Review for last Tuesday and Thursday's Lectures

I promised I would say a little bit about what I thought was important in lecture this last Tuesday and Thursday.

On Tuesday we focused on Japan with a special emphasis on the course theme of “transformative war.” In 1853, the American Matthew Perry forced Japan (then under the Tokugawa Bakufu) to open its doors to the outside world. Japan, like China, was forced to sign unequal treaties. Many Japanese realized that they needed to selectively adapt Western ways in order to protect their independence and that the Tokugawa Bakufu was too weak to accomplish this. Therefore, in 1866 an alliance of anti-Bakufu samurai sought to overthrow the government. In 1868, in the name of the Emperor Meiji, they carried out their restoration and by 1869 had completely defeated the Bakufu forces. Although they rebelled in the name of the Meiji Emperor, he would remain only a figurehead, and the so-called Meiji oligarchs would rule in his stead. The oligarchs were interested in reforming Japan quickly and because of this were forced to put down a rebellion by ex-samurai angry over the loss of their privileges in 1877. In 1889 the Meiji constitution was promulgated, partly in order to quiet domestic unrest but also to show the world powers just how civilized Japan had become. Japan would later go on to win victories over China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, making Japan the dominant power in Asia. Because Japan managed to defeat a Western power (Russia) many Asians looked to Japan as a possible leader to overthrow Western colonialism in Asia. While some steps were taken in that direction, for the most part, Japan acted just like the Western colonial powers, annexing Korea in 1910 and putting pressure on China. Taking advantage of the Western imperial powers being occupied by World War One (1914-1918), Japan made the “Twenty-one Demands” on China in 1915 (these demands would have basically made China a Japanese protectorate) seized German controlled parts of China (the treaty of Versailles allowed and the League of Nations confirmed that though these areas had been a part of China they were to be under Japanese control, making the Chinese very angry and leading to an increase in Chinese nationalism).

On Thursday we discussed the issue of transformative war by looking at World War Two in Asia (the Pacific War). Professor Harlow noted that this was a war between colonial powers (except perhaps for China) and that the Japanese victory in Singapore showed that Western colonialism in Asia was no longer tenable. The power relationship between West and East had changed and after World War Two, direct imperialism (at least by Western powers) was essentially no longer possible in Asia. At the same time, Japan’s attack on Nanking (the infamous “Rape of Nanking”) represented Japan’s attempts to actually take over and directly rule large parts of China. Japan failed in this attempt, thanks in a large part to anti-Japanese nationalist feelings that arose among many Chinese because of atrocities like the Rape of Nanking.

Professor Harlow also discussed the final, and even gave some questions which might appear on the final (though they might be slightly altered).