Imperialism in Asia - Japan

Japan

In 1641, all Westerners were thrown out of Japan. For the next two centuries, Japan was free from Western influence, except for at the port of Nagasaki, which Japan allowed Dutch merchant vessels to enter on a limited basis.

Japan's freedom from Western penetration ended on 8 July 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy sailed a squadron of black-hulled warships into Edo (modern Tokyo) harbor. The Japanese told Perry to sail to Nagasaki but he refused. Perry sought to present a letter from U.S. President Millard Fillmore to the emperor which demanded concessions from Japan. Japanese authorities responded by stating that they could not present the letter directly to the emperor, but scheduled a meeting on July 14 with a representative of the emperor. On 14 July, the squadron sailed towards the shore, giving a demonstration of their cannon's firepower thirteen times. Perry landed with a large detachment of Marines and presented the emperor's representative with Fillmore's letter. Perry said he would return, and did so, this time with even more war ships. The U.S. show of force led to Japan's concession to the Convention of Kanagawa on 31 March 1854. This treaty conferred extraterritoriality on American nationals, as well as, opening up further treaty ports beyond Nagasaki. This treaty was followed up by similar treaties with the United Kingdom, Holland, Russia and France. These events made Japanese authorities aware that the country was lacking technologically and needed the strength of industrialism in order to keep their power. This realisation eventually led to a civil war and political reform known the Meiji Restoration.

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 led to administrative overhaul, deflation and subsequent rapid economic development. Japan had limited natural resources of her own and sought both overseas markets and sources of raw materials, fuelling a drive for imperial conquest which began with the defeat of China in 1895. Japan changed from a victim of imperialism in Asia, to a perpetrator.

Taiwan, ceded by Qing Dynasty China, became the first Japanese colony. In 1899, Japan won agreements from the great powers' to abandon extraterritoriality for their citizens, and an alliance with the United Kingdom established it in 1902 as an international power. Its spectacular defeat of Russia's navy in 1905 gave it the southern half of the island of Sakhalin; exclusive Japanese influence over Korea (propinquity); the former Russian lease of the Liaodong Peninsula with Port Arthur (Lüshunkou); and extensive rights in Manchuria (see the Russo-Japanese War).

The Empire of Japan and the Joseon Dynasty in Korea formed bilateral diplomatic relations in 1876. China lost its suzerainty of Korea after defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. Russia also lost influence on the Korean peninsula with the Treaty of Portsmouth as a result of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. The Joseon Dynasty became increasingly dependent on Japan. Korea became a protectorate of Japan with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905. Korea was then de jure annexed to Japan with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910.

Japan was now one of the most powerful forces in the Far East, and in 1914, it entered World War I on the side of the Allies, seizing German-occupied Kiaochow and subsequently demanding Chinese acceptance of Japanese political influence and territorial acquisitions (Twenty-One Demands, 1915). Mass protests in Peking in 1919 coupled with Allied (and particularly U.S.) opinion led to Japan's abandonment of most of the demands and Joseon's 1922 return to China. Japan received the German territory from the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, sparking widespread Chinese nationalism.

Tensions with China increased over the 1920s, and in 1931 Japanese army units based in Manchuria seized control of the region without direction from Tokyo. Intermittent conflict with China led to full-scale war in mid-1937, drawing Japan toward an overambitious bid for Asian hegemony (Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere), which ultimately led to defeat and the loss of all its overseas territories after World War II (see Japanese expansionism and Japanese nationalism).