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Japan Early Developments
In the early sixteenth century, a feudally organized
Japan came
into contact with Western missionaries and traders for the
first
time. Westerners introduced important cultural innovations
into
Japanese society during more than a century of relations
with
various feudal rulers. But when the country was unified at
the
beginning of the seventeenth century, the Tokugawa
government
decided to expel the foreign missionaries and strictly
limit
intercourse with the outside world. National
seclusion--except for
contacts with the Chinese and Dutch--was Japan's foreign
policy for
more than two centuries
(see Seclusion and Social Control
, ch. 1).
When the Tokugawa seclusion was forcibly breached in
1853-54 by
Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy,
Japan found
that geography no longer ensured security--the country was
defenseless against military pressures and economic
exploitation by
the Western powers. After Perry's naval squadron had
compelled
Japan to enter into relations with the Western world, the
first
foreign policy debate was over whether Japan should embark
on an
extensive modernization to cope with the threat of the
"eastward
advance of Western power," which had already violated the
independence of China, or expel the "barbarians" and
return to
seclusion. The latter alternative--although it appealed to
many--
was never seriously considered. Beginning with the Meiji
Restoration of 1868, which ushered in a new, centralized
regime,
Japan set out to "gather wisdom from all over the world"
and
embarked on an ambitious program of military, social,
political,
and economic reforms that transformed it within a
generation into
a modern nation-state and major world power.
Modern Japan's foreign policy was shaped at the outset
by its
need to reconcile its Asian identity with its desire for
status and
security in an international order dominated by the West.
The
principal foreign policy goals of the Meiji period
(1868-1912) were
to protect the integrity and independence of the nation
against
Western domination and to win equality of status with the
leading
nations of the West by reversing the unequal treaties.
Because fear
of Western military power was the chief concern of the
Meiji
leaders, their highest priority was building up the basic
requirements for national defense, under the slogan
"wealth and
arms" (fukoku kyohei). They saw that a modern
military
establishment required national conscription drawing
manpower from
an adequately educated population, a trained officer
corps, a
sophisticated chain of command, and strategy and tactics
adapted to
contemporary conditions
(see The Modernization of the Military, 1868-1931
, ch. 8). Finally, it required modern arms
together with
the factories to make them, sufficient wealth to purchase
them, and
a transportation system to deliver them
(see The Emergence of Modern Japan, 1868-1919
, ch. 1).
An important objective of the military buildup was to
gain the
respect of the Western powers and achieve equal status for
Japan in
the international community. Inequality of status was
symbolized by
the treaties imposed on Japan when the country was first
opened to
foreign intercourse. The treaties were objectionable to
the
Japanese not only because they imposed low fixed tariffs
on foreign
imports and thus handicapped domestic industries, but also
because
their provisions gave a virtual monopoly of external trade
to
foreigners and granted extraterritorial status to foreign
nationals
in Japan, exempting them from Japanese jurisdiction and
placing
Japan in the inferior category of uncivilized nations.
Many of the
social and institutional reforms of the Meiji period were
designed
to remove the stigma of backwardness and inferiority
represented by
the "unequal treaties," and a major task of Meiji
diplomacy was to
press for early treaty revision.
Once created, the Meiji military machine was used to
extend
Japanese power overseas, for many leaders believed that
national
security depended on expansion and not merely a strong
defense.
Within thirty years, the country's military forces had
fought and
defeated imperial China in the First Sino-Japanese War
(1894-95),
winning possession of Taiwan and China's recognition of
Korea's
independence. Ten years later, in the Russo-Japanese War
(1904-5),
Japan defeated tsarist Russia and won possession of
southern
Sakhalin as well as a position of paramount influence in
Korea and
southern Manchuria. By this time, Japan had been able to
negotiate
revisions of the unequal treaties with the Western powers
and had
in 1902 formed an alliance with the world's leading power,
Britain.
After World War I, in which it sided with the Western
Allies,
Japan, despite its relatively small role in the war (with
little
effort it gained possession of former German territories
in the
Pacific), sat with the victors at Versailles and enjoyed
the status
of a great power in its own right.
Between World War I and World War II, the nation
embarked on a
course of imperialist expansion, using both diplomatic and
military
means to extend its control over more and more of the
Asian
mainland. It began to see itself as the protector and
champion of
Asian interests against the West, a point of view that
brought it
increasingly into conflict with the Western powers
(see Diplomacy
, ch. 1). When its aggressive policies met firm resistance
from the
United States and its allies, Japan made common cause with
the Axis
partnership of Germany and Italy and launched into war
with the
United States and the Western alliance
(see World War II
, ch. 8).
After Japan's devastating defeat in World War II, the
nation
came under an Allied occupation in which the United
States, as the
principal occupying power, was charged with the
demilitarization
and democratization of the state. Major changes were made
in
political, social, and economic institutions and
practices. During
the seven-year occupation, the country had no control over
its
foreign affairs and became in effect the ward of the
United States
on the international scene. It adopted a new constitution
whereby,
in Article 9, the "Japanese people forever renounce war as
a
sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of
force as a
means of settling international disputes"
(see The Postwar Constitution
, ch. 6).
Data as of January 1994
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