日本是如何在明治維新期間迅速實現工業化的，又為何能得到當時英、法、美等帝國主義列強的允許？
另一個有趣的討論。
日本是如何在明治維新期間迅速實現工業化的，又為何能得到當時英、法、美等帝國主義列強的允許？
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郵政史你的問題的前半部已經很大了，需要多個答案。
/u/ReaperReader在這個答案中涵蓋了經濟史的宏觀視角：日本如何/為何工業化得如此之快、如此之好？
/u/ParkSungJun在這裡討論了更為精確的工業化項目融資問題：為什麼日本能夠如此迅速地實現工業化並成功地抵禦西方列強，而中國、印度和波斯等其他亞洲強國卻失敗了？
/u/ParallelPain在此討論了明治維新的科學基礎：日本在 1900 年代初期在科學和物理學方面迅速趕上，他們是如何實現這一目標的？
還有其他一些答案，但我認為這三個是最好的。
至於西方列強為何「允許」日本工業化，其實他們並沒有這麼做。從1854年開始，他們對日本施加了與中國相同的不平等條約和通商口岸制度。然而，這些不平等條約的消息引起了日本的憤怒，引發了內亂，並在 14 年後迅速爆發了政變。中國最終於 1912 年向中華民國進行了類似的移交，但這是一個艱難得多的過程。日本基本上有一些革命思想在 19 世紀初就已經開始流行，這使得在 1860 年代徹底清除守舊派變得容易得多。這本身並沒有鼓勵歐洲人，但新的明治政府能夠迅速鼓勵社會、法律和經濟改革，以期結束不平等條約。
日本投入了大量資源來學習如何受到美國人和歐洲人的認真對待，以盡可能迅速地進行技術轉讓，並且有許多西方自由主義者願意協助這些努力，儘管西方有文化或種族沙文主義的傾向。結果，到19世紀末，歐洲人失去了向日本發出命令的能力。從某種意義上說，日本最後的「不平等條約」是1895年的三國干涉，試圖阻止日本在甲午戰爭勝利後崛起為太平洋大國，但在1902年，日本卻獲得了與英國結盟，並於1905 年贏得日俄戰爭，結束了將其排除在帝國主義大國體系之外的企圖。
奔跑的馬狗好東西，但我會反駁那裡的結局。
1902年，日本與英國結盟，並於1905年贏得了日俄戰爭，結束了將其排除在帝國主義大國體系之外的企圖。
這不是真的。即使在吞併朝鮮之後，西方列強仍試圖遏制日本的實力和優勢。最著名的例子是日本在凡爾賽的失敗，其他大國拒絕承認其種族平等提案。
但也有其他對日本更實質的蔑視和製衡。1922年簽署的華盛頓海軍會議條約可能是最好的例子。在幾個不同的條約中，日本作為唯一與會的非西方大國，被迫放棄對中國山東省的控制；它也成為防止軍備競賽條約的一部分，該條約將日本的海軍規模永久限制在比美國和英國更小的水平。
這些只是說明了我更廣泛的觀點：儘管日本確實是一個大國，並且其地位肯定超越了當時的任何其他非西方國家，但西方列強確實試圖抑制他們與其他國家平等相處的能力帝國權力。
桑德魯達姆
安迪·薩內
委員同志
1EnTaroAdun1嗯，但是這種檢查不是正常的大國競爭的一部分嗎？西方列強是否透過他們不會嘗試與西方列強合作的方式來阻礙日本？
是的，這就是我這樣寫答案的原因。種族平等條款在道德上是正確的做法，並且會帶來長期利益，但在 1919 年，沒有一個大國有任何理由支持日本。如果你讀過有關 1919 年和平會議的書籍，你會發現日本對於為什麼其他大國應該接受他們的要求幾乎沒有給出任何解釋。事實上，他們在會議期間幾乎完全保持沉默，並進行了極少的談判。不完全是梅特涅或塔列朗。
日本在 1919 年和 1922 年是個奇怪的國家，這一觀點是日本民族主義者的一個主題。我確信這是更嚴肅的歷史論證的論點，但我不認為這是得出的唯一有效的結論。（日本有更有力的證據表明其與美國的雙邊外交是 20 世紀 20 年代至 40 年代系統性種族主義的受害者，但這與主要的大國論點無關）
 帕沙利斯有趣的詢問者 |
日本基本上有一些革命思想在 19 世紀初就已經開始流行，這使得在 1860 年代徹底清除守舊派變得容易得多。這本身並沒有鼓勵歐洲人，但新的明治政府能夠迅速鼓勵社會、法律和經濟改革，以期結束不平等條約。
日本投入了大量資源來學習如何受到美國人和歐洲人的認真對待，以盡可能迅速地進行技術轉讓，並且有許多西方自由主義者願意協助這些努力，儘管西方有文化或種族沙文主義的傾向。結果，到19世紀末，歐洲人失去了向日本發出命令的能力。從某種意義上說，日本最後的「不平等條約」是1895年的三國干涉，試圖阻止日本在甲午戰爭勝利後崛起為太平洋大國，但在1902年，日本卻獲得了與英國結盟，並於1905 年贏得日俄戰爭，結束了將其排除在帝國主義大國體系之外的企圖。
