Modern Japan: Meiji Era to 1945

The end of Japan’s isolationism is marked by important public and politic troubles. Following the Edo period, the Meiji Era (1868 – 1912) begins with the Boshin War (1868 – 1869) opposing partisans of the shogunate to supporters of the emperor in several battles that took place in Toba-Fushimi, Ueno and up to Hakodate, where a short-lived independent Republic of Ezo was even created. Once those conflicts end, the restored imperial power is transferred to Edo, then renamed Tokyo (東京, "capital of the east"), where the emperor officially settles in 1889. From Mutsuhito (Meiji)’s reign, throughout the Taisho era (1912 – 1926) and to the early days of the Showa era (1926 – 1989), Japan strives to close the gap with Western powers, modernize its institutions and secure its place on the world stage.

The country’s modernization

The archipelago’s opening is regulated by several treaties, signed with the great powers of the times (United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia), that are called "unequal treaties" and that Japan never stopped trying to renegotiate. Their revision is submitted to conditions such as the adhesion of the country to the social, political and economical standards of the West. To this end, Japan’s elites kick-start an all-encompassing modernization, based on the study of Western sciences (in the West and with invited experts) to adapt them to the local conditions and "enrich the country, strengthen the army" (Fukoku kyôhei 富国強兵).

On the societal aspects, it translates into several radical reforms including a thorough re-engineering of the social order, with:

• The end of the mibunsei social classes system, and consequently of the samurai class. Bearing arms is only allowed to the police or the military (1876);
• The establishment of an imperial conscript army in 1871;
• Mandatory education for all, boys and girls alike, starting in 1872.

Political institutions are also overhauled to get closer to a constitutional monarchy regime:

• The first Constitution of Japan is promulgated in 1889;
• The first session of the Diet, the Japanese Parliament, takes place the following year; and,
• Elections take place in the form of male census suffrage.

The beginnings of the Meiji Era are also characterized by the official separation of the Shinto and Buddhist cults (Shinbutsu bunri 神仏分離), that made Shinto shrines into government’s institutions in charge of national rites and of population register.

After witnessing the fall 🍁 of the Chinese empire due to the actions of the Western powers in the middle of the 19th century, the Japanese government is striving to finance its economic development with local funds by:

• Establishing a new tax system based on a land tax to collect steady yearly revenues. In this end, the former domains are abolished to create the prefectures in 1871;
• Investing in industries (textile, ship building, mines and metal refineries) and infrastructures (railway between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1872);
• Creating the Yen 💴 in the 1880s, as a stable currency supported by a central bank.

Read more:

Yen: the Japanese currency

Economic development is sustained by the zaibatsu, that are business conglomerates encompassing several types of industries, including banking. During the Taisho Era (1912-1926), they owned about 20% of the private capital and wove a tight network with politicians.

By making its industrial revolution, the Empire of Japan becomes the manufacture of Asia before the end of the 19th century, especially in the textile (silk, cotton) and mining (coal) industries. In the line of what happened in other developed countries, the industrial movement incurred a strong migration to the cities and the factories. It is all the more noticeable as the population exceeds 45 million inhabitants in 1900, that is to say 10 million more than in 1880.

Expansionism and international relations

The Tokugawa’s abandoned any idea of Asian expansionism, but Meiji revolutionaries resumed this ambition with the intent of both asserting a leading position in the broader area and securing resources and markets in order to sustain the country’s economic growth.

The territories that had a close relationship with Edo period’s Japan are the first to be annexed: Hokkaido becomes a prefecture in 1869, and Ryu-Kyu islands become Okinawa prefecture in 1879.

The Japanese empire forces a trade agreement upon Korea through the Treaty of Ganghwa Island of 1876, a text similar to the Japan – US Convention of Kanagawa and continues to spread its influence within the peninsula. Japan grasps every opportunity to extend its military power on the continent:

• The First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-1895, is sparked under the pretense of defending Korea against a Chinese incursion. The Treaty of Shimonoseki acknowledges Japan’s victory and grants it the control of Taiwan, of the Liaodong peninsula in the Chinese territory, and the railway building rights in South Manchuria.
• The Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905, is a direct consequence of the previous one, and allows Japan to establish for the long term its interests in Manchuria and in Korea, the latter becoming a protectorate.

Western powers receive this latest Japanese victory as a violent shock as they were certain that a non-white nation could not win against them. By opposing the West, Japan poses as Asia’s protective “big brother” against Western colonialism, even though its actions stem from the same imperialism.

