China and Japan

Theme: Different responses to foreign influence

Lesson 11

Agenda

• China– Conservative elites stifle political and social reforms

and technological advances that would have threatened their positions and their understanding of stability

– Approaches World War II in a weakened condition

• Japan– Opponents overtake the elite and implement thorough

reform– Approaches World War II as a political, military, and

economic powerhouse

China

Ming Dynasty (1368-1398)

• The Yuan Dynasty had ruled China from 1279 to 1368 through a series of nomadic Mongol warriors

• The Ming Dynasty followed it and restored native rule to China

• The Mings built a tightly centralized state and determined to prevent new invasions Hongwu, founder of

the Ming Dynasty

Great Wall

• The origins of the Great Wall date back to the 4th Century B.C., but the significant work was done by the Mings

• In the late 15th and 16th Century workers built a protective barrier that runs 1,550 miles, has walls 33 to 49 feet high, and includes watch towers, signal towers, and troop accommodations

Ming Dynasty

• Set out to eradicate Mongol and other foreign influences

• Sought to restore Chinese institutions and cultural traditions

• Restored the system of civil service examinations

Silk embroidery from the Ming Dynasty

Decline of the Ming

• Ming emperors increasingly insulated themselves from Chinese life, ruling through eunuch servants and administrators

• China regularly suffered from pirates and smugglers on it eastern coast

• When a series of famines struck China in the early 17th Century, the government failed to organize effective relief efforts and peasants revolted

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

• Manchu invaders from the north allied with the peasants and defeated the Ming

• After the Ming Dynasty fell, Manchus poured into China, overwhelmed the Chinese rebel forces, and proceeded to occupy all of China

China underthe Qing Dynasty

Manchuria

Qing Dynasty: Limitations on Foreign Interaction

• Global trade brought tremendous prosperity to China

• The Chinese traded silk, tea, and other commodities usually for silver-bullion

• The Qing government sought to prevent Chinese interaction with foreigners

• In 1656 an imperial edict forbade “even a plank drifting to the sea” in an effort to end maritime activity

18th Century Chinese depiction of a British

sailor

Qing Dynasty: Limitations on Foreign Interaction

• Such measures had limited effect, but the Qing did closely supervise the activities of foreign merchants in China

• They permitted Portuguese merchants to operate only at the port of Macau and British merchants at Guangzhou

• Government policies also discouraged the organization of large-scale commercial ventures by Chinese merchants, such as maintaining shipyards that could construct large sailing ships

Qing Dynasty: Limitations on Technological Advancement

• The Qing’s quest for political and social stability led them to discourage technological innovation which they feared might cause unsettling change

• The Chinese therefore lost technological ground to the Europeans who were experiencing the Industrial Revolution

Qing Dynasty: Limitations on Foreign Interaction

• In 1759, the Qing restricted European commercial presence in China to the waterfront at Guangzhou

• The government controlled both the European merchants and the terms of trade– European merchants could deal only with

specially licensed Chinese firms known as cohongs

Opium Trade

• Since the Chinese had little demand for European products, the European merchants had to trade with silver bullion

• As an alternative, Europeans gradually began to trade in opium instead

• The trade was illegal and created both an economic and a social problem in China

Illustration from an early 19th century book

showing an opium addict

Opium War

• In 1839, the Chinese took serious measures to halt the opium trade

• The British protested and launched the Opium War (1839-1842)

The British shell Guangzhou

Opium War

• The war showed the military differential between China and Europe

• The British used steam-powered gunboats to attack the Grand Canal and China sued for peace

• China suffered other military setbacks with Britain and France (1856-1858), France (1884-1885), and Japan (1894-1895)

Unequal Treaties

• As a result of these defeats, China was subjected to what were collectively known as the “unequal treaties”

• China was forced to – Cede Hong Kong to Britain– Open ports to commerce and residence– Permit the establishment of Christian missions– Legalize the opium trade– Not levy tariffs on imports

Unequal Treaties

• By 1900, ninety Chinese ports were under the effective control of foreign powers, foreign merchants controlled much of the Chinese economy, Christian missionaries were converting Chinese throughout the country, and foreign gunboats patrolled Chinese waters The Treaty of Nanjing (1842)

ceded Hong Kong to the British in perpetuity

Boxer Rebellion

• Eventually an anti-foreign society called the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (called the “Boxers” by the foreign press) emerged

• In 1899 the Boxers organized to rid China of “foreign devils”

• They went on a rampage killing foreigners, Chinese Christians, and Chinese who had ties to foreigners

• In 1900 they besieged the foreign embassies in Beijing

• A heavily armed force of British, French, Russian, US, German, and Japanese troops crushed the rebellion

Calvin P. Titus won the Medal of Honor leading the American

attack over the Chinese City Wall

Manchuria

• The opening battles of World War II can be traced to Japan’s full-scale invasion of Manchuria in 1937

• The Japanese waged a brutal war epitomized by the “Rape of Nanjing”

• Over a two month period, Japanese soldiers inflamed by war passion and a sense of racial superiority raped 7,000 women, murdered hundreds of thousands of unarmed soldiers and civilians, and burned 1/3 of the homes in Nanjing

A Chinese baby cries amid the rubble of the Japanese bombing of Shanghai

Japan

Tokugawa Shogunate

• Shoguns (“military governors”) ruled Japan from the12th through the 16th Century with the emperor serving only as a figurehead

