Conciliación de la vida familiar y laboral

Rich Country, Strong Army

Although the victory of the Sat-Cho faction over the shogunate appeared on the surface to be a struggle be-tween advocates of tradition and proponents of concili-ation toward the West, in fact the new leadership soon realized that Japan must change to survive and embarked on a policy of comprehensive reform that would lay the foundations of a modern industrial nation within a generation. The symbol of the new era was the young emperor himself, who had taken the reign name Meiji (‘‘enlightened rule’’) on ascending the throne after the death of his father in 1867. Although the post-Tokugawa period was termed a ‘‘restoration,’’ the Meiji ruler was controlled by the new leadership, just as the shogun had controlled his predecessors. In tacit recognition of the real source of political power, the new capital was located at

Edo, which was renamed Tokyo (‘‘Eastern Capital’’), and the imperial court was moved to the shogun’s palace in the center of the city.

The Transformation of Japanese Politics The Transformation of Japanese Politics Once in power, the new leaders launched a comprehen-sive reform of Japanese political, social, economic, and cultural institutions and values. They moved first to abolish the remnants of the old order and strengthen their executive power. To undercut the power of the daimyo, hereditary privileges were abolished in 1871, and the great lords lost title to their lands. As compensation, they were named governors of the territories formerly under their control. The samurai received a lump-sum payment to replace their traditional stipends but were forbidden to wear the sword, the symbol of their hered-itary status.

The abolition of the legal underpinnings of the To-kugawa system permitted the Meiji modernizers to em-bark on the creation of a modern political system based on the Western model. In the Charter Oath of 1868, the new leaders promised to create a new deliberative as-sembly within the framework of continued imperial rule (see the box on p. 60). Although senior positions in the new government were given to the daimyo, the key posts were dominated by modernizing samurai, known as the genro, from the Sat-Cho clique.

During the next two decades, the Meiji government undertook a systematic study of Western political systems. A constitutional commission under Prince Ito Hirobumi traveled to several Western countries, including Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and the United States, to study their political institutions. As the process evolved, a number of factions appeared, each representing different ideas. The most prominent were the Liberals, who favored political reform on the Western liberal democratic model, and the Progressives, who called for a division of power between the legislative and executive branches, with a slight nod to the latter. There was also an imperial party that advocated the retention of supreme authority in the hands of the emperor.

The

The MeijMeiji i ConConstitstitutioutionn During the 1870s and 1880 s, these factions competed for preeminence. In the end, the Progressives emerged victorious. The Meiji constitution, adopted in 1890, vested authority in the executive branch, although the imperialist faction was pacified by the statement that the constitution was the gift of the em-peror. Members of the cabinet were to be handpicked by the Meiji oligarchs. The upper house of parliament was to be appointed and have equal legislative powers with the lower house, called the Diet, whose members would be

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elected. The core ideology of the state was called the ko-kutai (national polity), which embodied (although in very imprecise form) the concept of the uniqueness of the Japanese system based on the supreme authority of the emperor.

The result was a system that was democratic in form but despotic in practice, modern in external appearance but still recognizably traditional in that power remained in the hands of a ruling oligarchy. The system permitted the traditional ruling class to retain its influence and economic power while acquiescing in the emergence of a new set of institutions and values.

Meiji Economics Meiji Economics

With the end of the daimyo domains, the government needed to establish a new system of land ownership that would transform the mass of the rural population from indentured serfs into citizens. To do so, it enacted a land reform program that redefined the domain lands as the private property of the tillers while compensating the previous owner with government bonds. One reason for the new policy was that the government needed operating revenues. At the time, public funds came mainly from customs duties, which were limited by agreement with the foreign powers to 5 percent of the value of the product.

To remedy the problem, the Meiji leaders added a new agriculture tax, which was set at an annual rate of 3 percent of the estimated value of the land. The new tax proved to be a lucrative and dependable source of income for the government, but it was quite onerous for the farmers, who

had previously paid a fixed percentage of their harvest to the landowner. As a result, in bad years, many taxpaying peasants were unable to pay their taxes and were forced to sell their lands to wealthy neighbors. Eventually, the gov-ernment reduced the tax to 2.5 percent of the land value.

Still, by the end of the century, about 40 percent of all farmers were tenants.

Launchin

Launching g the Industrial Revolutionthe Industrial Revolution With its budget needs secured, the government turned to the promotion of industry. A small but growing industrial economy had already existed under the Tokugawa. In its early stages, manufacturing in Japan had been the exclusive respon-sibility of an artisan caste, who often worked for the local daimyo. Eventually, these artisans began to expand their activities, hiring workers and borrowing capital from merchants. By the end of the seventeenth century, manufacturing centers had developed in Japan’s growing cities, such as Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. According to one historian, by 1700, Japan already had four cities with a population over 100,000 and was one of the most ur-banized societies in the world.

