How Japan Turned West

By Otto Friedrich

To "drive out the barbarians," the nation learned their ways

When Commodore Matthew Perry entered Edo Bay aboard the steam frigate Susquehanna just 130 years ago this summer, most of the awestruck Japanese had never before seen such a vessel, much less a whole flotilla of what they called "the black ships of evil mien."

Deliberately self-isolated for more than two centuries from the upheavals of the "barbarian" outside world, they lived in an almost medieval state. The turmoil of the industrial revolution was all but unknown to them. The shogun's court at Edo received various dispatches from pairs of strong-legged runners, one of whom carried state documents in a lacquered box while the other bore a lantern marked "official business." In imperial Kyoto, the Empress and her ladies followed a custom of blackening their teeth.

Perry presented a White House letter announcing that the U.S. wanted: 1 ) a fueling station for its merchant ships, 2) a commercial treaty permitting free trade, and 3) friendship. If the Japanese did not accede to U.S. terms, he implied, he would impose them by force. The Japanese could hardly ships they had no navy with which to defend themselves. Despite the opposition of the figurehead Emperor, the shogun regime, which actually governed the country, reluctantly signed a series of coerced treaties with five nations from 1854 to 1858. The barbarian merchants and missionaries began moving in.

It was a shocking humiliation.

The full title of the shogun, head of a military oligarchy that had established itself in the 12th century, was "barbarian-subduing generalissimo," and now he had proved helpless. Angry nationalists rallied around the idea of overthrowing the disgraced shogunate and restoring direct rule by the Emperor, descendant of the sun goddess. Their slogan: Sonno-joi (Revere the Emperor! Drive out the barbarians!).

Victorious over the shogun's forces were a group of tribal clans, mostly from the regions of Choshu and Satsuma in southwestern Japan. Young, ambitious, aggressive, these clan leaders had no intention of really restoring imperial rule, and they themselves were to govern as a new oligarchy for the next half-century. To symbolize the change, though, they decided to move the young Emperor, Mutsuhito, out of Kyoto and into the shogun's castle at Edo, which they renamed "eastern capital": Tokyo. A British infantry unit, on guard in a new European settlement, piped the Emperor to his new home to the tune of The British Grenadiers. The Emperor took for his reign the name Meiji (enlightened rule), and so in 1868 began the Meiji Restoration. It dedicated itself to the overnight transformation of a feudal anachronism into a world power.

In contrast to the Chinese, who clung to the belief in their own cultural superiority despite repeated European humiliations, the Japanese decided early to learn the barbarians' ways. They sent inquiring envoys abroad and hired many foreign experts. Some of the lessons were basic. The Meiji rulers abolished feudalism in 1871, and all fiefs reverted to the Emperor. The samurai, warriors who had formed a ruling caste under the shogunate, were pensioned off. They were forbidden to carry swords or even to wear their traditional topknots. When the samurai rose in revolt, they were suppressed by new armies of conscripts (whom the French were training). With conscription came the French system of compulsory universal education. British shipyards began building Japanese warships, and the Royal Navy trained Japanese seamen as officers.

Modernization took all manner of forms. Tokyo's first gaslights brightened the Ginza in 1874, and four years later came the first electric bulb, which burned out in 15 minutes. The Empress stopped blackening her teeth in 1873. Japan tasted its first butter, its first lemonade.

Underlying many of the Meiji innovations was a specific purpose: to combat the "unfair" treaties that the Western powers had forced on Japan. Since those treaties imposed low tariffs to open the way for Western goods, the Meiji rulers spent heavily to subsidize their own development of textile mills, shipping, banking and other industries. Still broader results derived from the Meiji hope of renegotiating the treaties. The Westerners had insisted on extraterritoriality for their own citizens in Japan, for example, on the ground that Westerners could not be subject to antiquated feudal laws. Thus the modernized Japanese legal codes. (The concept of "rights" as contrasted to obligations was such a novelty that a new word, kenri, had to be invented.)

In 1889 the Meiji unveiled their most ambitious effort to impress the world:

Japan's first constitution.

When the official in charge of the project went to Europe for expert guidance, he spent less time in London than in the Germany of Bismarck, and the Meiji constitution was Japan's parallel to Bismarckian conservatism: sovereignty belonged not to the people but to the Emperor. The Cabinet was responsible not to the legislature but to the throne.

Only the wealthiest 1% of the populace could vote for the lower house of the Diet, and the upper house was reserved for the aristocracy.

The Japanese were finally able to renegotiate their treaty with Britain in 1894, then with the other Western powers. The same year, proud of their nation's new status, they picked a quarrel with China over disputed rights in the feeble kingdom of Korea. They attacked without warning, and won a quick victory. Ten years later, they inflicted the same fate on Russia.

Scarcely a half-century had passed since the barbarians aboard Perry's black ships had humiliated the shoguns, and now Japan was a politely pugnacious power. The Meiji Restoration (the Emperor died in 1912) was a miracle of national self-regeneration, but the lessons imperfectly learned from the imperialist powers of the 19th century contained, or perhaps simply intensified, some dangerous poisons: a hunger for autocracy, a reliance on force, a fear of isolation from the world, and a rankling sense of grievance. The world would hear more of them. --By Otto Friedrich This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.