Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).

An additional Transcriber’s Note is at the end.

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HEADLINE BOOKS

No. 29

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HEADLINE BOOKS

=CHANGING GOVERNMENTS=
Amid New Social Problems

=SHADOW OVER EUROPE=
The Challenge of Nazi Germany

=BRICKS WITHOUT MORTAR=
The Story of International Cooperation

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The Story of Economic Warfare

=IN QUEST OF EMPIRE=
The Problem of Colonies

=HUMAN DYNAMITE=
The Story of Europe’s Minorities

=THE PEACE THAT FAILED=
How Europe Sowed the Seeds of War

=NEW HOMES FOR OLD=
Public Housing in Europe and America

=WAR ATLAS=
A Handbook of Maps and Facts

=THE BRITISH EMPIRE UNDER FIRE=

=SPOTLIGHT ON THE BALKANS=

=CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAS=

=LOOK AT LATIN AMERICA=
With 25 Maps and Charts

=AMERICA REARMS=
The Citizen’s Guide to National Defense

=SHADOW OVER ASIA=
The Rise of Militant Japan

=WAR ON THE SHORT WAVE=
(In preparation)

SHADOW OVER ASIA

THE RISE OF MILITANT JAPAN

by
T. A. BISSON

Illustrated by
GRAPHIC ASSOCIATES

THE FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION

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COPYRIGHT 1941

FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION, INCORPORATED
22 EAST 38TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published April 1941_

_Typography by Andor Braun_

PRODUCED UNDER UNION CONDITIONS AND
COMPOSED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY UNION LABOR

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

I. The Shadow 7

II. Introducing Imperial Japan 11

III. Imitating the Chinese 20

IV. Japan Bars Her Door 25

V. How the Door Was Opened 33

VI. Catching Up with the West 39

VII. Who Rules Modern Japan? 45

VIII. Creating a Modern Empire 53

IX. Japan and the First World War 59

X. Go Liberal, Go Fascist? 65

XI. The Shadow Deepens 73

XII. War with China 83

XIII. Shadow Over Asia 91

Suggested Reading 95

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I. The Shadow

On the morning of September 27, 1940 the cables hummed with news of a momentous ceremony. Japanese diplomats in Berlin had signed a military pact with Germany and Italy. That evening in Tokyo the Japanese people received a message from Emperor Hirohito. In their newspapers they read: “We are deeply gratified that a pact has been concluded between these three powers.” The Emperor had spoken. A new alliance had been formed. And a lengthening shadow was spreading over Asia.

TEN YEARS AGO AND NOW

The shadow had first been cast on another September day nearly ten years before, when a railway explosion at Mukden had served as an excuse for the Japanese military to take over Manchuria. As we look back now with the advantage of hindsight, that day--September 18, 1931--looms up as an important milestone. For Japan’s seizure of Manchuria ended one historic era, and began another. It abruptly broke up the period of comparative peace that had succeeded the first World War. And it ushered in our present period of strife and unsettlement. Its indirect effects on European developments were also very great. We know that Japan’s defiance lowered the prestige and authority of the League of Nations. It showed how hard it was to secure international cooperation strong enough to check determined aggression. Japan’s example undoubtedly influenced Mussolini and Hitler in the bold moves they made later on in Europe.

After 1935 German and Italian expansion in Europe paralleled Japan’s drive in the Far East. All of these movements steadily widened their scope. Increasingly these three powers played into one another’s hands, and helped one another’s advance. The anti-Comintern pact of November 1936 drew them closer together. But they were not formally allied until September 27, 1940, when Japan signed the military pact with the Axis powers.

This pact had startling implications. True, Germany and Italy were separated from Japan by vast distances. As long as Britain controlled the seas, the new allies could not actually join military forces. But Germany had only to put pressure on the French authorities at Vichy in order to help Japan win control over Indo-China. An Axis break-through in the Mediterranean, moreover, could swiftly bring her much greater aid.

TOWARD A “NEW ORDER”

It was this possibility that made Japan’s aims, as outlined in the alliance, so significant. Berlin and Rome waved Japan ahead toward the conquest of “Greater East Asia.” Until 1940 Tokyo’s official claims had reached out only to Manchuria and China. But the new term brought southeast Asia into the picture as well. This area would certainly include Indo-China, Siam, Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. On its outskirts lie Australia, New Zealand and India. By formally announcing “Greater East Asia” as Tokyo’s sphere of influence, the Axis-Japan pact served as a blueprint of the Far Eastern sector of the world order which the Axis alliance hoped to establish.

WHAT IS “GREATER EAST ASIA”?

The new allies were seeking control over three continents. Germany and Italy were bidding for domination over Europe, Africa and the Near East, creating new and urgent problems for us. Tokyo’s bid for supremacy in “Greater East Asia” raised problems which were just as great. To many of us these problems seemed far away--much more remote than those of Europe, to which we are bound by so many close ties. Yet we know now that we should be making a mistake if we tried to close our eyes to them.

More than one billion people, or half the earth’s population, live in the area embraced by “Greater East Asia.” It is thus one of the most populous regions of the globe. Its territorial spread is equally large. Its outside limits range from northern Japan to Australia, and from China and India to New Zealand. The whole North and South American continents, excluding Canada, could be fitted comfortably into this vast territory.

It is, besides, an area of great contrasts--greater, probably, than in any other region of the world. In a score of different localities conditions vary widely--climate, people, language, religion, economic life, government. Coolies working in Korean rice fields are a far cry from English-speaking Australian sheep ranchers, peasants in the remote interior of China from Malayan tin miners or East Indian rubber planters, Indian bazaars under a burning sun from Manchurian cities deep in their winter snows.