• In the 16th Century, the Tokugawa Shogunate unified Japan by bringing under control the powerful daimyo (“great names”) who functioned as near absolute rulers within their territorial domains

Relations with Foreigners

• In order to prevent European influences from destabilizing Japan, the Tokugawa shoguns closely controlled relations with Japan and the outside world– Forbade Japanese from going abroad (punishable by

death)– Prohibited construction of large ships– Expelled Europeans from Japan– Prohibited foreign merchants from trading in

Japanese ports– Forbade the import of foreign books

Relations with Foreigners

• Trade with Asian lands was carefully controlled

• Small numbers of Chinese and Dutch merchants were allowed to trade under tight restrictions at Nagasaki

Dutch ship, ca 1800

Native Learning

• The Japanese learned much from the Chinese, and the Tokugawa shoguns promoted neo-Confucianism

• However, scholars of “native learning” thought neo-Confucianism and Buddhism were alien cultural imports and emphasized instead the importance of folk traditions and the indigenous Shinto religion for Japanese identity

• Many scholars of native living viewed Japanese people as superior to all others and xenophobically regarded foreign influence as perverse

Christian Missions

• The Jesuit Francis Xavier traveled to Japan in 1549 and established a Christian mission

• Christians became a tiny minority of the Japanese population, but government officials and moralists still saw Christianity as a threat to Japanese religious and cultural traditions

• Between 1587 and 1639, shoguns promulgated several decrees ordering a halt to Christians missions and commanding Japanese Christians to renounce their faith

• By the late 17th Century Christianity in Japan survived only as a secret underground religion

Foreign Pressure

• The Tokugawa were able to maintain internal stability and prosperity and control foreign interaction until the early 19th Century

• Beginning in 1844, British, French, and US ships visited Japan to establish relations– The US in particular wanted ports where its

Pacific whaling and merchant fleets could stop for fuel and provisions

Foreign Pressure

• The Tokugawas refused all requests and stuck to their policy of limiting European and American visitors to a small number of Dutch at Nagasaki

• In the late 1840s the Japanese began making military preparations in case of attack

The artificial island Dejima in Nagasaki Bay where the

Dutch were allowed to trade

Commodore Perry

• In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry led a US naval squadron into Tokyo Bay and demanded that the shogun open Japan to diplomatic and commercial relations and sign a treaty of friendship

• The shogun had no good alternative and acquiesced to Perry’s demands Commodore Matthew Perry

The Opening of Japan

• Representatives of Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia soon won similar rights

• Like the Qing Chinese, the Japanese were subjected to a series of unequal treaties which opened Japanese ports to foreign commerce, deprived the government of control over tariffs, and granted foreigners extraterritorial rights

End of Tokugawa Rule

• The sudden intrusion of foreign powers in Japan resulted in the collapse of the Tokugawa and the restoration of imperial rule

• The dissident slogan was “Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians.”

• On Jan 3, 1868, the boy emperor Mutsuhito took power– He later became known as

Meiji (“Enlightened Rule”)

Meiji Reforms

• The Meiji government would strive to gain parity with foreign powers behind the motto “rich country, strong army”

• It looked to the industrial lands of the United States and Europe to obtain knowledge and expertise to strengthen Japan and win revisions of the unequal treaties

Study Abroad

• The Meiji sent many students and officials abroad to learn everything from technology to construction and hired foreign experts to facilitate economic development and indigenous expertise

Fukuzawa Yukichi made four trips abroad and made useful observations about

governments, constitutions, and educational systems

Reforms

• The Meiji transformed Japan by:– abolishing the feudal order and therefore centralizing

political power,– revamping the tax system to put the regime on a firm

financial footing– creating a constitution which gave the emperor

effective power and the parliament the ability to advise but not control him

– creating a modern transportation, communications, and educational infrastructure

Rise in Power

• By the early 20th Century, Japan had joined the ranks of the world’s major industrial powers

• From 1894-1895 Japan defeated China in a war over Korea which showed how modern and powerful Japan had become and how weakened China had become

• In 1899 Japan was able to end extraterritoriality• In 1902 Japan concluded an alliance with Britain

as an equal power

Russo-Japanese War

• When Russia refused to withdraw its troops from Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion, Japan attacked and defeated the Russian Far Eastern Fleet anchored at Port Arthur

• It was the first time in modern history an Asian military force had soundly whipped the army and navy of a major imperial power

President Theodore Roosevelt meets with Japanese and

Russian envoys to discuss peace at the end of the Russo-

Japanese War.

World War I

• On August 23, 1914, Japan entered World War I on the side of the Allies

• It captured several German-occupied locations in China and the Pacific

• Building on this momentum, Japan presented the Chinese government with a secret list of Twenty-One Demands which would have reduced China to a protectorate of Japan

World War I

• The Chinese leaked the note to the British who spoke up for the Chinese and prevented complete capitulation, but still China acquiesced to many of the demands

• The Twenty-One Demands reflected Japan’s determination to dominate east Asia and served as a basis for future Japanese pressure on China

Invasion of Manchuria

• This aggression against China came to a head in the 1930s when for the most part civilians lost control of the government and the military in Japan

• In the 1930s Japan invaded Manchuria and waged a brutal war against civilians and a repressive occupation

Chinese man being beheaded

Next

• Writing Workshop