Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The salaries of the foreign specialists invited to Japan in the Meiji period are believed to
have amounted to 5% of all government expenditure during the period.
Despite nationalist support for the emperor under the slogan of
sonnō-jōi
(revere the
emperor, repel the barbarians), the new government soon realised it would have to meet
the outside world on its own terms, and the economy underwent a crash course in
Westernisation and industrialisation. Foreign experts were engaged to provide assistance
and Japanese students were sent abroad to acquire expertise in modern technologies.
Western-style factories were established and mining was expanded under the management
of
zaibatsu
(wealthy groups), such as Mitsui and Sumitomo. In 1889 Japan created a US-
style constitution that gave the appearance of a democracy but preserved the authoritarian
rule of the emperor and his select group of advisers.
In the 1890s Japan's growing confidence was demonstrated by the abolition of foreign
treaty rights and by the ease with which it trounced China in the Sino-Japanese War
(1894-95). The subsequent treaty nominally recognised Korean independence from Ch-
ina's sphere of influence and ceded Taiwan to Japan. Friction with Russia over control of
Manchuria and Korea led to the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), in which the Japanese
navy stunned the Russians by inflicting a crushing defeat on their Baltic fleet at the Battle
of Tsu-shima. For the first time, Japan commanded the respect of the Western powers.
The Yamato dynasty is the longest unbroken monarchy in the world, and Hirohito's reign
from 1926-1989 the longest of any monarch in Japan.