A COLONIAL REGION

Another feature of this region became especially important after Germany had conquered several European powers with Far Eastern possessions. For eastern Asia is one of the greatest colonial areas of the world, not even excepting Africa. From Korea to India runs a continuous chain of Japanese, French, American, Dutch and British holdings. Only Japan in the north, and Australia and New Zealand in the south, may be counted as fully independent countries. So this region is the scene not only of imperial rivalries, but of struggles for independence on the part of native peoples.

Thus many factors enter into the international developments affecting this region. Countless threads of policy connect it with Europe. They run to Berlin, and are woven into Hitler’s plans; to London, where they tie in with the problem of what naval and air forces the British can spare for the Far East; to Vichy, and the attitude of the French Government there; and to the refugee Netherlands authorities in Britain taking counsel on the fate of their colonies. Moscow is caught up in this diplomatic network, and so is Washington--their moves can exert decisive influence on the course of events.

JAPAN PULLS THE STRINGS

Yet the main moving force in Far Eastern developments is Japan. In fact, Japan has been pulling the strings ever since September 18, 1931. The challenge to the _status quo_ in East Asia proceeds from Tokyo, just as in Europe it proceeds from Berlin. Like Germany, but in even greater measure, Japan has the strategic advantage of a central position. She need not take too seriously the protests of European powers halfway across the globe, and she is well aware that the main centers of strength in the United States and the Soviet Union are almost equally distant. Only Japan, of the major powers, has her home bases wholly within the Far Eastern region.

And so today we are forced to think more and more about Japan. In large part we are concerned with the immediate present. We want to know what Japan is doing, and what she intends to do. Yet we can understand her present foreign policy and form some idea of her probable future moves only if we know something of her past as well. We must seek out the forces that have shaped modern Japan.

So in this book we shall go back to the legendary traditions of the Japanese nation, today being revived by Japanese patriots and preached as a state religion. We shall see how the belief in hereditary power as the privilege of the few has been strong in Japan from the earliest times, resisting the influence of democratic ideas from both China and the West; how even when Japan set up a constitutional government, the seats of ancient privilege were preserved; and how Japan, with her military leaders in the saddle, finally set out on the road to Empire.

II. Introducing Imperial Japan

Japan proper, consisting of four closely connected islands, has often been compared to the British Isles. A map of the Eurasian continent shows the similarity of their geographical position. Japan’s island chain is much longer, but it clings to the Asiatic mainland very much as the British Isles cling to the European mainland. The Straits of Tsushima take the place of the English Channel.

Actually, however, Japan is much farther from the mainland than Britain, even in the narrow waters of Tsushima. The steamer from Shimonoseki takes nearly eight hours in crossing over to Fusan, on the tip of the Korean peninsula. This fact has had important historical results. The stretch of water has been wide enough to make invasion difficult--at least until modern times. Yet it has not been so wide as to bar cultural exchanges with the mainland.

JAPAN AND THE ASIATIC MAINLAND

During historic times, for roughly 2,000 years, Japan was never successfully invaded. In 1066 William the Conqueror successfully invaded England. But two centuries later, in 1274 and 1281, Kublai Khan’s Mongol-Chinese armies twice failed to conquer Japan. For long periods, when Japan’s rulers so wished, they were able to isolate their country more or less completely from the Asiatic mainland.

On the other hand, Japan was close enough to the continent to benefit from the earlier growth of civilization there. From the very beginning of Japanese national life, we can trace significant advances to the coming of peoples and cultures from the Korean peninsula. At times, notably in the seventh and eighth centuries, the flood of cultural influences from China almost swamped Japan and threatened to sweep away her native institutions. During the past century Western influence has caused equally great changes in Japanese life. Each time, however, a solid core of Japanese tradition resisted destruction, and shaped the new elements into a social pattern characteristically Japanese.

JAPAN’S ISLAND HOME

Many local features of Japan’s island home are as important as its geographical position. Its natural beauties have fed the highly developed aesthetic sense of the Japanese people. No one who has traveled the Inland Sea can forget its sparkling waters, or the lovely islands which dot its surface. The majestic beauty of Mt. Fuji is world famous. Hallowed associations enhance its snow-capped splendor for the Japanese.

Not all characteristics of the group of Japanese islands are so favorable. Many of its mountains are volcanic in origin. Several volcanoes are still active. Earthquakes occur frequently. (The disastrous earthquake of 1923, with over 150,000 dead and injured, is still fresh in our memories.) Typhoons, sweeping in from the sea in destructive assault, are also common. So nature contributes an element of insecurity to the life of the Japanese, offsetting the protection their isolation gives them.

Today other natural features give rise to a more serious insecurity. Japan’s territory is small, barely the size of California, the population is large and prolific. Four-fifths of the islands are so mountainous that they are useless for the intensive rice cultivation which is the principal Japanese agricultural pursuit. In recent times, when modern industry became necessary, the Japanese islands were found to lack most minerals. Water power is abundant, and can be harnessed to produce electricity. There are considerable reserves of coal, though not of good coking quality. But there is little iron, and even less of the minor but still important metals. To these factors, which have not prevented the Japanese from becoming an industrial nation, we shall have to return later on.

WHO ARE THE JAPANESE?

Like all modern peoples, the Japanese of today are a mixed race. In prehistoric times one migrant people after another overran the islands. The ocean set a barrier to further migration. So the invaders had to settle down, either exterminating the people already there or else intermarrying with them.

