Profile of Japan

Official name: Japan Independent since: 660 b. c.e.

Location: East Asia, east of Korea Area: 145,882 square miles Capital: Tokyo

Population: 126.97 million (2002 est.)

Official language: Japanese

Major religions: Shintoism; Buddhism

Gross domestic product: US$$3.45 trillion (2001 est.)

Major exports: electrical machinery; motor vehicles; chemicals; scientific and optical equipment

Military expenditures: US$40.9 billion (2001)

Prohibited, and trade with other countries was severely restricted. For the next 250 years Japan dedicated its creative energies to refining artistic pursuits while ignoring science. While Japan stagnated technologically, the Industrial Revolution was taking Europe by storm.

In 1853 U. S. warships commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Tokyo Bay. The advanced state of Western technology and artillery intimidated the one million occupants of Tokyo. Severely embarrassed, the Japanese realized that in a skirmish their primitive armaments would be completely ineffective.

The ships, however, had come not to invade, but to force Japan into establishing trade relations with the United States. After one year of negotiations, a treaty was approved. Japan reluctantly entered the industrial age.

In 1868, one year after the last Tokugawa shogun abdicated, a new emperor was declared the one true divine ruler of all Japan. As a means of dramatically manifesting his break with the past, Emperor Meiji left the imperial grounds in Kyoto and moved to Tokyo, the new capital.

Emperor Meiji single-handedly brought Japan out of the feudal past and into the modern world with surprisingly little social turmoil. Castes were outlawed, lands were relinquished, the samurai class was abolished, and scholars were sent to Western nations to study. A universal educational system, based on the American model, was established. For the first time Japanese people could choose their profession and live where they wished.

Remembering the humiliation of 1853, Japan resolved to construct a military force that would make it the military lord of the East. Every school became a military training camp, and a system of universal conscription was established. In the early years of the twentieth century, Japan ended European rule in the East by defeating Russia and annexing Korea.