Japan: Towards the Meiji
Restoration
Crisis of Tokugawa Japan
Hierarchies
• Like all others around the world, Tokugawa Japan was a
hierarchical society. Like others, hierarchy based on
control over forces of violence, force of ideology and
force of economic power.
• In pre-and-early Tokugawa era these forces were in
sync. The lord, the daimyo, had most economic power,
most coercive power, and the ideology supported it.
• Samurai who were the Daimyo’s vassals were given
fiefs or stipends, plus allowed to wear arms – so
ordinary samurai too had economic and coercive power
over commoners.
• Developments in Tokugawa period undercuts the basis
of these hierarchies
Undermining of Traditional Hierarchies
• MERCHANTS prospering. Even DAIMYO often dependent on large financiermerchants. Gave them quasi-samurai rank.
• End of chapter three refers to what was called the GENROKU period.
Conspicuous consumption among merchants.
• Market economy undercuts basis of privileges.
– Urbanization (WHY? Castle towns, and increased rice trade after alternate
attendance system)
– Population concentration means that peasants could produce for the market,
creates a rich peasant class, the GONO.
– Disrupts social hierarchy, when Samurai see this.
– Cash Nexus: Less significant that someone could wear a sword, but if you had
money you could buy stuff, consume at higher rate. Weakened feudal ties
based, based on visible symbols, on obligations, on loyalty etc.
– In its place, cash nexus, where those with money could pay for services and
goods that had earlier only been available to the socially superior.
• Urban developments and markets also led to growth of printing presses,
which too needed a market. Press important because now criticism of
regime, disaffection, disseminating much more widely.
Impact on Samurai
• Warring States Era they had been REAL warriors, now they lost that
function, and became administrators or clerical staff of daimyo
• As a result, some of them didbecome more literate, Confucian schools etc.
Tea ceremony e.g. product of this period.
• But changes not good for majority of Samurai. Warrior code not allow then
to go into business, and commerce generally looked down upon. But
changes mean they need money. Larger circulation of money leads to
inflation. Samurai end up having to compromise, sell, or marry into
trading, or crafts. Found this demeaning and resented it. More so when
former inferiors, the merchants and even rich peasants, doing well.
• Even samurai who were not impoverished, resented because growing
economy and they not getting enough of it, rising expectations.
• Time was ripe for some change: social hierarchies not fit with economic
power, plus people at bottom of ladder, poorest peasants continue to be
exploited, we see frequent peasant revolts
• All of these lead to significant changes in the ideological underpinning of
the Tokugawa state, starting with ideas about loyalty.
Changing Loyalties
• Tokugawa system, like those before it, based on loyalty,
of samurai vassals to lords and to daimyo. This itself
eroded
• With peace and order loyalty became both
UNCONDITIONAL and IMPERSONAL
– Earlier conditional, i.e. could shift, perhaps to braver or more
able lord. Now, under Tokugawa law, could not change
– Earlier follow lord because personal respect, now not so.
Daimyo based in cities, no personal touch with samurai
• Because loyalty central component of samurai ethos, if
no loyalty to DAIMYO, then loyalty focus elsewhere.
Increasingly in other directions, toward HAN
(people/nation), towards Japan, or to Emperor.
Looking for Change
• It was not just the Samurai who were dissatisfied. Peasants and
merchants also resented the social disadvantages they suffered under,
especially when doing well economically. Particularly resented the
sumptuary laws that the Tokugawas tried in order to control the
impacts of growing commerce.
• People began looking for alternative sources of legitimacy -- away from
the Shogun and his establishment, even away from Confucian ideals.
• Newer ideas, those stressing the importance of a “purely” Japanese
heritage, rejection of Chinese (including Confucian) heritage. Stress
the divine nature of the Japanses monarchy.
• The MITO school taking on a Chinese idea, that of a ruler losing the
“mandate of heaven” implied that Tokugawas had lost mandate to
rule.
• Other ideas were emerging from the classes who had hitherto NOT
participated in exchange of ideas. Peasants and merchants, e.g.
• New religious cults on the one hand and a “political economic” critique
of the Tokugawa regime on the other.
• All undermining the absolutist nature of the regime. …the times, they
were a changin…
Inadequate Responses
• Tokugawas (like Manchus in China) could only offer piecemeal
solutions.
• They attack symptoms, because to attack the cause would be to
attack or undermine a whole social order, including themselves.
• “Fundamentalism” try to return economically to the early
Tokugawa period: Restrict commerce, return to a more agrarian
economy, cut spending.
• “Realists” did try to suggest alternatives, but not successful.
Mixing the two did not work.
• Stage was set for a change that came in 1868
• Change occasioned not just by internal crisis but also external
pressure.