The last invasions must have occurred early in the Christian era. Scholars are not agreed on the exact racial proportions of the groups which mingled to form the modern Japanese people. The basic stock is probably Mongolian, the result of migrations through Korea from the north Asiatic continent. There is apparently a southern admixture, coming from either southeast China or Malaysia. Many of these groups were late invaders of the islands. They found there an Ainu people, possibly of Caucasian racial origin. Ainu remnants still survive in Japan, but most of them have been absorbed or exterminated in the course of centuries of warfare.

Three main racial elements thus entered into the making of the Japanese people. To the Mongol strain is undoubtedly due the warlike spirit of the Japanese, while from southeast Asia comes a mythology that has been interwoven with Japan’s political institutions. Later, there were also many Chinese and Korean immigrants. By the end of the seventh century, according to one source, more than one-third of Japan’s noble families claimed Chinese or Korean descent.

EARLY JAPANESE INSTITUTIONS

To understand modern Japan, we need to study the past even more than in the case of most Western nations. For survivals of ancient traditions play a large part in Japan’s national life today. These beliefs and practices can be traced back for nearly two thousand years. What were these institutions like in their earliest form?

Historians give only a partial answer to this question. The latest island invaders, who became the dominant Japanese, were a group of clans or tribes. Leadership in these clans was hereditary. The clan elder was both chieftain and high priest. He supervised or performed sacrifices to the clan god, who was usually held to be his direct ancestor. All clansmen were supposedly united by blood ties to the clan elder, and thus shared in the divine descent.

“THE WAY OF THE GODS”

Societies ruled by a priest-king, usually called “theocracies,” have existed in many parts of the world. In Japan, however, theocracy grew all the stronger because of a mythological tradition, later called Shinto, or “Way of the Gods,” centering about a Sun Goddess (Amaterasu). There were many aspects to Shinto, including an early nature worship. But its main feature came to be the story of the Sun Goddess, whose descendants were the Japanese people. Early in their history the rulers of Japan raised this myth to the dignity of a state cult. The chieftain of the Yamato clan, the strongest of all, claimed direct descent from the Sun Goddess. This claim was a very real thing in Japan. It was taken much more literally than our vaguer Western idea of “the divine right of kings,” which persisted until the eighteenth century in Europe.

The clansmen were aristocrats who handed on their privileges from father to son, and to whom war was second nature. But agriculture, in the shape of the cultivation of rice, was already a cornerstone in the economy of this early Japanese society. Under the clansmen were “guilds” of farmers and artisans, who did most of the productive work. Membership in these producing units also passed from father to son. These serfs, as well as a smaller number of actual slaves, were made up largely of war captives, conquered natives, or immigrants from Korea.

The chief ideas of this primitive Shinto society are quite clear. There was a strong emphasis on the hereditary principle. The idea of an aristocracy of the blood was strengthened by the idea of descent from the gods. Government was by men, not by law. The clan or group, not the individual, was important. The mass of the people lived to serve their rulers. We shall see how these primitive ideas--so like the totalitarian ideas of today--have influenced Japanese history through the centuries.

BEGINNINGS OF A NATION-STATE

At first the invading clans were not unified. There was little centralized government. The Yamato chieftain had only a shadowy authority over the other clans. He was “first among equals,” rather than an overlord. He controlled directly the territory held by his own clan, but not the lands of other clans. Nor did his religious authority extend far beyond his own clan.

During the first four or five centuries of the Christian era this picture was steadily changing. Most of central and western Japan was conquered and occupied as the result of a long series of wars. The power of the Yamato clan was growing. Its chieftain was becoming the ruler of a centralized state. His position was approaching that of a king. Lesser leaders were being attached to this “Emperor,” and were assuming the role of ministers at the “court.”

In other ways, too, the various clans were merging into a centralized state. The Emperor, as the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, came to be recognized as divine ruler of the whole Japanese people. More and more the Japanese thought of themselves as a single patriarchal family, headed by “the Sovereign that is a manifest God.” Ancestors of the other clan leaders, also divine, were brought into relation with those of the Emperor, but in subordinate rank. The strongest clans were able to claim descent from deities closely associated with the Sun Goddess.

CONQUESTS IN KOREA

These political and religious changes were the outward signs of an underlying movement of growth and expansion. A larger and larger area of the islands was being occupied. The population was growing, and additional economic units, or “guilds,” were being formed. Japanese armies were fighting in Korea, where they dominated the southern region of the peninsula for long periods. Through this contact with the mainland, a stream of Korean immigrants, and even some Chinese, flowed into Japan. Many of them were educated scribes, Buddhist priests or expert artisans. By the fifth century the Japanese had learned the rudiments of Chinese writing, and in the sixth century Buddhism was officially introduced from Korea. The wealth of Chinese civilization was thus opened up to the Japanese people.

THE OLD ORDER BREAKS DOWN

By the sixth century, Japan faced new and difficult problems. Old forms of government were breaking down. The simple clan rule, based on blood ties, was being upset by migrations within, and immigration from without. New leaders were faking their family trees, in order to claim divine descent. The clan chieftains found their priestly control over the people slipping, and had to try the use of political and military power instead.

Special difficulties arose when new areas were conquered, or large numbers of immigrants arrived. There were disputes between clans, some of which favored “guilds” and some a freer order of serfs. The Imperial clan proved able to get the richest of the new areas, and to extend the lands and increase the people under its control. But this did not settle the problem. For the leading clans tried to control the Emperor, and fought over rival claimants to the throne.

These bitter quarrels threatened to tear the new state apart. A more effective centralization, both of economic and political power, had obviously become necessary. The groundwork had been laid, and the times called for a drastic change. The model was sought in China, then flourishing under the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.).