那麼為什麼歐洲人當時不介入阻止這一切？例如禁止向日本出口技術、支持幕府政府對抗帝國反抗軍，或是在日本擺脫不平等條約時入侵？
將軍_烏里斯特
粗製濫造從先前的答覆來看，似乎更簡單的是，他們可以透過成為大國來獲得更平等的地位，而不是歐洲大國被「說服」。日本人做出了巨大的努力來展示自己與歐洲列強的潛在平等，即。他們的“學習使命”，例如1870年代初期的岩倉使命，重新談判不平等條約和學習西方習俗。
他們在第一個方面的直接失敗顯示了當時所感知到的權力差距——直到1894年後才與西方列強重新談判了不平等條約。他們在日俄戰爭中的勝利讓大國相信，日本無論從哪方面來說都是一個大國，即使他們本身不是歐洲人。他們這樣相信更多的是時事的簡單事實，而不是他們「相信」。正如你所提到的，透過外交，除了像義和團運動那樣建立國際聯盟之外，日本人剛剛擊敗了俄羅斯人，而且很難對那些更平等的人執行「不平等」條約，這是一個非常簡單的問題。
卡斯蒂拉1
dslicex克蘭西（Gregory Clancey）的《地震國度》（Earthquake Nation）是一本關於明治中後期地震技術如何傳播和發展的非常好的專著。不完全是關於工業化的主題，但它可能很好地說明了技術如何發展（我認為這與工業化相關）、政府如何做出貢獻/互動以及外國學者如何參與。也包括對緊張時期（即 1891 年野比地震災難後）的文化討論和對被視為西方與被視為日本的新技術/建築的反應的良好討論。有關包含所有優點的簡短版本，請參閱他 2006 年 10 月發表在《現代亞洲研究》上的文章“明治地震…” 。
邁克爾·奧斯林（Michael Auslin）的《與帝國主義談判》可能是理解日本如何「被允許」工業化的一個不錯的背景幫助。直到1899年其主權都受到重大限制，本書詳細描述了條約最初是如何制定的，以及歐美國家提取了什麼。
詹姆斯·霍夫曼（James Hoffman）的《創造公眾》可能是一本思考現代性是如何在文化上構建的好書，它與工業化相伴，儘管這是一本關於19 世紀下半葉新聞和報紙的書。
我確實沒有研究過明治時期的工業化問題，所以請考慮這些主要是背景創造的來源。你或許可以從他們的參考書目中尋找一些好的資料，儘管它們可能已有 20 多年的歷史，因此可能不符合當前的史學觀點。
很高興有幫助！如果您對條約體系的更多資訊感興趣，我也可能會建議下面的列表，但有一個警告。我在下面列出的一些資料是由現代日本歷史學家中支持現代化理論的人撰寫/編輯的，例如詹森。霍夫曼的書可能會帶來一些新鮮的觀點和更好的來源，我敢打賭戴維斯可能會與一些反對現代化理論的採石場一起寫作。基本上，現代化理論已經被批評和超越，但如果你深入研究文獻，這是一個很好的起點。請原諒我沒有任何更新的資料，其中許多都是在我的本科論文寫作期間提取的，而且我沒有跟上史學的發展。
“條約修訂、國家安全和區域合作：明托觀點”，桑德拉·TW·戴維斯 (Sandra TW Davis) 在日本的轉型編輯中。希拉蕊康羅伊、珊卓戴維斯、韋恩帕特森。1984年
橋本充《生麥的碰撞》，譯。Betsey Scheiner 於1987 年春季的《Representations》。
詹姆斯‧霍夫曼《世界歷史中的日本》第五章。2010年。
弗蘭克·W·伊克爾 (Frank W. Ikle) 在 1967 年的《日本紀念碑》中發表了“三重幹預。日本在帝國主義外交中的教訓” 。
「明治日本的現代化與外交政策」作者：Marius B. Jansen，《現代日本的政治發展》編輯。羅伯特·沃德. 1968年。
“明治中期的日本化”，唐納德·H·夏夫利 (Donald H. Shilly)，《日本文化中的傳統與現代化》編輯。唐納德·夏夫利，卡門·布萊克。1971年。
正確-經典3265我的印像是，在現代化理論在1970年代和1980年代衰落之後，大多數學術界並沒有將日本的現代化視為單一的、整體的現象。明治精英沒有正確推導出工業化和國力的「公式」。相反，在一個相當不穩定的環境中，主要是透過反覆試驗，發生了一系列複雜的經濟、知識、制度和文化變化。這並不意味著這種轉變是不可理解的，而是需要分解並在其組成部分中進行審視。因此，最近的大多數學術研究都集中在更微觀的動態上：日本融入技術交流網絡，明治精英試圖透過改革引發的政治和社會動盪來保存權力，或帝國擴張與經濟革命之間的關係。
RoughDraft95How did the Imperial Japanese Military grow in strength so quickly?
