Curtin chapter 9

Japan was the most successful none Western country to achieve as much power as other Western countries. We start this history with the Tokugawa. The Western threat led the Japanese to need to modernize their military. In the 1600s, new military technology led the Tokugawa Shogunate to unify Japan. The Tokugawa, weary of outside powers, limited Japan's trading to only agree to trade with the Chinese and the Dutch.The Tokugawa brought Japan about 2.5 centuries of peace.
Before the Tokugawa, Japan was divided into thousands of competing units. These units consisted of daimyos who had their own private armies full of Samurai. The system itself resembled European feudalism with a few distinct differences. The Tokugawa's, "Political centralization was both a cause and a consequence of the military changes." (Curtin 158)The Tokugawa brought about huge social and economic changes. Agricultural output approximately doubled between 1600 and 1850. (Curtin 160) Historians think that two things may have been important to Japan's successful modernization: The 250 years of relative external peace, and the inner struggles in Japan itself.
In the 1860s and 70s a revolution hit Japan.By 1868 the Meiji emperor had been restored. However, the emperor himself had little more. The society was an oligarchy with an aristocratic government under the emperor who basically made all the decisions. This oligarchy modernized Japanese society by borrowing techniques and institution from the West.
Military technology promoted most of Japan's growth.In 1842, after China had been bombarded by Britain's Navy, the Japanese realized they needed to modernize militarily quickly. The American fleet arriving in Japan in 1852 also showed Japan how it needed to modernize quickly. The sides which revolted against the Tokugawa were military oligarchies competing to perform the same tasks. At the same time, the oligarchies claimed that they would retain Japanese traditions, but within a decade they had removed the daimyo and bakufu. The new oligarchy changed the balance of power in Japan by modernizing the army and setting up a Western-style government.
Most other countries trying to modernize militarily focused on getting Western guns and letting the West supply them with guns. Japan not only did this, but started producing the weapons in their own factories in order to lose their dependency on the West.
The West had begun its industrialization with small textile and labor saving machines. But by the time Japan entered the game, bigger industries had been created. Japan decided to focus first on heavy industry and mining technology instead of following the exact route that the west did.
The new Japanese industries were created by the state for military purposes. But by the 1880s the industries went through privatization. By the 1890s a relationship between the industry and the government had been formed. Japan's only real similarity to the West remained technological, the government itself may have seemed Western but it had a lot of Japanese aspects to it.
Japan also needed to show the world that it was on equal footing with the West. Modernization was to protect Japan against the hostile west, but it also needed to show the west it could take care of itself. The first thing Japan needed to do was have a modernized military to show the world it could defend itself. It also adopted a constitution to show the West it was civilized.
The Constitution itself could not be change by anybody except the emperor. In fact, people changed constitution practice leading to the militarism in the 30s and 40s. When it was stated that only military men could fill the posts of minister of war and minister of the navy, it narrowed the prime ministers options dramatically and led to a more militaristic state. The Western models in Japan were always slightly different then those in the West.
In general leaders in all the countries which went through defensive modernization failed to see the obvious change which the west was making the world go through. In the end the only reason why they modernized was to protect themselves and have certain Western habits which seemed nice.
How come the Ganda were overcome by the West, but the Japanese were not, even though the stories have so much in common? What were the benefits of only letting the Chinese and Dutch trade with them in their early modernization days? Why didn't the west ever launch an assault on Japan?