Japanese Influence

In China, in the mid-1870s…

Publications from Kiangnan Arsenal translation

bureau- 1860s to 1890s-13,000 copies, limited sale.

Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Condition of the West sold 250,000

immediately in 1866.

Mid- to late 19th century, the image of Japan to

Chinese leaders – grudging admiration

Meiji Japan held a very special place in the minds of

the Confucian reformers. (Huang Zunxian’s Riben

Guozhi, 1887)

What about Japan?

1867/68, the Tokugawa era

found an end in the Meiji

Restoration. The emperor Meiji

(1852-1912) was moved from

Kyoto to Tokyo which became

the new capital – imperial

power was restored.

The actual political power was

transferred from the Tokugawa

Bakufu into the hands of a

small group of nobles and

former samurai.

Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the Last

Shōgun 1837-1913 Emperor Meiji (1852-1912)

Rangaku

The Tokugawa Period

(1600-1868)

1641-1853, closed to

foreigners –- only one

Dutch trading port in

Nagasaki Harbor

“Dutch Learning”

Covered a variety of topics:

Medicine

Engineering

Biology

Japan’s first treatise on western study of anatomy,

1774 Voltage experiments, 18th century

Japanese schematic drawing of

a Dutch microscope. Scientific studies of insects, 18th century.

Perry and “Black Ships”

Summer of 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry enters Edo Bay with his “Black Ships” under orders by president Millard Fillmore to inquire into possibility of opening diplomatic and commercial relations

Samuel Wells Williams and one Cantonese as interpreters

Townsend Harris concludes economic treaty with Japan in 1856, insists on many clauses as in “Unequal Treaties”

China as a Warning to Japan

Wei Yuan’s works circulated widely in Japan, maritime defense – Sakuma Shōzan’s writing

News from China, variety of sources (first-hand observations collected by Japanese merchant ships in the 1860s; from Nagasaki through Dutch reports, publications brought back by travelers to Shanghai.)

“Disasters” “Opium threatening” – not to repeat the Chinese experience

A number of important Restoration leaders went to Europe through Shanghai in the 1860s – “forest of foreign masts in Shanghai,” impossible to continue old patterns of seclusion.

Their reports “uncertain course of events in China” “European discernment of Japanese efficiency and Chinese failure” – encouraged Restoration leaders and a potential “competition”

Meiji Restoration Most of the people who

carried out the Meiji Restoration were young samurai who wanted to return to the past

Meiji leaders instead want to look to future

Respected material superiority of West and wanted to emulate it through modernization

New slogan “Rich Nation, Strong Army” (“Fukoku-kyōhei”)

Reverberating Furnace

“Civilization and Enlightenment”

By 1870s Japanese not

interested in restoring

past but joining march of

Western Progress

Nearly twenty year

search to incorporate

Western “Civilization

and Enlightenment”

(“Bunmei-kaika”)

“Civilization and Enlightenment”

The search for Civilization and Enlightenment included many things:

Understanding western science

Incorporating western technology

Understanding western lit., philosophy, and society