This would be around the time of the Meiji Reforms onwards in terms of the time I was looking at.
1/2
For the navy, there were 2 broad phases: 1868 to 1895, then 1895 onward. For the army, the situation was more complicated. Both started by imitating foreign forms, then, after some successes, combined indigenous innovations with foreign doctrine.
The history of the Imperial Japanese Navy is more straightforward - its 'true founder' was Enomoto Takeaki, a samurai who had once fought the Meiji government commanding a breakaway state. For its first 3 decades, conscious that all its likely rivals, chief among them the Chinese Beiyang and Nanyang fleets, had greater financial resources, the Japanese navy innovated the French navy's asymmetric "jeune ecole" doctrine which believed swarms of small ships could overcome battleship rows. A hodgepodge of foreign advisors arrived to train the navy, but, unlike countries that did poorly with foreign advisors, real control was always in the hands of the IJN's officer cliques, who held the advisors at arms' length and standardized their SOP using bits and pieces of each foreign navy's doctrine, instead of allowing foreign advisors to clash and create contradictory recommendations
Unfortunately, like most asymmetric doctrines, the jeune ecole turned out to be nonsense. During the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Navy did not so much win the war as much as the Beiyang Navy lost it. After Empress Dowager Ci Xi's retirement in 1889, her successor as kingmaker, Grand Tutor Weng, slashed military funding to the point at which the Beiyang navy purchased no more ships after that year, and all personnel were fatally underpaid. During the war, the Japanese Navy's cruisers, torpedo boats, and gunboats failed to destroy any of the Chinese navy's battleships. Instead, the battleships were forced to surrender when it was found out that their underpaid officers replaced most of their gunpowder with sawdust in a corruption racket.