• Unlike China or India, this pressure not so much from Europe, but
via Commodore Perry of the US, demanded an end to Japan’s
isolation.
Perry, Capitalism, and Imperialism
• WHY does Perry come to Japan, and Why the ultimatum to open up Japan?
• Only to get facilities for shipwrecked sailors and coal and provisions for the ships?
• American intervention came within decades of the “acquisition” of California,
internal colonialism reach limits
• Russians were already interested in the area, and this was the same time when
Western powers were “opening” China
• As much as the EIC acquisition of political in India, the opening up of Japan too was
dictated by economic and to a lesser extent political considerations. They were part
of a international movement the rest of the world understands as IMPERIALISM.
• IMPERIALISM, that is the subordination of other parts of the world to the interests
of the colonizing or imperialist powers related to phases of development within
capitalism:
• 1st phase, exemplified by the early EICs of Europe was the MERCANTALIST phase.
Trade in commodities the main source of wealth. This was phase of capital
accumulation, that later allowed for the Industrial Revolution. Mercantilist policies
led to annexation of Indian territories.
• 2nd phase coincided with INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM when production in full swing.
FREE TRADE rather than mercantilism the ideology because of the need for
MARKETS. CHINA and JAPAN part of this
• Asian (or for that matter African nations) had very little say (aka freedom) in the
matter, because the self-serving ideology of free trade was buttressed by force.
Japan’s Response : Meiji Restoration
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Already riven by dissention and a Shogunate in decline, it took only presence of eight ships, and the
knowledge that many more could be made available to forcibly open Japan if necessary
Two opposing positions on Perry’s Ultimatum
– 1. KAIKOKU: Pragmatic opening, for acquiring the technology for defense against foreigners
People like SAKUMA SHOZAN, like Chinese Self Strengtheners, call for “eastern ethic and western science”
blend.
– 2. JOI: expel. Need to fight and repel, foreign influence would lead to political and cultural disaster,
e.g. from AIZAWA SEISHISAI
BUT Perry left little alternative, and treaty 1854 agree to terms: then with other western powers too.
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1858 Harris Treaty : unequal, westerners control tariffs, have extraterritoriality rights!
Undermine Shogunate authority
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This allows internal tensions to emerge, especially among disaffected samurai, AND gives internal
dissdents the space to maneuver, such as alliance between powerful Choshu and Satsuma daimyo which
Jan 3 1868 able to defeat and overthrow TOKUGAWA, “restore” Meiji emperor . MEIJI RESTORATION Jan 3,
1868 proclaims end of Tokugawa regime.
Meiji Restoration was the result of
Internal crisis AND
the catalyst, intervention of the west.
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Impacts of Western Intervention
• Recognition “Free trade” was free only for the more
powerful. No respecter of national sovereignty.
• Free Trade imposed a series of unfree and unequal
treaties on Japan.
• However, it was a lesson that Japan learn well.
Within 30years of Perry and the unequal treaties,
Japan itself was on its way to being an imperialist
power in its own right, and imposed its own unequal
treaties on other Asian countries, for much the same
reasons, and driven by the same Capitalist logic that
drove the United and others.
Return to Comparisons
• Comparisons doesn’t mean just seeing similarities, but also
account for DIFFERENCES.
• Change in Japan is very different from that in India and to
China.
• Meiji restoration begins as a political change at the top of
Japanese society, but fundamentally transforming the
economy and social and cultural pattern of Japanese life.
• The most striking result s that Japan very successful in
emulating a western pattern of industrial development. That
makes them a major Asian power by end of century and a
potential world power by the middle of the 20th.
Differences and Similarities
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How, or why is Japan able to respond very differently from China to the impact of west?
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Size important, Japan more homogenous and more manageable than India or China. A
motivated leadership COULD effect far-reaching changes. China vast, less homogenous, less
able to change fast. Nor is there a revolution in China in the 19th century, comparable to
Meiji, which would have allowed a new leadership to emerge.
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When compare with India and China timing important. Japanese response to West more
pragmatic BECAUSE they had example of China which had been militarily defeated by the
time Commodore Perry comes around. So rather than contest, which was not poss. Japan
decided that best way to counter west was through adopting its sources of strength.
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Unlike India Japan is not directly colonized, thus although a nationalist awakening happen
in Japan around same time as in India, latter firmly under British control. British control
ensures that similar steps towards a national regeneration, particularly in economic policy,
could not be taken in India. Direct colonialism skews development.
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BUT, like India and China, socially and culturally, there was a comparable ambivalence
towards modernization in Japan. Although modernization and industry made Japan a huge
economic and military power, SOME sections of Japanese society did question wholesale
adoption of Western modernity