The Meiji Restoration was one of the great success stories
of modern times. Not only did the Meiji leaders put Japan
firmly on the path to economic and political development,
they also managed to remove the unequal treaty
provisions that had been imposed at mid-century. Japanese
achievements are especially impressive when compared
with the difficulties experienced by China, which
was not only unable to effect significant changes in its traditional
society but had not even reached a consensus on
the need for doing so. Japan’s achievements more closely
resemble those of Europe, but whereas the West needed a
century and a half to achieve a significant level of industrial
development, the Japanese achieved it in forty years.
The differences between the Japanese and Chinese
responses to the West have sparked considerable
debate among students of comparative history.
Some have argued that Japan’s success was partly due
to good fortune; lacking abundant natural resources,
it was exposed to less pressure from the West than
many of its neighbors. That argument, however, is
not very persuasive, since it does not explain why
nations under considerably less pressure, such as
Laos and Nepal, did not advance even more quickly.
One possible explanation has already been suggested:
Japan’s unique geographical position in Asia. China, a
continental nation with a heterogeneous ethnic composition,
was distinguished from its neighbors by its Confucian
culture. By contrast, Japan was an island nation, ethnically
and linguistically homogeneous, which had never
been conquered. Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese had
little to fear from cultural change in terms of its effect on
their national identity. If Confucian culture, with all its
accouterments, was what defined the Chinese gentleman,
his Japanese counterpart, in the familiar image, could discard
his sword and kimono and don a modern military
uniform or a Western business suit and still feel comfortable
in both worlds.
Whatever the case, as the historian W. G. Beasley has
noted, the Meiji Restoration was possible because aristocratic
and capitalist elements managed to work together
in a common effort to achieve national wealth and power.
The nature of the Japanese value system, with its emphasis
on practicality and military achievement, may also
have contributed. Finally, the Meiji benefited from the
fact that the pace of urbanization and commercial and industrial
development had already begun to quicken under
the Tokugawa. Japan, it has been said, was ripe for
change, and nothing could have been more suitable as an
antidote for the collapsing old system than the Western
emphasis on wealth and power. It was a classic example of
challenge and response.
World History