This outcome was a grave disappointment for the IJN, which had hoped its asymmetric doctrine would allow it to take on much bigger foes like France, Britain, the US, or Russia with fewer resources. The aftermath of the war saw them try to cover lost ground by lobbying for a 10-year building plan called the 6-6 plan: 6 battleships, 6 armored cruisers. They handled this transition from a French-style small ship fleet to a British-style battleship row with remarkable competence, making up for material deficits through superior gunnery training and asymmetric innovations like offensive minelaying, and the use of incendiary melinite shells to destroy superstructures. After the royal navy itself, the IJN was the first force to widely introduce wireless telegraphy (radio) on its ships. This restructuring process involved sending promising officers like Akiyama Saneyuki to the US and UK to observe the way they educated battleship officers - Akiyama brought back the concept of naval wargames, which he quickly introduced to the IJN's academies and colleges. Critically, not all of the IJN's ideas worked - their continued faith in torpedo boats was shattered by the war, and Akiyama's idea to replicate the (failed) plugging of Santiago harbor with a "sinkship" at Port Arthur went just as well as its predecessor. The "proto-Pearl Harbor" surprise attack at Port Arthur was a miserable failure, despite happening in ideal conditions. Ultimately, the IJN was willing to try new things and fail, and that was the secret to its success.
Unlike the army, the Navy fought flawlessly during the Russo-Japanese War, and changed very little "in spirit" following the war, simply adjusting its "victorious doctrine" to the times in subsequent decades. The IJN totally outclassed the various Russian fleets, and "learned" that speed and long-range battleship gunnery were the key ingredients to tactical naval success. Strategically, the war seemed a confirmation of the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, who the IJN continued to read religiously.
The IJA's history is more complicated. For the decade following the Meiji Restoration, it did everything in its power to imitate the French and German armies - by 1871, "German infantry, French cavalry" became the consensus. The 1877 Satsuma rebellion, however, would totally change the game. In the dying moments of the rebellion, its leader, former ruling clique member Saigo Takamori, launched a suicide charge that greatly inspired his protege-turned-enemy, Yamagata Aritomo. While such suicide charges were commonplace in the military history of Japan, they were rare virtually anywhere else in the world. This Yamato Damashii (Japanese spirit), the generals reasoned, would be the "X Factor" Japan would need to defeat richer and more populous countries (in other words: every country they would possibly fight save for Korea). Seishin Kyoikyu, or spiritual training, filtered into IJA manuals as early as 1882, the same year the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors was issued, striking a uniquely Japanese tone and rejecting many of the beliefs in vogue in Europe at the time. Still, foreign advice remained dominant in doctrinal formation well into the late 1880s, when the last empowered foreign advisors were expelled. By 1895, the IJA was still an "imitation Western force", and its performance, while respectable, was mediocre by the standards of great powers. Still, its conduct of the 1894-95 war was far less flawed than that of the Navy, so the impulse to reform was far lower.
From 1895 to 1905, the IJA made only minor doctrinal revisions, mainly around the few visible failures it did experience. In reaction to the Lushunkou massacre, when Japanese soldiers, who had no cultural or historical tradition of taking POWs, massacred thousands of surrendered Chinese, the IJA stiffened discipline and instituted "regimental wives" (prostitutes, and a precursor to comfort women) as a sort of catharsis to discourage rapes and brutality. These measures seem to have worked by 1899, as, during the Boxer Rebellion, Westerners praised Japanese soldiers for their civility and discipline (though the conduct of some of the members of the 8-Nation Alliance set a very low bar). The other area where the IJN did start to innovate was in re-introducing some traditional "Eastern" military tactics into its doctrine, namely the night attack. From 1895 to 1905, Chinese military classics started to filter back into Japanese military education and 'recreational' military reading, as the army searched for "native" advantages against materially and numerically superior Western forces.
The Russo-Japanese War, while a success, would be a serious wakeup call for the IJA as it caused widespread disenchantment with the "mainstream" European doctrines at the time. Foreshadowing World War 1, Japanese forces launched repeated human wave attacks against fortified positions, and, while they generally killed more than they lost, it rapidly became clear to the brass that they could not win wars against numerically superior enemies in this fashion. During the war, the IJA displayed more competence than their Russian enemies (who still drilled volley fire and were instructed "not to aim" by their tactical regulations, as aiming slowed down the momentum of the attack) and were widely praised by European observers (whose armies were following the same outdated doctrine), but privately its generals knew their tactics were unsustainable.