III. Imitating the Chinese

One of the most dramatic episodes of modern history has been Japan’s adoption of Western institutions and techniques. But the interesting thing is that such wholesale borrowings were not new in the history of Japan. More than a thousand years earlier she had drawn similarly on Chinese civilization. That earlier period, moreover, was akin to the later in one significant respect--the old Japanese ways persisted under the new shell. The changes were only skin-deep. And the more important beliefs and practices that featured the early clan society we have been studying continued to govern Japanese behavior.

Japan’s contacts with China had begun well before the seventh century, the period when they became so marked. At first these contacts had been only secondhand, through Korea. Direct relations with China had been established early in the fifth century, but had remained unofficial. The first official Japanese envoy was sent to the Sui Dynasty in 607 A.D., and a second embassy followed in 608. In the two centuries after 630, no less than twelve Japanese embassies visited the T’ang court at Ch’ang-an, located on the site of the modern city of Sian (see map opposite). These two hundred years were China’s golden age, when dazzling Ch’ang-an was the world’s foremost civilized center. Japanese monks and scholars accompanied the embassies, often remaining in China for long periods of study. They brought back to Japan a thorough knowledge of Chinese culture--much as Japanese students have returned from Western countries with new knowledge and skills during the past eighty years or so.

CHINA BECOMES THE “GLASS OF FASHION”

Chinese civilization, during the seventh and eighth centuries, was transplanted to Japan on a vast scale. Nara, the new Japanese capital (see map opposite), was built on the lavish model of Ch’ang-an. Court society became highly sophisticated. The ability to write a good Chinese hand, or turn a Chinese verse, was the indispensable equipment of an educated man. The first national histories of Japan were written--most of them in the Chinese language. Buddhism flourished. Japanese artistic skill expressed itself in masterpieces of sculpture and architecture, modeled on T’ang examples but individual in genius and execution. Native Japanese poetry flowered and, in general, this was the classic age of Japanese culture.

In the field of government the Japanese also imitated the T’ang system. They declared the land “nationalized”--or subject only to the Emperor’s control. They reorganized local government, putting Imperial officials in direct control, especially of tax revenues. In China such officials were chosen through an examination system, so examinations were introduced in Japan. The Emperor was now, in theory at least, the all-powerful head of the Japanese state.

BUT IT’S CHINA--“WITH A DIFFERENCE”

These reforms were not amateurish. They were based on a good knowledge of the principles and practices of the Chinese system. Yet in their pure Chinese form they worked against certain ingrained Japanese ideas, most of all the hereditary principle. So, from the beginning, the Japanese changed the Chinese system as they took it over. The changes may not have seemed great at the time, but they were really basic. Within a few centuries, the new institutions had produced an entirely different result in Japan. Only in form did they bear any resemblance to the institutions of China.

The clearest example of such changes is the way Japan’s statesmen treated the Chinese examination system. In China, at its best, this was a real civil service system. For centuries the path to public office lay through success in the examinations. Sons of great families undoubtedly had a better chance of succeeding, and bribery and favoritism were rife in decadent periods. But the “success story” of the Horatio Alger type fills Chinese literature. In not a few cases, the poor but brilliant Chinese youth passes the examinations with honors, and becomes a powerful and wealthy official.

THE ARISTOCRAT’S PLACE IN THE SUN

This system was altogether too democratic for Japan’s clan society, with its emphasis on aristocratic lineage. At the very outset it was drastically modified. Training schools were set up, but only nobles of a certain rank could enter them. These persons alone could take the examinations, and qualify for high office. After a time, even the examinations were discontinued. Important government posts soon became hereditary again. Lower posts in the provinces were usually taken by local leaders, instead of officers sent by the Imperial government. The higher provincial officials meanwhile stayed at court, and delegated their powers to personal followers in the various localities.

A similar development took place in the case of the land reforms. The land was “nationalized,” but it proved impossible to preserve the public domain. The great estates of the clan leaders were returned to them in payment for their official services, and then remained hereditary. Powerful individuals encroached on the public lands, or impoverished peasants escaped tax exactions by joining their lands to privately owned manors, and becoming serfs. In practice, the public domain was gradually taken over by private families, the court nobility or the great monasteries.

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE

As these private estates were usually tax-free, the Imperial government was soon deprived of its revenue. And so, as time went on, the Emperor became a mere figurehead. Elaborate state councils and ministries, patterned after those of China, became nothing more than ceremonial forms. Yet centralization was maintained for several centuries, with the great Fujiwara family as the real power behind the throne. This family held vast provincial estates, controlled many of the local officials, and dominated the court. By wedding the Imperial princes to Fujiwara ladies, it reduced the Emperors to puppets. The Fujiwara dictatorship ruled a much more intricate and cultured society than had existed in the early clan period. On the surface, this new society was Chinese; in fact, it was still run in the old Japanese way.

Changes there had been, however. The courtier had replaced the warrior. Instead of fighting clan chieftains, a bureaucracy of civilians now ruled. Buddhism had pervaded Japanese society from top to bottom. The teachings of Confucius had also been introduced from China. For a time the home-grown Shinto religion was overshadowed, and lay dormant. But it was not wholly eclipsed. The Emperor reigned, if he did not rule. Though the Shinto ritual, playing up the Emperor’s descent from the Sun Goddess, might be neglected, it was never lost. Japanese government was still theocratic (centering on a priest-king), even if a Fujiwara pulled the strings and bureaucrats played all the active roles.

IV. Japan Bars Her Door

We must now leap several centuries to about 1550, when the first Western traders and missionaries reached Japan.