The Empire of Japan eventually annexes the Korean peninsula in 1910 and occupies it until the end of WWII. Likewise, it took advantage of the withdrawal of the Europeans and the Russians from Asia due to WWI (1914 - 1918) and the Bolshevik revolution (1917 – 1922) to strengthen its stakes in Manchuria and its influence in the area.

Political repression and rise of militarism

In the 1920s, the international context (with the burgeoning Chinese nationalism, the rise of communism and the growing influence of the United States in Asia) impacts the Japanese political life: riots and political protest movements arise, and future emperor Hirohito was even targeted by an assassination attempt. Tensions increase after 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, that, in addition to the damages inflicted to Tokyo, is also marked by the massacre of Korean immigrants. Political repression escalates, especially in regard to the 1925 Peace Preservation Law enforced against communism, socialism and anarchism, and followed by several other similar laws.

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 put the whole world into economic depression, militarism is on the rise in Japan, fueled by the population’s disappointment toward the existing political parties and the financial elites that were accused of not serving their country. The Kwantung Army, formed in 1906 to protect Japanese interests in Asia, is often at the spearhead of Japanese statesmen and industrialists’ murders, as well as of independent actions in Asia, like the Mukden incident, which preludes to the invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

On February 26, 1936, an ultra-nationalistic faction of the imperial army attempts a particularly violent coup d’état, with the assassination of several incumbent ministers. The intervention of emperor Hirohito himself ends the mutiny, however the cabinet constituted thereafter includes a large number of military, which constitutes a victory for the army and Japan definitely enters in a war economy.

The Japanese empire continues its expansionist tactics in Asia, triggers the 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937 – 1945) and takes advantage of the beginning of WWII to expand in South-East Asia from 1940. Then, it attacks Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, resulting in the United States entering the war, that would last until 1945. On August 15, in his first ever speech broadcast on radio, the emperor announces the capitulation of Japan after the 2 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Cultural life

The beginning of the Meiji Era is characterized by a great curiosity towards new ideas, but also by a come-back of traditionalism and a definition of what is Japanese. After more than 2 centuries of complete isolationism, Japan accepts the presence of foreigners – always in a limited perimeter in the beginning, and sends delegations in Europe and the United States, in missions that are both diplomatic (revision of unequal treaties, representation), and scientific and cultural. The knowledge collected during these trips would help lay the basis to the modernization reforms endeavored in the latest quarter of the 19th century.

The Japanese government also invites foreign experts and imports machines and materials to complete its modernization in all fields: from the textile industry to the political institutions, as well as the Army and the arts.

The foreign experts, along with the students they taught to, also contribute to positively reevaluate Japanese culture, especially the culture of tea thanks to Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin (The Book of Tea, 1906). The latter was also deeply involved in the preservation of traditional painting. In the meantime, the imperial museums (later national museums) are founded in Tokyo (Ueno, 1882), Nara (1894) and Kyoto (1895) to preserve Asian and Japanese artworks.

Beside railways, other technologies that were new at the times are quickly assimilated:

• Photography, with the first studios operated by Japanese photographs opening in Yokohama and Nagasaki as soon as 1862. The first official picture of the emperor published in 1873 shows him in a Western style uniform;
• Cinema is introduced in Kobe as soon as 1896 – its first golden age happens in the 1920s with movies by Yasujiro Ozu (1903 – 1963) and Kenji Mizoguchi (1898 – 1956) depicting the daily life and the lives of women.

At the end of the Meiji Era, Japan does look like a modern nation: its inhabitants tend to dress in Western style clothing, bigger cities have new buildings made of stone or bricks, and transportation like trains 🚅 and tramways develop.

International cultural exchanges are still going strong despite geopolitical tensions. Japan doesn’t miss any universal and / or industrial exposition. The traditional arts sections are always successful and influence Western artists in turn, such as American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was impressed by the Japanese pavilion at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and would design Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel 🏨 inaugurated in 1923 (destroyed in 1968).

Japan is even designated as the host for the 1940 Olympics 🏅 (in Tokyo), but the event is canceled due to Europe being at war. The major celebrities of the times did not hesitate to go to Japan for official tours, like Charlie Chaplin in 1932 (he even escaped a murder attempt while visiting) or in 1934 Babe Ruth, the famous baseball player, whose sport was always popular in the archipelago even during the war.