While fewer than those of the IJN, the IJA did have highlights during the war. Its night attacks were terrifying to the Russians, and would remain a fixture of its doctrine until its dissolution. Its morale was legendary, and it is still debated by historians whether this was created by seishin kyoikyu, or was simply cultural to the Japanese. Reacting against orientalism, many scholars in the 70s to 2000s tried to adjust the narrative and asserted that it was "indoctrination" that caused Japanese soldiers to be so fanatical. Some have tried to "excuse" the conduct, and indeed the atrocities of the IJA in the 30s and 40s by claiming that they were merely imitating European fascism.
However, Japanese memoirs from the Russo-Japanese War, most famously Human Bullets, prove that these "enlightened" arguments are mostly nonsense. These memoirs reveal that a great many Japanese troops during the Russo-Japanese War received virtually no seishin kyoikyu at all, and in some cases even very little training. Despite this, the accounts are full of "everyday fanaticism", including such gems as "In this particular battle to be ready for death was not enough; what was required of us was a determination not to fail to die. Indeed, we were 'sure-death' men, and this new appellation gave us a great stimulus". The accounts reveal that Japan, long before fascism, was an extreme version of an "honor culture" where one's reputation in his local community was more important, even far more important, than his life. They are also full of accounts of soldiers instinctively trying to raise each others' spirits and take each others' minds off suffering and bad news. In short, Japanese culture at the time was naturally conducive to military morale - something that was widely noticed by Western observers at the time but denied amid a torrent of revisionist history in the later Cold War.
2/2
Outside "moral factors", the IJA did introduce some doctrinal innovations. While the British conducted indirect artillery fire on a limited scale in the Boer War, the IJA was the first army to introduce it widely. They also made innovative offensive use of machine guns, using them as overwatch from defilade to cover assaults - a skirmish line would dash from one row of cover to another when the machine gun fired, then stop and allow it to be cooled with water (as was required with the Maxims of the time) before resuming the advance under cover again. All in all, however, while the IJA revealed itself to be one of the most tactically competent armies of the time, pre-WW1 doctrine set the bar extremely low, and its generals were made painfully aware of that.
What followed was a near total rejection of the military orthodoxy of the time, and decades of innovation to create a doctrine that would allow smaller forces to defeat larger ones, and less well armed forces to defeat better armed ones. The first sacred cow to be slaughtered was traditional European drill and training, which emphasized appearances and attention to detail. The IJA replaced this with year-round "practical training" for skills they thought would be useful, including endurance marches (building up to the point where men would be marching 25 miles a day for several days), section (squad) tactics, marksmanship, bayonet work, and learning to use the rifles of their most likely adversaries. Virtually no attention was paid to bed folding, parade, or uniform standards (and uniforms would indeed get remarkably uglier in the intervening decades). Some feared the collapse of discipline amid the dissolution of European drill practices, so the IJA worked around this problem by instituting frequent beatings over even the smallest mistake, reasoning that "the lesson would remembered" and this would "encourage prompt obedience to orders".
The second sacred cow to be slaughtered was pre-war battalion tactics, which at the time involved a large unit working as a single organism, each company always having contact with the next. Japan devolved the basic tactical unit from the company to the platoon even before the First World War, and by the second it had devolved to the section. Units were instructed to forget about maintaining contact or regularity with one another, with a sole emphasis on "closing rapidly" so Japanese soldiers could leverage their advantage at close ranges.
Finally, the IJA dispensed with any semblance of 'unity of command'. Originally German-trained, it had always believed in 'mission command', but by 1931 had taken this to its logical extreme, to the point at which orders were rarely longer than a single paragraph and following them was almost optional at all levels. The most notorious example of this gone wrong was in the Imphal Offensive of 1944, where General Mutaguchi was essentially told by everyone that his offensive was a stupid idea, but ignored them all. His commander, Kawabe, allowed the plan to go ahead despite also thinking it was stupid because he believed that officers should be allowed to do what they wanted and the junior ranks always had a more accurate picture of the situation than their seniors. However, in many cases this decentralization also resulted in stunning successes. On the whole, it permeated a culture of gekokujo ("loyal insubordination") within the military where ranks in some cases became almost meaningless and a combination of force of personality and audacity determined how much say an officer had in what was to be done.