The Japan of 1550 differed greatly from the Japan of the Fujiwara era we left behind us five or six centuries earlier. The Fujiwara power had passed away in the twelfth century. Its civilian government had grown weak. It could not even keep the peace. As disorder grew in the provinces, great independent lords surrounded themselves with military retainers on their private estates. A feudal society gradually emerged. In 1185 one of these feudal lords established his supremacy over the others, and soon obtained Imperial appointment as “Shogun,” or Generalissimo. The Emperor’s court still carried on at Kyoto, but political control passed increasingly to the Shoguns, who became military dictators. A military aristocracy--but a rapidly shifting one--dominated Japan. As new feudal lords grew in strength, they would challenge the Shogun’s authority and bitter civil wars would follow. Strife and disorder amounting to anarchy marked the century which preceded 1550.

Then the trend was reversed. By 1590, through the work of three great leaders--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu--the country was unified again. In the brief period that followed--say, until 1625--Japan was confronted with a fateful question. Should it embark on a program of military and commercial expansion, similar to that which Western nations were just entering upon? For a time it seemed that the answer might be “yes.” In the end, it was “no.” And that “no” changed the whole course of Far Eastern and perhaps world history. In 1603 Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate, destined to rule Japan for more than 250 years. After 1616, under his successors, the seclusion policy was gradually adopted, and Japan was practically isolated from the outside world.

Was this choice inevitable? We cannot really tell. We do know that in the period just before she barred her door Japan was reaching outward toward full intercourse with the West.

REACHING OUTWARD

For the last thirty years of the sixteenth century were a dynamic period in Japanese history. An excess of energy in Japan seemed to match the urge for discovery and conquest that stirred the rising nations of Europe.

Japan’s domestic and foreign trade had been increasing at a rapid pace. Native industries had grown, and trade guilds had flourished. After 1550 this commercial development leaped forward. Sakai, a great trading center, became virtually a free city, ruled by its merchant princes. Nagasaki was opened to foreign trade in 1570, and soon developed into a thriving port. At this time, too, Japanese ships, often on piratical expeditions, were venturing into the waters of the Philippines and Siam. In groups and as individuals, Japanese emigrants were found at various ports in southeast Asia. Hideyoshi even conceived the project of conquering China, but after overrunning Korea in 1592-93, his armies (numbering 150,000 men) were defeated.

After 1550 missionaries and traders from Portugal, Spain, Holland and England came to Japan in growing numbers. The Japanese eagerly seized upon Western products and technical advances, notably in firearms and shipbuilding. These commercial contacts with the West modified Japan’s economy and stimulated her industrial development. For several decades Christianity, introduced by St. Francis Xavier in 1549-51, was welcomed. Some of the feudal lords became Christians. By 1617 there were some 300,000 Christian converts, or nearly as many as today.

JAPAN SENDS ENVOYS TO SPAIN

For a time, there was the possibility of even more extensive contacts between Tokugawa Japan and the West. Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun, deliberately sought to make Japan a great center of international trade. China, mindful of Hideyoshi’s Korean invasions, rebuffed him. He then turned to the West--that is, to Spain, then the richest trading nation of Europe. In 1610 Ieyasu concluded a commercial treaty with the Spanish governor of the Philippines. In 1610 and 1614 Japanese envoys crossed the Pacific and visited some of the Spanish possessions in America. Then they went on across the Atlantic. In Madrid the Japanese envoy had an audience with King Philip III on January 30, 1615; later, he saw the Pope at Rome. The Spanish king, however, influenced by the anti-Christian persecutions that had already occurred in Japan, rejected Ieyasu’s request for a treaty establishing trade relations with Spain and the Spanish-American possessions.

BUT FINALLY PULLS IN HER LINES

It was not until more than two centuries later that such an opportunity presented itself again. For soon after Ieyasu’s death in 1616, the policy of national seclusion was adopted.

Many factors led to this decision. The narrow intolerance of the missionaries, as well as conflicts between rival Jesuit and Franciscan orders, had created difficulties almost from the beginning of their stay in Japan. More important was the fear that estates of the Christian lords might become centers of rebellion, and thus lay Japan open to conquest by a foreign power. Persecution began under Hideyoshi, and after 1616 a series of anti-Christian edicts was issued. The Christian persecutions reached their height in 1622-24, although Christianity was not fully stamped out until 1638.

At this time Japanese were forbidden to go abroad, and the building of large sea-going vessels was also prohibited. All foreign traders and priests either left Japan or were expelled. A small Dutch trading center, restricted after 1641 to the islet patch of Deshima, was all that remained of the early period of intercourse with the West. By 1650 the policy of national seclusion, introduced by the Shoguns of the Tokugawa clan, was in full force. It was maintained until after the middle of the nineteenth century, or well into the modern era.

THE DUTCH OASIS ON DESHIMA

We should be on guard, however, against some common errors about this important period in Japan’s history. The term “hermit nation” must not be taken too literally. Seclusion was not complete. Through the Dutch settlement on Deshima, ideas from Europe filtered into Japan. A small group of Japanese scholars studied the Dutch language. In 1745 they prepared a Dutch-Japanese dictionary, and in 1774 a Dutch textbook on anatomy was translated. Of course, Japan did not keep abreast of Western technical progress during the Tokugawa epoch. But valuable beginnings were made, especially in language study, medicine, geography, map-making and military science.

Another common error associated with the idea of a “hermit nation” is that Tokugawa Japan remained static for two hundred years. In reality great internal changes occurred during this period, some of which were fundamental. By 1850 Japan was a very different country from what it had been in 1650.

