, 1876
war with Qing China,
colonizes Taiwan

16. summation By 1900, Japan had Centralized, modern, imperial state
Nation and nationalism
Constitution, 1889
Capitalist economy