The basic trajectory of post-1905 IJA reform transitioned the force from a conventional to a "disruptive" force. Aware that military logistics and C3 were getting more complicated by the year, most countries focused on acquiring excellence in these 4 areas. Japan, in contrast, owing to its weaker industrial base, focused on building a force that could function in the absence of good logistics and C3, and which could disrupt that of the enemy, rendering him a "fish out of water".
This unconventional set of beliefs led to remarkable successes beyond what any of its authors expected in the 30s and 40s, a process which greatly buoyed the confidence and expansionism of the IJA. Its triumphs started in 1931 with the conquest of Manchuria, continued during the Second-Sino Japanese War, and finally culminated with the conquest of the European and American colonies in 1941-42. Each of these victories involved an outnumbered and outgunned force triumphing with surprising ease. Opponents of the IJA at the time noted that its soldiers were able to march far faster than they were and fight in any conditions, while its officers showed exceptional initiative and ingenuity. However, the later part of this period would also expose flaws in the IJA's system - it was excellent at doing 1 thing, and not very good at anything else. Throughout the 1941-42 offensives, the IJA relied extensively on captured equipment, and by 1944 the British had learned to keep their depots far behind their lines. Further, as a basically offensive army, the IJA knew almost nothing of defense and did not even have a concept of defense in depth. It wasn't until Iwo Jima that any Japanese position was defended competently - instead, it was "defended through attack". On paper, this wasn't an issue - even in the highly unfavorable tactical conditions of island defense, where the Japanese were subject to naval bombardment and faced an always numerically superior enemy, their loss ratios were often even and sometimes favorable. In practice, however, such an aggressive defense meant IJA garrisons were being defeated far faster than they otherwise would have been, meaning the army was essentially incapable of fighting any kind of delaying action.
The performance of the navy, due to its relative inertia during the interwar, was far less remarkable. Pearl Harbor, the Java Sea, the Indian Ocean Raid, and Savo Island were highlights, but the navy also had its share of catastrophic failures, including early in the war. Unlike the army, which had essentially discarded most of its Russo-Japanese War era practices, the navy still clung to its antiquated decisive battle doctrine, failed to develop any semblance of competent ASW tactics, and seemed to have done very little thinking about how a long war would turn out. Whereas the army had a coherent "theory of victory" against numerically superior opponents, the navy did not consider the deficiencies in, for example, their small-class pilot training program, and simply assumed that "ships took a long time to build" so a single victory would knock an opponent out of the war.
There is obviously a lot that I didn't discuss during this post, including: - The IJA's record against Korean, Manchurian, and Chinese guerrillas. - The brutal occupation of Eastern Russia from 1918-1922. - The factional intrigues within the IJA (chobatsu vs everyone else, then Baden-Baden group/toseiha vs kodoha). - The Soviet-Japanese Border War and the extensive falsification campaign that surrounded it. - Japan's 'rapid industrialization' (or rather, lack thereof) during the Meiji era. - The Sengoku roots of gekokujo, long before German arrival.
But this post is already getting way too long and I hope it at the very least gives a basic overview of the topic.
Tilting_Gambit
raptorgalaxythe navy still clung to its antiquated decisive battle doctrine, failed to develop any semblance of competent ASW tactics, and seemed to have done very little thinking about how a long war would turn out.
I have a few minor nits to pick with these statements.
With respect to "decisive battle" I think that was the only way for Japan to win the war, other than the idea of attacking just the DEI and hoping that the US public's isolationist tilt could hold out for 12-18 months, giving the Japanese time to boost their reserves of oil, rubber, tin, aviation gasoline, etc.
Back to decisive battle. The Japanese had the best carrier task force in the world in 1940-1942. They had the best carrier pilots and they had arguably the best carrier planes. What they didn't have was staying power in any category for a long war so the only hope was to use those advantages to win a decisive battle or battles and hope the US cut a deal that would allow Japan to keep some portion of its empire.
You're not wrong, but it just goes to show how fatally flawed Japan's understanding of both the US and modern war were.