The seeming lack of development was most evident in the Tokugawa political system. Its broad outlines did not, in fact, change very much. The Emperor and his court were kept secluded at Kyoto. The real center of government lay in Tokyo, where the Shoguns and their ministers ruled. Most of the land was owned by the Tokugawa family and the great feudal lords (_daimyo_) closely associated with it. About three-eighths, however, was owned by the “outer lords,” such as Choshu and Satsuma. These “outer lords” were viewed as potential rebels, and were denied posts in the central administration. All of the feudal lords had to spend certain months in attendance on the Shogun at Tokyo, and had to leave their families there as hostages when they went back to their own lands.

FOUR CLASSES OF SOCIETY

Efforts were made to draw strict class lines. The feudal lords and their military retainers, or _samurai_, held the highest rank. The farmers came next, but they were severely taxed and harshly treated. The townspeople were looked upon as the lowest class of all. A _samurai_ had the right to cut down a merchant with his sword, but very early in the Tokugawa period he learned to respect the power of the merchant’s purse.

DAIMYO (A Feudal Lord) Ruler but heavily in debt

SAMURAI (Military Retainers) Poor but proud

PEASANTS Poor and downtrodden

MERCHANTS Despised but wealthy]

Yet all measures to preserve a rigid centralized feudalism, and to maintain Tokugawa rule, proved futile. Halfway through the period serious economic problems began to appear. By 1850 the whole system was on the verge of collapse.

THE SHOGUNS FAIL TO CONTROL THE MERCHANTS

In their attempts to prevent change, the Shoguns were unable to master one basic element in their society--trade and industry. Even before the Tokugawa regime was established, as we have seen, Japan’s commerce had already grown sizable. Foreign trade was then cut off. But internal trade, stimulated by a long period of peace, continued to develop. New luxury goods of many varieties were produced, and industry prospered. The merchant class in the cities grew wealthy and powerful. Large business houses, including the present Mitsui firm, were founded. Money, instead of rice, became the medium of exchange. The transition to a money economy was gradual, but it worked a revolution in Japanese society.

Incomes of the _daimyo_ and _samurai_ were in rice. The rice had to be changed into money, and great exchange marts--similar to our modern commodity exchanges--grew up in Osaka. The rice brokers “rigged” prices. Dizzy price fluctuations occurred. The feudal lords and their _samurai_ fell into debt to the rice brokers and the money lenders. Government intervention did not help matters. The Shogunate either debased the coinage, or tried vainly to control prices by decree. The farmers suffered most of all--from the change to money, from the price fluctuations, and from still heavier taxes when the feudal lords became indebted to the merchants. After 1725 the number of farmers declined; after 1750 peasant uprisings were frequent.

AND FACE A RISING REVOLT

In other ways, too, loyalty to the Shogunate was undermined. The luxury of the towns stimulated a type of life quite the opposite from that inspired by the Spartan ethical code, called Bushido, of the _samurai_. Rich townspeople craved amusement--and painting, the drama, and the novel flourished. No laws could prevent the _samurai_ from being drawn to this life, nor could executing a more than usually lavish merchant or usurer turn back the tide of the new age.

Other intellectual currents were more acutely dangerous to the Shogunate. Ancient history, literature and religion were studied, and there was a revival of interest in Shintoism. From these historical and literary schools there grew a political movement, aimed at restoring the Emperor to his former place as ruler of the nation.

Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the country was ripe for revolt. In the background lay the misery and distress of the farmer. But the active promoters of this revolutionary overthrow of the Shogunate were discontented groups within the ruling class. Four of these groups banded together to bring about the Restoration: (1) the “outer lords” of Choshu, Satsuma and the other western fiefs; (2) the lesser _samurai_, ambitious and energetic; (3) the merchants, who desired removal of feudal restrictions on their business activities; and (4) the court nobles of ancient lineage who still clung to the Emperor at Kyoto. This was a powerful coalition, and sooner or later it would undoubtedly have brought down the Shogunate through its own strength. As it happened, pressure on Japan from Western nations came to its aid and hastened the outbreak of the revolt that was brewing inside the country.

V. How the Door Was Opened

By the nineteenth century, a new flood of Western influence was sweeping into the Far East. As in the age of exploration and discovery, the West was knocking at the door.

In those earlier days, we must remember, the West had had little to offer in the way of progress. In fact, in the arts and in the graces of civilized life, the East could have given pointers to the West. But now the West came strong in the might of the industrial revolution. Master of machine technique, it was turning out manufactured products in larger and larger quantities. It was extending international trade by leaps and bounds. It was seeking new markets and sources of raw materials throughout the world. And the most powerful of the Western countries were staking out colonies wherever they could.

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

1853 to 1868 were the years of transition for Japan. They were crowded with events that laid the cornerstone of the modern Japanese Empire.

Two broad trends were uppermost during these years. First, there was the coming of the Western powers with their demand for diplomatic relations, trade and intercourse--in a word, for the end of the seclusion policy and the opening of Japan’s door. Of course, the Shogun, as the ruling power, had the job of dealing with the Western nations. Too weak to resist, he had to give way. And his enemies at home seized on this opportunity to discredit him. The second main trend, therefore, was the sharpening of Japan’s internal conflict.

The extraordinary thing about this internal conflict in Japan was this. The groups opposing the Shogunate were revolutionaries: they rejected the existing system and fought for a new one. They sought progress for Japan--and progress meant opening the country to Western influence. Yet in their struggle with the Shoguns they were all against the foreigner. The reason is not far to seek. Anti-foreign demonstrations provided a handy weapon for attacking and discrediting the Shogunate. As we shall see later on, when it had served its purpose, this weapon was dropped.

