Meiji restoration

Topic: Paths to Modernisation: Japan, China, Korea · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Paths to Modernisation"

Meaning

The Meiji Restoration was the political change of 1868 in which the shogun (the military ruler from the Tokugawa house) was removed from power. The emperor was moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo, and a new government began rebuilding Japan's economy, army, schools and administration under the slogan fukoku kyohei ('rich country, strong army').

It matters because it made Japan the only Asian country of its time to modernise fast enough to avoid becoming a colony. But the same system also planted the seed of militarism that took over Japan in the 1930s.

Explanation

Background: the shock from outside and the fear of colonisation

• 1853: Commodore Matthew Perry of the USA arrived with steam warships, the 'black ships', and demanded that Japan open relations. A treaty followed in 1854.
• Why the USA wanted this:
• Japan lay on the sea route to the China market, so American ships needed a stop on the way.

• American whaling ships in the Pacific needed coal, water and food.

• Before this, Holland (the Dutch) was the only European country allowed to trade with Japan.

• A point to use carefully: scholars say Japan was never fully 'closed'. Trade went on with the Dutch, with China, and through Korea and the Ryukyus. 'Opening' is a dramatic word, not an exact one.
• Why Japan's leaders chose to change:
• China had lost the Opium Wars to Britain and was forced into unequal treaties.
• India had already lost its freedom to a European power.
• This raised one sharp question: should Japan learn from Europe, or keep Europe out but take its technology?

The sequence of the Restoration

• 1860: Mutsuhito was made crown prince [2].
• 1867: his father died and he came to the throne [2].
• 1868: the shogun was removed, and the emperor was brought from Kyoto to Edo, now renamed Tokyo ('eastern capital'). Mutsuhito's coronation took place, and he took the reign name Meiji [2].
• 6 April 1868: the Charter Oath set out the new government's early aims [3]:
• "deliberative assemblies" (councils where matters are discussed) and "public discussion";
• a search for knowledge "throughout the world";
• an end to old bad customs;
• the right of every Japanese person to follow their own calling.

Main features: how the new state was built

• Fukoku kyohei, 'rich country, strong army'
• Wealth and military power were treated as one single project, not two.
• The leaders saw that Europe's strength came from economy and technology (machines, railways, industry) together with citizens, not subjects: people who felt the nation was theirs and would fight and pay for it.

• So the task was to turn subjects into citizens, people with duties to the nation and not only obedience to a lord.

• The 'emperor system' (a term used by Japanese scholars): rule by emperor + bureaucracy + military together.

• It was modelled on European monarchies, not on old Japanese practice.
• The emperor was said to be descended from the Sun-Goddess, an ancient and sacred claim.

• He was also made the face of westernisation. He was shown in Western military uniform, opening factories and railway lines.

• Administration

• Old feudal units were abolished and new administrative units were created, so that orders travelled from the centre down to the village.

• Army

• A national army was formed in 1871. A universal conscription law followed in 1873 [2].

• Conscription (compulsory military service): all men over twenty had to serve for a period. This ended the samurai's monopoly on weapons, so a peasant's son could now carry the rifle.

• Control of opinion

• Newspapers and political writing were censored. A loyal public opinion was built on purpose, not left free.

• Schools

• The Gakusei (Fundamental Code of Education) was issued in 1872 and announced a system of universal education [5].
• From the 1870s schooling was made compulsory for both boys and girls. Attendance was near-universal by 1910 [5].
• The education ministry controlled the curriculum, including the textbooks.
• Shushin ('moral culture', lessons in loyalty to the emperor and the nation) was a compulsory subject.
• Why literacy spread so fast: Japanese uses kanji (Chinese characters, which take years to learn). It also uses two syllabaries (sets of signs where each sign stands for one sound, and these are easy to learn): hiragana and katakana. A learner could read a lot with the syllabaries alone. Hiragana was seen as feminine, because the women writers of the Heian court used it.

Later changes and results

• 1889: the Meiji Constitution [4]
• It was presented as a gift from the emperor to the people. It could be amended only when the emperor himself proposed it.
• The emperor was declared "sacred and inviolable" (holy, and above any challenge).

• He held the power to make war and peace and could dissolve the lower house whenever he chose.

• 1890: the Imperial Rescript on Education [5]

• It made loyalty to the emperor, Confucian and Shintō values, and national morality the first duty of every schoolchild.