The idea that knocking out most of the US Pacific Fleet would do anything but lengthen the war showed a complete underestimation of the US's productive capacity. On Youtube, Military History Visualized has a great video that really helped me visualize how stunning the US's advantage in production was. The Japanese based their assumptions on how hard it was for them to build ships, completely ignoring how easy it was for the US to build them, even while also fighting a war in Europe.
They also underestimated the Allies' will to fight. For some reason, the Axis constantly entertained dreams of the "weak" Allies or "degenerate" communists caving and coming to the peace conference table after a defeat or two. I don't know if it was the (outlier) example of France setting their expectations or just plain old wishful thinking, but they couldn't have been more wrong in assuming that the US would have packed it in after a decisive defeat. Hell, I'd even say they were 180 degrees wrong; Pearl Harbor almost single-handedly killed off 99% of the isolationist sentiment in the US in one day. It did so so effectively that we now have conspiracy theories about how FDR must have known, since it worked out so well for his foreign policy goals.
Like you said, it might have been their only hope. But it was a vain hope, and wiser minds might have seen that and avoided war with the US altogether.
DerFeisteAbt
Hessarian99Yep, and it's one of the most pervasive myths in modern history. Japan did industrialize relatively quickly in the Meiji era, but relative is the key word. At a time when average GDP growth in Western Europe was around 1%, Japan was tied with the US at 3%. Fast, but nowhere close to speeds after 1931.
Contra popular belief, Japanese economic management before 1931 was hardly brilliant and had a lot of problems. During and after the Satsuma rebellion, there was massive hyperinflation both from printing to pay for the rebellion (Confucian governance was essentially minarchist, so taxes were very low in all of northeast Asia until after WW1) and from copying the local reserve bank system of the US, which was naturally inflationary. Finance Minister Matsukata responded to this by centralizing banknote issuing privileges in the central bank, and, after the Shimonoseki indemnity from China, buying gold to join the gold standard. What resulted was the "Matsukata deflation", which is extremely controversial among Japanese economists to this day. Some say it was brilliant, others say it was the height of economic stupidity, but the fact that this era involved great economic disruption was undeniable.
After 1900, Japan's economy was still mostly agrarian, and what industries it had were struggling. The zaibatsu started as foreign trading firms, and basically controlled the export distribution channel. They exploited small manufacturers, who had to bid low for export deals, and the traditional rayon, silk, and textile industries were suffering from American tariffs and competition from Hong Kong and China. Japan, contra popular belief, ran a trade deficit for most of the interwar years, owing to the need to import huge amounts of technology. This usually wasn't done in the smart way (hiring foreign experts, consultants, and technicians or sending interns abroad) but by directly buying huge amounts of machinery. Japan was always short of gold, and had to institute a "gold embargo" to avoid its currency being totally debased.
The turning point in Japanese economic management was 1931, when the 'reform bureaucrats', a long marginalized group in the zaibatsu-aligned establishment of the Japanese government, acquired a 'laboratory' in Manchukuo. Following the conquest of the province by mostly toseiha officers, they made an alliance with the reform bureuacrats. This concurred with a purge of reformist bureaucrats by zaibatsu-aligned officials in Japan, so most were "exiled" to Manchuria. There, they experimented with several policies to expand corporate profit rates (usually by depressing wages at all costs) and encouraging foreign investment. They secured for themselves a 'defector' among the zaibatsu in Nissan Founder Aigunkawa Gisuke, who essentially had no choice but to accept Manchukuo's overtures due to the impending bankruptcy of his company. Most of the Japanese postwar economic management techniques got their start in Manchukuo.
Boom-era monetary policy had a different genesis. By 1932, the Great Depression was hitting Japan, so Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo essentially dispensed with mainstream economics at the time, left the gold standard, ran the money printer, and used heavy deficit spending. It worked. The Finance Ministry brass had a change of heart, believing that Classical Economics was indeed the scam the reform bureaucrats were saying it was, and from then on became their main ally in Japan.