Japan’s industrial sector received a massive stimulus from the Meiji Restoration. The government provided financial subsidies to needy industries, imported foreign advisers, improved transport and communications, and established a universal system of education emphasizing applied science. In contrast to China, Japan was able to achieve results with minimum reliance on foreign capital.

Although the first railroad---built in 1872---was under-written by a loan from Great Britain, future projects were

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60 ^{PART PART II} NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING

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all financed locally. Foreign-currency holdings came largely from tea and silk, which were exported in signif-icant quantities during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

During the late Meiji era, Japan’s industrial sector began to grow. Besides tea and silk, other key industries were weaponry, shipbuilding, and sake. From the start, the distinctive feature of the Meiji model was the intimate relationship between government and private business in terms of operations and regulations. Once an individual enterprise or industry was on its feet (or sometimes, when it had ceased to make a profit), it was turned over entirely to private ownership, although the government often continued to play some role even after its direct involvement in management was terminated.

Also noteworthy is the effect that the Meiji reforms had on rural areas. As we have seen, the new land tax provided the government with funds to subsidize the industrial sector, but it imposed severe hardship on the rural population, many of whom abandoned their farms and fled to the cities in search of jobs. This influx of people in turn benefited Japanese industry by providing an abundant source of cheap labor. As in early modern Europe, the industrial revolution in Japan was built on the strong backs of the long-suffering peasantry.

Building a Modern Social Structure Building a Modern Social Structure

The Meiji Restoration also transformed several other feudal institutions. A key focus of their attention was the army.

The Sat-Cho reformers had been struck by the weakness of the Japanese armed forces in clashes with the Western powers and embarked on a major program to create a modern military force that could compete in a Darwinist world governed by the survival of the fittest. The old feudal army based on the traditional warrior class was abolished, and an imperial army based on universal con-scription was formed in 1871. The army also played an important role in Japanese society, becoming a means of upward mobility for many rural males.

Education

Education Education also underwent major changes.

The Meiji leaders recognized the need for universal edu-cation, including instruction in modern technology. After a few years of experimenting, they adopted the American model of a three-tiered system culminating in a series of universities and specialized institutes. In the meantime, they sent bright students to study abroad and brought foreign specialists to Japan to teach in their new schools.

Much of the content of the new system was Western in inspiration. Yet its ethical foundations had a distinctly Confucian orientation, emphasizing such values as filial piety and loyalty to the emperor.

Th

The e RoRole le of of WoWomenmen The Meiji reforms also had an impact on the role of women in Japan. In the traditional era, women were constrained by the ‘‘three obediences’’

imposed on their gender: child to father, wife to husband, and widow to son. Husbands could easily obtain a di-vorce, but wives could not (one regulation allegedly de-creed that a husband could divorce his spouse if she drank too much tea or talked too much). Marriages were arranged, and the average age of marriage for females was sixteen years. Females did not share inheritance rights with males, and few received any education outside the family.

By the end of the nineteenth century, women were beginning to play a crucial role in their nation’s effort to modernize. Urged by their parents to augment the family income as well as by the government to fulfill their patri-otic duty, young girls were sent en masse to work in textile mills. From 1894 to 1912, women represented 60 percent of the Japanese labor force. Thanks to them, by 1914, Japan was the world’s leading exporter of silk and domi-nated cotton manufacturing. If it had not been for the export revenues earned from textile exports, Japan might not have been able to develop its heavy industry and military prowess without an infusion of foreign capital.

Japanese women received few rewards, however, for their contribution to the nation. In 1900, new regulations prohibited women from joining political organizations or attending public meetings. Beginning in 1905, a group of independent-minded women petitioned the Japanese parliament to rescind this restriction, but it was not repealed until 1922.

Joining the Imperialist Club Joining the Imperialist Club

Japan’s rapid advance was viewed with proprietary pride and admiration by sympathetic observers around the world. Unfortunately, the Japanese did not just imitate the domestic policies of their Western mentors; they also emulated the latter’s aggressive approach to foreign affairs.

That they adopted this course is perhaps not surprising. In their own minds, the Japanese were particularly vulnerable in the world economic arena. Their territory was small, lacking in resources, and densely populated, and they had no natural outlet for expansion. To observant Japanese, the lessons of history were clear. Western nations had amassed wealth and power not only because of their democratic systems and high level of education but also because of their colonies, which provided them with sources of raw materials, cheap labor, and markets for their manufactured products.

Traditionally, Japan had not been an expansionist country. The Japanese had generally been satisfied to re-main on their home islands and had even deliberately

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isolated themselves from their neighbors during the To-kugawa era. Perhaps the most notable exception was a short-lived attempt at the end of the sixteenth century to extend Japanese control over the Korean peninsula.

The Japanese began their program of territorial ex-pansion (see Map 3.3) close to home. In 1874, they claimed compensation from China for fifty-four sailors from the Ryukyu Islands who had been killed by abo-rigines on the island of Taiwan and sent a Japanese fleet to Taiwan to punish the perpetrators. When the Qing dy-nasty evaded responsibility for the incident while agreeing to pay an indemnity to Japan to cover the cost of the expedition, it weakened its claim to ownership of the island of Taiwan. Japan was then able to claim suzerainty over the Ryukyu Islands, long tributary to the Chinese Empire. Two years later, Japanese naval pressure forced the opening of Korean ports to Japanese commerce.

