Download pdf
The Influence of the Meiji Restoration on the Rise of Militarism in Japan: An Analysis of Internal Reforms and External Influences
- 1 Beijing World Youth Academy
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan was experiencing exploitation and oppression from Western imperialism as China did, and Japan was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties with Western countries. The oppression of imperialism made Japan realize the importance of having a strong army, therefore after the Meiji Restoration, the government decided to enhance Japan’s military capability to win the respect of Western countries and revise the unequal treaties that Japan was previously forced to sign. Later, Japan’s military power increased significantly due to militarism, which was why Japan defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War and defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. The victory of these wars made the country gain the respect of Western countries and made the government sure of the importance of a powerful military. The thing that made Japan become a great power was militarism, which was promoted by the Meiji Restoration, and this essay will study how the Meiji Restoration promoted the rise of militarism in Japan. The study has found that the impact of the Meiji Restoration on the rise of militarism in Japan can be divided into two parts. The first part is the internal factors, which are the military reformation exercised by the government and the government’s education and publicity towards the people, the second part is the external factor, which is the influence received by the Meiji government from Prussia. These three factors played an important role in the rise of militarism in Japan.
Keywords
Militarism, Meiji, Japan, Reformation
[1]. McOmie, W. (2021). The Opening of Japan, 1853–1855: A Comparative Study of the American, British, Dutch and Russian Naval Expedition to Compel the Tokugawa Shogunate to Conclude Treaties and Open Ports to Their Ships in the Years 1853-55. Brill.
[2]. Pletcher, K. (2024). Meiji Restoration. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Meiji-Restoration
[3]. Kuehn, J. T. (2014). A military history of Japan: from the age of the Samurai to the 21st century. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
[4]. Fujimura, M. (2024). Yamagata Aritomo. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yamagata-Aritomo
[5]. Dantika, L.Z. (2018). Japanese Imperial Rescript Armed Forces (Gunjin Chokuyu) 1882. Retrieved from http://eprints.undip.ac.id/70309/7/LAMPIRAN.pdf
[6]. Jiang, Y.Y. (2022). Conscription insurance in pre-war Japan – Private enterprise and national interest. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/18692729.2022.2133667?needAccess=true
[7]. Munderloh, M. (2012). The imperial Japanese army as a factor in spreading militarism and fascism in prewar Japan (Doctoral dissertation, Japan-Zentrum).
[8]. Guo, X.C. (2021). The National “Control” Mechanism and Its Evolution of the Modern Japanese Army. Retrieved from https://mwhrc.nankai.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/35/e6/0425f5ba4be5b1f2c288d153faa6/1d92921b-2f7a-422f-a7e0-b9d6602f8396.pdf
[9]. Ravina, M. (2017). To stand with the nations of the world: Japan's Meiji restoration in world history. Oxford University Press.
[10]. Elshakankiri, H. (2021). Prussian Militarism and the German Wars of Unification. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=aujh#:~:text=Prussia%20was%20always%20seen%20as,societies%2C%20politics%2C%20and%20culture
[11]. Totman, C. (1973). Review: [Untitled]. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/598915
[12]. Nish, I. (1984). Japanese Intelligence and the Approach of the Russo-Japanese War. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07234-7_2
[13]. Martin, B., Wetzler, P. (1990). The German Role in the Modernization of Japan — The Pitfall of Blind Acculturation. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/24048466
Cite this article
Chen,Z. (2024). The Influence of the Meiji Restoration on the Rise of Militarism in Japan: An Analysis of Internal Reforms and External Influences. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media,63,170-174.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Global Politics and Socio-Humanities
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).