Japan’s cultural and political structure changed from being a weak isolated nation to a modern imperialist country. Before Japan westernized, it was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. This was an agricultural economy with a population of 13 billion. Japan did not associate with any other country because they believed foreign influence was a destabilizing factor. This resulted in overcrowded farms and scarce minerals. In 1853, Commodore Perry came to japan with his big black ships. The technological advancements of the ships shocked the japanese. They ended isolationism and opened trade ports in order to avoid destruction. Failure of success, in 1868 the Tokugawa shogun was overthrown and emperor Meiji had complete power. During this time, Japan was very decentralized. There were several semi-independent feudal lords. The emperor saw how Japan was at a great disadvantage from being in isolation for so many years. He knew that in order to strengthen Japan, change was needed. This resulted in the Meiji Restoration. By 1912…
One can see in document 1 and 2, that they provide background information. From document 1, one can see that both Japan and England were both small island nations on…
At first, Japan was not in a good position to defeat the strong countries that surrounded it. However, after realizing that Japan itself needed a better and stronger status, Emperors in Japan started to focus on strengthening the Imperial rule. Therefore, with the influences from China and Korea, Emperors learned ways to protect themselves better. A good defense of military affairs, strong religion belief in Shinto and Buddhism, changes in locations of capitals and people, and a systematical legal affair could be the important features that resulted in a powerful state without being frightened by external threats. These factors lead Japan to become a more successful country and had the ability of strengthening the imperial rule resulting in not being easily defeated.…
Japan in 1942 was at the height of its expansion . Japanese political culture and ideology was driven by nationalistic pride and its aim to dominate the Asian political scenario. During this expansionistic period of Japan, idealism dominated realism. Japan wanted to be the hegemonic power in Asia. Its limited resources, mainly due to the lack of land, created a dependency on foreign trade for essential commodities. The Japanese Government wanted to be independent from economic dependence on the United States; the American Government took to use that dependence to limit Japans ambitions. The Japanese wanted to reverse the international status quo in Asia, whereas the United States wanted to preserve it . Japan wanted to be a power with a reputation matching that of the United States, but lacked the resource capacity to do so.…
- About 4000 islands make up the Japanese archipelago, island group. Southern Japan enjoys a mild climate with plenty of rainfall.…
The Japanese Government was hell-bent on expanding their empire and desired the strongest fighting force in the world. Japan is not resource dense, so it felt the need to spread its scope to the areas of Asia that are dense (Manchuria). Japan left the League of Nations as they escalated land grabs, displaying their desire for autonomy. Japan felt that they deserved the areas surrounding them, and that they had to defeat those that inhabited those areas. As the Japanese military expanded rapidly so did the nation’s bravado. The Japanese people thought their mainland was impenetrable and that their people were of the highest honor. They had lowered the stature of all non-Japanese so much that rape, murder, and pillaging was practically celebrated.…
Before the seclusion laws, Japan was split into several ununified regions led by Daimyos. In 1603, the Tokugawa Shogunate unified Japan into one state, and later enacted the Sakoku seclusion laws. These laws were a large turning point for the state, because that essentially meant that they would have very limited contact Europe and the New World. After limiting contact with other states, Japan had successfully become an independent state which affected how they changed politically and socially for several years…
When imperialism kicked off, trading with places in the west like the USA was common in Japan. When the western ideologies started integrating with Japan, change was threatening because of the ongoing opium wars in China. This ultimately caused Japan to announce the Act of Seclusion. This made it so Japan was isolated from the rest of the world and stopped trading. Although they made this act, Japan's leaders knew that they wouldn’t be able to cut off interaction forever.…
Japan as we know it today is a group of islands located in the eastern part of Asia. While it is now a highly populated island filled with large cities, this was not always the case. The earliest people known to live on the islands of Japan were nomadic hunters from northeast Asia. These hunters settled on the islands as early as 35,000 B.C. and are considered the Paleolithic people of Japan. During this time, Japan was connected to Korea and Siberia by a land bridge that had formed when the seas receded after the ice ages. When the last ice age ended, the ice caps melted and the sea levels rose, once again separating the islands of Japan from the main land. This gave birth to the one of the earliest periods of Japan known as the Jomon Period.…
One would think that a country would inevitably fall from peasant riots, wars for power, lack of resources, etc., if it was isolated from the rest of the world. However, this is not always the case, as can be seen with Japan. It thrived while being isolated from the rest of the world for over two hundred years before it opened its ports again. It is important to understand the context behind Japan’s isolation starting in the Sengoku period. This time period was also known as the “Age of Warring States,” in which landowners or daimyos fought each other for power (Dobbs).…
Japan’s culture is rich in history that dates back as far as 100,000 years ago by historians, however official studies dating back to 8,000 years ago. Roughly the size of California, located in the Pacific Ocean, Japan consists of four major islands; Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku as well as thousands of much smaller islands. The general landscape of Japan’s four main islands are mountainous that are sometimes snow covered, the largest being MT. Fuji located on the island of Honshu. In all, two thirds of Japan’s overall landscapes are mountains with forest slopes, short flowing rivers, irregular lakes, and small rich plains that experience the four major seasons. Japan averages temperatures of 79 degrees throughout the year with the coldest…
The country of Japan was originally a region that was isolated from the rest of the world. Laws set in place by the Japanese government served the purpose of separating Japan from the other countries of the world. The act of trading with foreign countries was strictly forbidden, and traveling abroad was a crime that was punishable by death. This isolation from the rest of the world would prove to be an issue for Japan. With their inferior technology, they fell victim to the imperialism of the western powers, just as their Chinese counterparts did. The Japanese were subject to unfair treaties that favoured the western powers, which was humiliating for the Japanese people. Japan realized that something was going to have to change if they were…
Japan has a population of about 127.3 people. In the last 50 years Japan’s population grew about 30 million . There are approximately 336 people living per kilometer square. The most dense city in Japan is Tokyo, Tokyo has a population of about 9 124 000. Tokyo’s population of about 7 percent of Japan’s whole population. Even though Japan’s population is shrinking, Tokyo’s population is growing. The second next most dense place in Japan is Yokohama with a population of 3.689 million people. Yokohama is just south of Tokyo. Tokyo and Yokohama play a big part in Japan’s population. 25 percent of Japan’s population is people aged over 65 years old.That is why Japan is slowly starting to shrink…
In my trip to japan I have seen a lot of amazing things. Although japan is very isolated, they are still able to get their culture from neighbor countries such as china and Korea. The religion that they practice is Buddhism which they obtained from china. Another thing they got from china was the Ideographic writing system. The Chinese Tang Dynasty is very important to them because it helped them create their government. I like how they allow women in this time period to have a high position and they even taught them how to read and write!…
Before the introduction of kanji from China, Japanese had no writing system. At first, Chinese characters were used in Japanese syntactical formats, and the result was sentences that look like Chinese but were read phonetically as Japanese. Chinese characters were further adapted, creating what is known as man'yōgana, the earliest form of kana, or syllabic writing. The earliest works were created in the Nara period. These include the Kojiki (712), a historical record that also chronicles ancient Japanese mythology and folk songs; the Nihon Shoki (720), a chronicle written in Chinese that is significantly more detailed than the Kojiki; and the Man'yōshū (759), a poetry anthology. One of the stories they describe is the tale of UrashimaTarō, which has been identified as the earliest example of a story involving time travel.…