Encroachments by Europe since 1600.
India succumbs to progressive colonization
Challenges to China (1793, 1816, 1839-42)
Colonization of Indochina (1850s-60s)
Challenge to Japan in 1850s, and industrialization after 1868
Goal: Compare the reactions of China, Japan, and India to the economic and military challenge of Europe

China
India
Japan
Russia
Western Europe
Pop
/Km2
Pop100 km
Pop100 cr
GDP18
20
GDP19
00
%Temper ate
129
313
19
22
45
38
523
531
652
625
47
0
333
8.8
128
97
6
53
97
8
704
751
1135
1218
89 1292 3092
96
89
89
Note: Temperate Climate defined as Cf, Cs, Dw, Df

Geography
Politics
India China Japan
Tropical, Sub-tropical and desert; monsoon agriculture; high population density; low to moderate coastal access; moderate resource endowments
(e.g. coal); moderate urbanization
Temperate and Subtropical; high population density; low to moderate coastal access; moderate resource endowments
(e.g. coal); low to moderate urbanization
Temperate; high population density; high coastal access; moderate resource endowments (e.g. coal); moderate to high urbanization
Declining power of central administration; decentralized political rule; low to moderate legitimacy (e.g. Islamic, external rulers in Hindu society); considerable degree of internal violence
Highly centralized administration; low to moderate legitimacy
(Manchu rulers in Han society); internal peace
Semi-centralized, semidecentralized. Long period of internal peace.

Economic
Institutions
Social institutions
Smallholder agriculture; community management of ecological resources; urban-coastal trading institutions, including banking, insurance, relatively open trade
Smallholder agriculture; markets for land and labor; little coastal trade; moderate degree of commercialization, closed to international trade
Semi-feudal structures (Daimyo, social orders); markets for grains; low degree of international trade; moderate degree of commercialization
Caste structures; low degree of social mobility; high social and ethnic diversity
(20 or more major languages); low literacy
Social stratification, though not entirely rigid. Relatively high ethnic and linguistic harmonization; low literacy; low propensity to social borrowing
Social stratification, high ethnic homogeneity of population; high literacy; high propensity to social borrowing

Western businessmen quoted as declaring:
• “Wealthy we do not think it [Japan] will ever become: the advantages conferred by Nature, with the exception of the climate, and the love of indolence and pleasure of the people themselves forbid it.” and
• “The national banking system of Japan is but another example of the futility of trying to transfer Western growth to an Oriental habitat. In this part of the world principles, established and recognized in the
West, appear to lose whatever virtue and vitality they originally possessed and to tend fatally towards weediness and corruption.”

•
Unification of Japan 1602 under Tokogawa Shogunate. Bakufu (shogunate central administration). Samurai originally knights, become civil administrators. Lived on stipends.
•
Towns were castle towns, under the watch of the Shogun. Osaka: financial center; Edo, administrative center. Commercialization of agriculture. By 1850, perhaps 16 percent urbanization. Large population growth after unification. State monopolies as a form of government revenues.
• Policy of Sakoku: progressive policy during 1610's-1640s. In 1635, Japanese prohibited, on pain of death from travel abroad. As of 1641, trade only with few Chinese at
Nagasaki and Dutch at Deshima port. Part of anti-Christian campaign, especially after
Christian peasant uprisings in 1630s.
•
Japanese witness of Opium Wars, warned by Netherlands that closed policy no longer tenable
•
1851 U.S. President Millard Fillmore commissions Commodore Perry to open relations with Japan. Enters Edo Bay in 1853
•
1858: Unequal treaties: commercial privileges, extra-territoriality for Western residents, presence of diplomatic representatives, low tariffs set by treaty, opening of new ports, with concessions made to U.S., Great Britain, France, Russia, and Netherlands.

1868 The Meiji Restoration (toppling of Tokagawa Shogunate, beginning of reforms)
[ Notes : Coup d’Etat in name of the Emperor. Transfer of court to Edo. Four clans return lands to
Emperor, “so that a uniform rule may prevail throughout the Empire. Thus the country will be able to rank equally with the other nations of the world.” Hence, a conservative revolution which opens the way to radical change. Preconditions: (1) Japanese willingness to borrow; (2) awarness of China’s fate;
(3) established structure of moral authority as center of reform. “Eastern Ethics, Western Science” becomes a code-phrase for the Meiji Restoration. Proclamation in 1868, Five Articles Oath. “The common people, no less than the civil and military officials, shall each be allowed to pursue his own calling so that there may be no discontent.” “Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.” (Reischauer and Craig, pp. 135-6).]
1869: elimination of barriers on internal travel. Abolition of internal tolls
Other social reforms: Japan originally (theoretically) divided in four classes: samurai (warrior) class
(7% samurai); peasants (80%); artisans; merchants (13%). Also court aristocrats, Buddhist monks, shinto priests, outcasts. abolish class restrictions on professions

1871-3 Iwakura Mission (fact-finding, seeking international recognition). Fact-finding in three parts: constitutions and laws; finance, trade, industry, and communications; education. Also, military information. (Seven months in U.S., four in Britain, France,
Belgium, Holland, Germany. Five-volume study of Western modernization published in
1878. Many students sent abroad. Approximately 2,000-4,000 experts brought from
West, under Japanese government supervision. Experts from an estimated 23 countries.
1871 : complete elimination of daimyos
Opening of ports: Yokohama, Nagasaki, Hakodate, Kobe, Osaka, and Niigata
End of samurai stipends, and in place, commutation bonds (1876). These posed a heavy fiscal burden. Also, helped to provoke final uprising: Satsuma rebellion (1877).
Tax payable to central government, rather than to the Han
Money taxation rather than tax in kind; tax rate on land value rather than percent of output
1872: National Bank Act. Eliminate prohibitions on land sales
1890: promulgation of commercial law, based on German model, full implementation 1899

Some Specific Meiji Era Reforms:
• Prefect system of administration (France, 1871)
(end of daimyo system)
• Primary schools (France, 1872; U.S., 1879)
• Army (France, 1869; Germany, 1878)
• Judicial system (France, 1872)
• Posts (Britain, 1872)
• Postal saving (Britain, 1875)
• Navy (Britain, 1869)
• Telegraph (Britain, 1869)
• System of local government (1879)
• Bank of Japan (1885, National Bank of Belgium)
• Constitution (1889, establishing Diet, beginning 1890)

• One of the oldest independent nations in the world
• Temperate, coastal country
• Role of cities and merchant class in Tokogowa.
Commercial law, especially contract law
• Osaka as trading center
• High degree of literacy and schooling: estimate 40-50% of boys, 15% of girls
• Coal resources

• Goal of industrialization. Okubo argued that industrialization required
“the patronage and encouragement of the government and its officials.” (Beasely, p. 104)
• Shipping, finance, railroads, telegraph, banking sector , technical schools, were also supported by state activism.
• Yet, in terms of sectoral development,
– Silk reeling almost entirely undertaken by private sector
– By 1929, about 40 percent of farm households had cocoon raising as their secondary employment. (Beaseley, p. 109)
– By 1930 textiles accounted for 36 percent of industry; food and drink, 16 percent.

Key Events in China’s 19 th Century Economic History
•Opium wars, 1839-42
•Unequal Treaties, 1842-1858
•Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64
•Development of Port Cities
•Defeat in Sino-Japan War 1894-95
•100 Days Reform, 1898
•Late Reform Period,
•Boxer Rebellion, 1900
•Collapse of Ch’ing Dynasty 1910
•Republic of China 1911