Long story short, by 1937 both the military establishment and political establishment were outmaneuvered by the "Manchurian clique" of reform bureaucrats and toseiha officers with the help of the Hitler-cosplaying (not a joke, he actually dressed as Hitler to costume parties) Prince Konoe. Konoe had a good run, lasting four years on and off (about 10 times longer than the average Japanese PM at the time), but eventually Tojo (the leader of Toseiha), Kishi (the leader of the reform bureaucrats), and Matsukata (the foreign minister and their longtime friend) threw him under the bus. Then, Tojo and Kishi threw Matsukata under the bus (I forget exactly why) and bombed Pearl Harbor. By then, it was too late for economic reform, but the reformists used the war to clear all the conservatives out of the bureaucracy. Finally, by 1945, the reform bureaucrats threw Tojo and Toseiha under the bus, convincing the Americans that the military and zaibatsu were responsible for the war and they had no part in it (something easy for the Americans to believe, as the American bureaucracy had virtually no power) and ended up ruling the country for 40 years.
In this time, they implemented, refined, and perfected the techniques they were already using in Manchukuo and, on the monetary front, in Japan. Critically, however, these techniques were unknown before 1931, and the Meiji era, despite being a military success, was an economic failure as Japan remained a relatively poor 'great power' up to the 40s.
DrHENCHMANHitler-cosplaying (not a joke, he actually dressed as Hitler to costume parties) Prince Konoe
wikipedia_text_botPrince Fumimaro Konoe (Japanese: 近衞 文麿, Hepburn: Konoe Fumimaro, often Konoye, 12 October 1891 – 16 December 1945) was a Japanese politician and prime minister. During his tenure, he presided over the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the breakdown in diplomatic relations resulting in Japan’s entry into World War II. He also played a central role in transforming his country into a totalitarian state by passing the National Mobilization Law and founding the Imperial Rule Assistance Association. Despite Konoe's attempts to resolve tensions with the United States, the rigid timetable imposed on negotiations by the military and his government's inflexibility regarding a resolution set Japan on the path to war.
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Critically, however, these techniques were unknown before 1931, and the Meiji era, despite being a military success, was an economic failure as Japan remained a relatively poor 'great power' up to the 40s.
Hmm, it seems to me that economically, the Japanese Meji period parallels other non-European powers that had reforms in the nineteenth century (Ottoman Tanzimat period, Qing Dynasty self-strengthening, Egypt under Muhammad Ali).
Mistaking the Industrial revolution as a technological revolution instead of a financial revolution, like their counterparts in China, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, the Meiji reformers focused on military technology.
Except their military reforms were far more successful, giving Japan enough time to devise their own economic system.
Ye_Olde_Mudder
Garand
theskipper363
dalenacio
LostWithStuff
HoboWithAGlock FlashbackHistoryDeputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Mandatory Fun |
Command, Control, and Communications. In other words, how leaders talk to their subordinate units and tell them what to do.
VRichardsenUnfortunately, like most asymmetric doctrines, the jeune ecole turned out to be nonsense. During the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Navy did not so much win the war as much as the Beiyang Navy lost it. After Empress Dowager Ci Xi's retirement in 1889, her successor as kingmaker, Grand Tutor Weng, slashed military funding to the point at which the Beiyang navy purchased no more ships after that year, and all personnel were fatally underpaid. During the war, the Japanese Navy's cruisers, torpedo boats, and gunboats failed to destroy any of the Chinese navy's battleships. Instead, the battleships were forced to surrender when it was found out that their underpaid officers replaced most of their gunpowder with sawdust in a corruption racket.
This paragraph alone is fascinating; so much packed into it. This comment is not only informative, but a joy to read.
Thank you: * Japanese Infantryman 1937-45 - The best overview of IJA training and doctrine in English. * Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 * Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall - Not a very objective book, but goes over the major facts well. * The Way of the Heavenly Sword - very good and goes deep into the factional politics. * The Russo-Japanese War: Lessons Not Learned
During the war, the Japanese Navy's cruisers, torpedo boats, and gunboats failed to destroy any of the Chinese navy's battleships. Instead, the battleships were forced to surrender when it was found out that their underpaid officers replaced most of their gunpowder with sawdust in a corruption racket.
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