But, meanwhile, let us look a little more closely at the two broad trends we have mentioned. Let us see first how, by a series of steps taken between 1853 and 1867, Japan’s door was gradually opened.

THE “UNEQUAL” TREATIES

What happened to Japan in her relations with the Western powers at this time had previously happened to China. For a long time there had been a closely regulated Western trade at Canton. During the early nineteenth century this trade had steadily expanded. China’s last-minute efforts to keep real control in her own hands were unsuccessful. The Anglo-Chinese war of 1839-42, and further conflicts in 1857-60, ended China’s seclusion and forced the Manchu authorities to treat with the Western powers on terms of diplomatic equality. The treaties signed at this time--later called the “unequal” treaties--actually established China’s _in_equality. Not only were new ports opened to Western trade. But a fixed schedule of Chinese tariff dues, usually not exceeding 5 per cent, was also enforced. In addition, Western nationals were exempted from trial under Chinese law. Instead, they were to be tried in courts set up by their own consuls in China. This was the system known as “extraterritoriality.”

These events in China did not pass unnoticed in Japan. Many of the Japanese leaders, despite the Shogunate’s policy of isolation, were aware of what was happening in China. They began to be alarmed over Japan’s future, fearing that the Western powers would soon be knocking at Japan’s door. And sure enough, very soon they were.

COMMODORE PERRY BRINGS A LETTER

The visits of Commodore Perry’s squadron to Japan in 1853 and 1854, bearing President Fillmore’s letter asking for the opening of trade relations, were the prelude. Commodore Perry secured the first treaty, on March 31, 1854. More important was the commercial treaty (July 29, 1858) negotiated by Townsend Harris, first American Minister to Japan. This treaty opened five Japanese ports to Americans for trade and residence, and--like the treaties with China--provided for a fixed tariff schedule and extraterritoriality. It was the model for similar agreements, also concluded in 1858, with England, France, Russia and Holland. All of these treaties were signed by the Shogun, but not by the Emperor. Later, as the Emperor’s power grew, the opposition sought to prevent application of the treaties on the ground that the Emperor had not ratified them. In November 1865, however, an Allied naval demonstration off Osaka forced the Emperor to give his signature. Finally, in June 1866, a tariff convention set 5 per cent as the duty on practically all imports and exports.

We shall have to return to these treaties a little later. For soon after the Restoration of the Emperor, they became a galling yoke to the Japanese. The tariff and extraterritorial provisions, in particular, were resented as shackles on the full exercise of Japan’s sovereignty. Three long decades were to pass before Japan gained enough strength, toward the close of the century, to revise these unequal treaties.

THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE IN JAPAN

At the time the treaties were negotiated, however, the issue was not one of equality. The issue was whether there should be any treaties at all. For many Japanese wanted no opening of Japan’s door. After the first treaties, nevertheless, a growing number of Westerners began to live in the ports opened to foreigners. The cry to “expel the foreigner” was then raised. Coupled with this slogan was the challenging demand to “revere the Emperor”--a direct call to revolution against the Shogun. The whole country was aroused. It seethed with internal strife and dissension, with plots and counter-plots, and even with armed conflict.

The anti-foreign movement was merely the spark that set off a bonfire that had been long in the making. By 1850 the Shogunate was nearly bankrupt. The feudal lords, or _daimyo_, were in the same position. Most of their landed property was mortgaged to the merchant-bankers--the rising capitalist class. Thousands of _samurai_ were poverty-stricken. The condition of the peasantry, taxed more and more heavily to pay for the debts of the feudal lords, was desperate. Even the wealthy merchants, irked by feudal restrictions and the social and political inferiority that was forced upon them, were dissatisfied. The demand for change was growing broader and deeper.

SUPPORTERS OF THE EMPEROR

In Kyoto the Emperor had become the center of an active and determined political movement. Its platform--anti-foreign and anti-Tokugawa--called for the restoration of the Imperial power. The court nobles and a growing number of the _samurai_ and feudal lords supported it. Wealthy merchant-banker families, such as the Mitsui house, provided it with cash. Above all, the movement was eventually backed by a coalition of the western clans, notably those of Choshu and Satsuma. The part these clans played, both in the Restoration movement and in the later Imperial government, was decisive.

THE ROLE OF THE WESTERN CLANS

These clans, you will remember, were ruled by so-called “outer lords,” who were denied a part in the Tokugawa administration. The fact that they were so far from the center of government at Tokyo encouraged them to be independent. Moreover, they were in many respects the strongest and most progressive of the leading Japanese clans. In developing manufacture and trade as a means of boosting clan revenue, Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa and Hizen were far ahead of other clans. They fostered not only handicrafts, porcelain manufacture, sugar-refining and textile mills, but mining, iron foundries, gun-making, shipbuilding and allied military industries. Choshu also made a revolutionary change in its army, by including commoners as well as the _samurai_ in its ranks.

In these western clans, the anti-foreign spirit was at first intense. For some years, in defiance of the Shogunate, the clans carried on what was practically an independent war against the Western powers and the new treaty rights of Westerners in Japan. They frequently attacked foreigners and their employees. Things came to a head in 1863-64, when they tried to expel the foreigners. In August 1863, in retaliation for the murder of an Englishman by Satsuma clansmen, a British squadron bombarded the Satsuma port of Kagoshima. And in September 1864 an Allied fleet (British, Dutch, French, American) destroyed Choshu forts at Shimonoseki which had been firing on Western vessels passing through the narrow straits.