• The 1889 Constitution had no right to education. The government chose to leave the guiding principle of education to the Rescript instead [6].

• The seed of militarism

• The military and the bureaucracy were placed under the direct command of the emperor.
• So they stood outside the control of the cabinet, and this stayed true even after the Constitution created a parliament (the Diet).
• Elected ministers could not control the generals. The army could act in the emperor's name and hand the civilian government a decision that had already been carried out.
• This led to military rule in the 1930s, and to an empire abroad while democracy was suppressed at home.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: it began in 1868. The main reforms ran from the 1870s to about 1910. It is part of the 17th–20th century story of East Asian modernisation.
• Places: Kyoto (the emperor's old seat) and Edo, renamed Tokyo, the new capital.
• Key people:
• Emperor Mutsuhito, reign name Meiji [2].
• Commodore Matthew Perry of the USA, whose arrival in 1853 set off the crisis.

• The Tokugawa shogun, who lost power in 1868.

• How we know: official documents of the Meiji state

• The Charter Oath (1868) [3].
• The Gakusei (1872) [5].
• The Meiji Constitution (1889) [4].
• The Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) [5].

• The army and conscription laws of 1871 and 1873 [2].

• Main textbook source: NCERT Class 11, Chapter 7 "Paths to Modernisation".

Don't confuse with

• Perry's arrival (1853) and treaty (1854): these 'opened' Japan to the USA under the old Tokugawa government. The Meiji Restoration came later, in 1868, when the shogun was removed.
• Charter Oath (1868): a short statement of aims that promised assemblies and knowledge "throughout the world" [3]. It was not a constitution. The Meiji Constitution came only in 1889 [4].
• Gakusei (1872): this set up the school system of universal education. The Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) fixed the moral content of schooling: loyalty, Confucian and Shintō values [5].
• Tokugawa shogunate: the military government that the Restoration ended. 'Meiji' is the emperor's reign name. His personal name was Mutsuhito [2].

Prelims Hooks

• Meiji Restoration: 1868. The shogun was removed and Edo was renamed Tokyo ('eastern capital').
• Emperor: personal name Mutsuhito, reign name Meiji, crowned in 1868 [2].
• Correct order: Perry arrives (1853) → Charter Oath (6 April 1868) → national army (1871) → Gakusei (1872) → conscription law (1873) → Meiji Constitution (1889) → Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) [2][3][4][5].
• Fukoku kyohei = 'rich country, strong army'.
• Under the 1889 Constitution the emperor was "sacred and inviolable", held the war-and-peace power and could dissolve the lower house. Trap: the Constitution had no right to education [4][6].
• Before 1853, the only European country allowed to trade with Japan was Holland, not Britain or Portugal.

Mains Points

• Defensive modernisation, not liberal modernisation. Japan borrowed European forms: a constitution, conscription, mass schooling and a ministry-run curriculum. But it used them to gather power into the emperor system, not to spread it out.
• The 1889 Constitution was a gift from the emperor and could be amended only by him [4].
• The moral core of education was fixed by an imperial rescript, not by rights [6].

• Useful for answers on "modernisation is not the same as westernisation".

• Schools and conscription built one nation. Compulsory schooling with compulsory shushin, plus military service for all men over twenty, took a people divided by domain and social rank and made them one national body.

• Compare Europe's own route (Eugen Weber's idea of turning "peasants into Frenchmen").

• Contrast China, which failed to build such a base before 1911.

• The flaw that produced militarism. Japan and China both faced Western gunboats.

• Japan's leaders used the fear of sharing India's and China's fate to justify a top-down, centralised transformation. This is why Japan alone among Asian states became a coloniser by 1895–1910.
• But putting the army and bureaucracy under direct imperial command, outside cabinet control, made civilian control impossible.
• The system that delivered fast modernisation also delivered the military takeover of the 1930s: an empire abroad and shrinking democracy at home.

Related concepts

• Commodore Perry
• Treaty of Kanagawa
• Unequal treaties
• Charter Oath 1868
• Fukoku kyohei
• Emperor system
• Meiji education system
• Imperial Rescript on Education
• Hiragana and katakana
• Satsuma Rebellion 1877

Read more

• The Meiji Restoration: nation, emperor system, army and schools