Japan And Its Entrance Into The West

In 1945 Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru was told by General Douglas MacArther that postwar reforms were necessary to eliminate the growing malady that had formed after the Meiji period. When the Meiji emperor was restored as head of Japan in 1868, the nation was a militarily weak country, was primarily agricultural, and had little technological development. It was controlled by hundreds of semi-independent daimyo. The Western powers, Europe and the United States, had forced Japan to sign …

…use a different standard in dealing with European nations than it did with a rising Asian power like Japan. The Meiji reforms brought great changes both within Japan and in Japan's place in world affairs. Japan strengthened itself enough to remain a sovereign nation in the face of Western colonizing powers and indeed became a colonizing power itself. ____________________________ 1 McClain, James L. Japan: A Modern History. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002). p. 235. 2 Ibid. p. 156.