These decisive proofs of Western military and naval superiority gave Satsuma and Choshu pause. Both clans stopped their anti-foreign activities. They had long seen the need of acquiring modern armaments. This determination was now made doubly strong. Many other leaders came to see that Japan could not keep her door shut forever, and that her salvation lay in mastering Western techniques. Once having grasped this principle, they acted on it boldly and unhesitatingly.

THE RESTORATION

The Emperor’s prestige--and, indeed, actual authority--had grown steadily throughout this transition period. As early as 1858, recognizing the Emperor’s new importance, the Shogun sought his approval of greater intercourse with the West. In 1863 the Shogun even obeyed an Imperial summons to Kyoto. The advent of a new Shogun and a new Emperor in 1867 made the transfer of authority all the easier. In November 1867 the new Shogun resigned, and on January 3, 1868 the Emperor Meiji, backed by the western clans, formally assumed control of the nation. Six months later the Tokugawa forces, taking the field in opposition to the seizure of power by the western clans, were defeated in pitched battle. A new Empire had been founded.

VI. Catching up with the West

Great difficulties faced the early Meiji reformers. Their essential task was to catch up with the West. For two centuries Japan had kept to herself. During this period the Western world had made gigantic technical advances, greater than man had achieved in all preceding history. Japan had been left far behind. She was forced to do in decades what the West had done in centuries.

How could Japan accomplish such a task? In both economy and government she was still largely feudal and decentralized. There was no real national state, as we understand that term today. Instead, there were a hundred competing clans, each with its own territorial lord. And over all lay the shadow of Western aggression, dictating speed and more speed.

TACKLING THE PROBLEM

From the outset of the Meiji era, anti-foreignism was dropped. Emperor Meiji’s famous Charter Oath (April 6, 1868) contained this statement: “Knowledge and learning shall be sought for throughout the world in order to establish the foundations of the Empire.”

A period of borrowing from the West, comparable only to the earlier imitation of China, set in. One after another, Japanese official missions were sent abroad. Foreign advisers--British, French, Dutch, German, American--were employed in many different fields. Large numbers of Japanese students entered the universities of Western countries. For a short time imitation of the West went to extremes; in many externals, Western ways became a fad. On the whole, however, there was strict control over the process of borrowing, and careful adaptation to Japanese needs.

In keeping with Japan’s traditions, a limited group maintained firm and despotic power at all times. The Meiji political reforms clothed old ideas of government in new garments. Emperor Meiji (1868-1912) reigned again, and with some degree of authority. But actual power during his long reign lay in the hands of the small group of men who surrounded him. There was no thoroughgoing mass upheaval, forcing recognition of popular rights. Reforms were dictated from the top down.

THREE NEW TRENDS

The great changes which occurred during the Meiji era may be grouped under three main headings. There were, in the first place, the economic reforms which merged the old feudal lords and _samurai_ into a new society, and laid the foundations of Japan’s modern industries. Then, there was a political movement which led finally to the Emperor’s proclamation of a written constitution. Finally, there was a cautious development of foreign policy by which Japan, at first on the defensive, later embarked on an expansionist program and fought its wars with China and Russia. In this chapter we shall look at the first of these trends.

ABOLITION OF FEUDAL RIGHTS

Between 1868 and 1877 a series of basic reforms gave centralized control to the Imperial government. The four western clans returned their lands to the Emperor, thus enabling him to order the other clans to do the same. In this way the government took over the land taxes, the main source of revenue. But the lords, though they no longer held the land registers, were still political rulers in their feudal domains. So, in 1871, an Imperial decree established prefectures, with Imperial governors, in place of the old clan divisions. Finally, the feudal lords lost their private armies. At first, the Imperial government’s army consisted mainly of the military forces of the western clans. By 1873, however, the government was able to enforce a system of universal military service, and thus build up a national conscript army under its own absolute control.

Why, you ask, did the feudal lords accept so easily this rapid loss of their former powers? In large part, it was a result of the lead taken by the western clans, whose _samurai_ statesmen held the reins in the Imperial government. For they were prepared to back the new measures with military action, if necessary. But a second factor was equally important. The clan lords, especially the great _daimyo_, were well paid for the surrender of their old privileges. Their lands were not confiscated outright. Large annual grants of money were allotted them out of central revenues. But the payments originally promised in this huge pension scheme turned out to be too heavy for the central treasury to meet. The government therefore first reduced the pensions and then, in 1876, compulsorily ended them by means of lump-sum payments, in cash or short-term bonds. Though this drastic scaling down of the original pension scheme amounted to repudiating its earlier promises, the government had no other way of avoiding bankruptcy. As it was, the total cost of commuting the pensions came to nearly 211 million yen--a large sum for that period. In many respects, this way of dealing with the pensions laid the basis of the new Japanese society which has since developed.

LORDS INTO CAPITALISTS

The _daimyo_, or great feudal lords, did not fare so badly in the financial settlement of 1876. They were relieved of all their debts, and of their previous obligations to support their military retainers, the _samurai_. They retained great slices of their former lands, which they now held as private owners--that is, with fewer responsibilities. Moreover, they acquired large sums of money when the pensions were commuted. These sums they invested in banks, stocks and industries, as well as in landed estates. The _daimyo_ were thus merged into the new society, no longer as territorial rulers but as wealthy financial magnates, controlling the economic life of the countryside.

So, from their own point of view, commutation of the pensions was a master-stroke by Japan’s new rulers. It helped to throw caste distinctions of the old feudal type into the melting pot. It won the allegiance of the clan lords to the new order simply by making allegiance worth their while.

THE LOT OF THE _SAMURAI_