Iwakura Mission
Iwakura Tomomi led a delegation of nearly 50 government officials on an 18-month diplomatic mission to Europe and the United States. They traveled, observed public and private institutions, and debated foreign technology together. They recorded their observations for potential “Western Technology” to be redeployed to protect Japanese aims.
| Delegate | A main subject of study in the US and Europe | Result in Japan |
|---|---|---|
| Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909) | Prussian, Austrian and other Constitutions and governments | a chief writer of the Meiji Constitution: Favored sovereignty in the monarch, rejected liberalism of US Constitution |
| Takayoshi Kido (1833-77) | Political Systems | Advocated the gradual establishment of a constitutional government |
| Toshimichi Okubo (1830-78) | Economic and Educational Reform | Established technical schools; granted subsides and loans to business; Government build factories |
Japan Beats Russia
At the beginning of the 20th century, Japan and Russia fought to control Manchuria, a northeastern region of China, and its adjacent Korean peninsula. In 1895, Korea was divided between a conservative Chinese-leaning faction and a Japanese-oriented one. This division led to a Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan when Japan stationed troops in Korea and led a bad faith effort to form a joint government. Japan won and secured Taiwan, but the Triple Intervention of Russia, France, and Germany temporarily prevented Japanese conquest of the mainland.
However, after building the trans-Siberian railway, Russia plotted to control Manchuria and Korea. When Japanese soldiers assassinated the Korean queen without knowledge of the high command in Tokyo, Koreans turned not to China, but to Russia, who obliged. This precipitated the Russo-Japanese War (1905) in which two hundred thousand Japanese and three hundred thousand Russian either dead or wounded. Japan’s powerful navy broke a siege of the Russian mainland fort of Port Arthur, which led to victory in central Manchuria. Japan then annexed Korea in 1910.
Japan in Asia
Victory over a major Colonial Power established Japan as a military power on the world stage. China failed to prevent British economic and political dominance in the 1800s. And Britain colonized India after the Sepoy (Indian) Munity (1858) and ruled over the subcontinent until 1947.
Japan stood as the sole powerful independent country in Asia indicated by the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902. At the end of the Meiji period and beginning of Taisho, industrialization and use of Western technology to secure the Japanese archipelago had met its goal. Japan now had the black ships they had feared.
Domestic Progress
The military aims of the Meiji period to exert Japan’s military power over external forces had been accomplished. In the subsequent Taisho period (1912-26) the interior goals of a democratic government advanced as well.
In 1919, the Diet (Parliament) instituted party cabinets not those chosen by political elders or the imperial house. In 1925, there was full manhood suffrage. In 1920, the first modern census was conducted which tallied a total of fifty-six million people, an explosive growth of seventeen million over twenty years. Coeducational grade school education for all Japanese children between six and twelve was implemented throughout Japan by 1910, an achievement that had been planned since the 1870s.
These trends led to the growth of an educated, vocal middle-class in the cities. From 1914 to 1919, instead of agriculture supporting heavy industry, there was a twenty-percentage point swing in favor of industry as a percentage of total production.