Download Imperialism

Imperialism Against Japan: Foreign
Pressure
• The Tokugawa
Shogunate of Japan was
able to control foreign
interaction until the early
19th Century
• However, beginning in
1844, British, French,
and US ships visited
Japan to establish
relations
– The US in particular
wanted ports where its
Pacific whaling and
merchant fleets could stop
for fuel and provisions
Imperialism Against Japan: Foreign
Pressure
• The Tokugawas refused
all requests for expanded
relations and stuck to their
policy of limiting European
and American visitors to a
small number of Dutch at
Nagasaki
• In the late 1840s the
Japanese began making
military preparations in
case of attack
The artificial island Dejima in
Nagasaki Bay where the
Dutch were allowed to trade
Imperialism Against Japan:
Commodore Perry
• In 1853, Commodore
Matthew Perry led a US
naval squadron into
Tokyo Bay and
demanded that the
shogun open Japan to
diplomatic and
commercial relations and
sign a treaty of friendship
• The shogun had no good
alternative and
acquiesced to Perry’s
demands
Commodore Matthew Perry
Imperialism Against Japan: The
Opening of Japan
• Representatives of
Britain, the Netherlands,
and Russia soon won
similar rights
• Like the Chinese, the
Japanese were subjected
to a series of unequal
treaties which opened
Japanese ports to foreign
commerce, deprived the
government of control
over tariffs, and granted
foreigners extraterritorial
rights
Japan’s Response: End of
Tokugawa Rule
• The sudden intrusion of foreign
powers in Japan resulted in the
collapse of the Tokugawa and
the restoration of imperial rule
• The dissident slogan was
“Revere the emperor, expel the
barbarians.”
• On Jan 3, 1868, the boy
emperor Mutsuhito took power
– He later became known as
Meiji (“Enlightened Rule”)
Japan’s Response: Meiji Reforms
• The Meiji government strived to gain parity with
foreign powers behind the motto “rich country,
strong army”
• It looked to the industrial lands of the United
States and Europe to obtain knowledge and
expertise to strengthen Japan and win revisions
of the unequal treaties
– The Meiji sent many students and officials abroad to
learn everything from technology to construction and
hired foreign experts to facilitate economic
development and indigenous expertise
Japan’s Response: Meiji Reforms
• The Meiji transformed Japan by:
– abolishing the feudal order and therefore centralizing
political power,
– revamping the tax system to put the regime on a firm
financial footing
– creating a constitution which gave the emperor
effective power and the parliament the ability to
advise but not control him
– creating a modern transportation, communications,
and educational infrastructure
Japan’s Response: Sino-Japanese
War
• From 1894-1895 Japan defeated China in a war
over Korea which showed how modern and
powerful Japan had become and how weakened
China had become
– The Japanese navy quickly gained control of the
Yellow Sea and then the Japanese army pushed
Chinese forces off the Korean Peninsula
– In the peace treaty, China recognized Korean
independence which made Korea a virtual
dependency of Japan
• The Japanese victory alarmed European
powers, especially Russia, who shared interests
with Japan in Korea and Manchuria
Japan’s Response: Parity with the
West
• In 1899 Japan was able to
end extraterritoriality
• In 1902 Japan concluded
an alliance with Britain as
an equal power
• By the early 20th Century,
Japan had joined the ranks
of the world’s major
industrial powers
Toyoda Type-G
Automatic Loom
invented in 1924
China’s Response: Boxer Rebellion
• Eventually an anti-foreign
society called the Society of
Righteous and Harmonious
Fists (called the “Boxers” by the
foreign press) emerged to
protest the increasing Western
presence in China
• In 1899 the Boxers organized to
rid China of “foreign devils”
• They went on a rampage killing
foreigners, Chinese Christians,
and Chinese who had ties to
foreigners
China’s Response: Boxer Rebellion
• In 1900 they besieged
the foreign embassies
in Beijing
• A heavily armed force
of British, French,
Russian, US,
German, and
Japanese troops
crushed the rebellion
Calvin P. Titus won the Medal of
Honor leading the American
attack over the Chinese City Wall
The Rise of Japanese Imperialism:
Russo-Japanese War
• When Russia refused to
withdraw its troops from
Manchuria after the Boxer
Rebellion, Japan attacked and
defeated the Russian Far
Eastern Fleet anchored at Port
Arthur
• It was the first time in modern
history an Asian military force
had soundly whipped the army
and navy of a major non-Asian
imperial power
• With the victory, Japan gained
recognition as a major imperial
power
President Theodore Roosevelt
meets with Japanese and
Russian envoys to discuss peace
at the end of the RussoJapanese War.
The Rise of Japanese Imperialism:
World War I
• On August 23, 1914, Japan entered World
War I on the side of the Allies
• It captured several German-occupied
locations in China and the Pacific
• Building on this momentum, Japan
presented the Chinese government with a
secret list of Twenty-One Demands which
would have reduced China to a
protectorate of Japan
The Rise of Japanese Imperialism:
World War I
• The Chinese leaked the
note to the British who
spoke up for the Chinese
and prevented complete
capitulation, but still China
acquiesced to many of the
demands
• The Twenty-One Demands
reflected Japan’s
determination to dominate
east Asia and served as a
basis for future Japanese
pressure on China
Japanese Prime Minister
Okuma Shigenobu presented
the demands to China
The Rise of Japanese Imperialism:
Naval Power
• Britain and the US began to see Japan as a threat to
their naval dominance
• In 1922 the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty
established a ratio of capital ships as
–
–
–
–
–
Britain 5
United States 5
Japan 3
France 1.67
Italy 1.67
• In the 1930s, an increasingly militant Japan demanded
parity with the U.S. and Britain.
• When the request was denied, Japan gave notice in
1934 that it would withdraw from the treaty in two years
and did so
The Rise of Japanese Imperialism:
Manchuria
• The increasing Japanese
power and its continued
hostility toward China came
to a head in the 1930s
when for the most part
civilians lost control of the
government and the
military in Japan
• In the 1937 Japan invaded
Manchuria and waged a
brutal war against civilians
and a repressive
occupation
The Rise of Japanese Imperialism:
Manchuria
• The Japanese brutality
was epitomized by the
“Rape of Nanjing”
• Over a two month period,
Japanese soldiers
inflamed by war passion
and a sense of racial
superiority raped 7,000
women, murdered
hundreds of thousands of
unarmed soldiers and
civilians, and burned 1/3
of the homes in Nanjing
Chinese man being beheaded
A Chinese baby cries amid the rubble of the Japanese
bombing of Shanghai
The Rise of Japanese
Imperialism: World War II
• Japan continued to see
the US and others as a
threat to its influence in
Asia and in 1940 the
Japanese began
developing plans to
destroy the US Navy in
Hawaii
• On Dec 7, 1941, the
Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor
– We’ll discuss this in
Lesson 27
In May 1940, the main part of the
US fleet was transferred to Pearl
Harbor from the west coast