During the 1880s, as Meiji leaders began to mod-ernize their military forces along Western lines, Sino-Japanese rivalry over Korea intensified. In 1894, China and Japan intervened on opposite sides of an internal rebellion in Korea. When hostilities broke out between the two powers, Japanese ships destroyed the Chinese fleet and seized the Manchurian city of Port Arthur. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Manchus were forced to rec-ognize the independence of Korea and to cede Taiwan and the Liaodong peninsula, with its strategic naval base at Port Arthur, to Japan.

Am ur R . R U S _S I A

M M A N C H U R I A

TAIWAN (FORMOSA)

1895

KARAFUTO 1905

KOREA 1908

FUJIAN SHANDONG

SAKHALIN

SOU TH MA N N C H U R ^IA

R Y ^{U K Y} U

I S^{. 1} 8 7 2

K U ^{R I L E} I S ¹. ^{8 7}

5

JA ^{P P A N}

Pa c i fi c Ocean Sea of Japan

S t r a i t s o f T s u s h i m a C

H ^I N A Qingdao

Changchun

Amoy Port Arthur

Liaodong Peninsula

Japan’s posses sion s at the end of 1875 Territorial acquisitions, 1894–1914 Spheres of Japanese influence in 1918 0 250 500 Miles

0 500 1,000 Kilometers

MAP 3.3

MAP 3.3 Japanese Overseas Expansion During the MeijiJapanese Overseas Expansion During the Meiji Era.

Era. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Japan ventured beyond its home islands and became an imperialist power. The extent of Japanese colonial expansion through World War I is shown here.

Q

QWhich parts of Imperial China were now under Japanese influence?

Total Humiliation.

Total Humiliation. Whereas China had persevered in hiding behind the grandeur of its past, Japan had embraced the West, modernizing itself politically, militarily, and culturally. China’s humiliation at the hands of its newly imperialist neighbor is evident in this scene, where the differences in dress and body posture of the officials negotiating the treaty after the war reflect China’s disastro us 1895 defeat by the Japanese .

 c R e ´ u n i o n d e s M u s e ´ e s N a t i o n a u x / A r t R e s o u r c e , N Y

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Shortly thereafter, under pressure from the European powers, the Japanese returned the Liaodong peninsula to China, but in the early twentieth century, they returned to the offensive. Rivalry with Russia over influence in Korea led to increasingly strained relations between the two countries.

In 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian naval base at Port Arthur, which Russia had taken from China in 1898. The Japanese armed forces were weaker, but Russia faced difficult logistical problems along its new Trans-Siberian Railway and severe political instability at home. In 1905, after Japanese warships sank almost the entire Russian fleet off the coast of Korea, the Russians agreed to a hu-miliating peace, ceding the strategically located Liaodong peninsula back to Japan, along with southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. Russia also agreed to abandon its political and economic influence in Korea and southern Manchuria, which now came increasingly under Japanese control. The Japanese victory stunned the world, including the colonial peoples of Southeast Asia, who now began to realize that Europeans were not necessarily invincible.

During the next few years, the Japanese consolidated their position in northeastern Asia, annexing Korea in 1908 as an integral part of Japan. When the Koreans protested the seizure, Japanese reprisals resulted in thou-sands of deaths. The United States was the first nation to recognize the annexation in return for Tokyo’s declaration

of respect for U.S. authority in the Philippines. In 1908, the two countries reached an agreement in which the United States recognized Japanese interests in the region in return for Japanese acceptance of the principles of the Open Door. But mutual suspicion between the two countries was growing, sparked in part by U.S. efforts to restrict immigration from all Asian countries. President Theodore Roosevelt, who mediated the Russo-Japanese War, had aroused the anger of many Japanese by turning down a Japanese demand for reparations from Russia. In turn, some Americans began to fear the ‘‘yellow peril,’’

manifested by Japanese expansion in East Asia.

Japanese Culture in Transition Japanese Culture in Transition

The wave of Western technology and ideas that entered Japan in the second half of the nineteenth century greatly altered the shape of traditional Japanese culture. Literature in particular was affected as European models eclipsed the repetitive and frivolous tales of the Tokugawa era. Dazzled by this ‘‘new’’ literature, Japanese authors began translat-ing and imitattranslat-ing the imported models. Experimenttranslat-ing with Western verse, Japanese poets were at first influenced primarily by the British but eventually adopted such French styles as Symbolism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, although some traditional poetry was still composed.

The Ginza in

The Ginza in DowntDownt own Tokyo.own Tokyo. This 1877 wood-block print shows the Ginza, a major commercial thoroughfare in downtown Tokyo, with modern brick buildings, rickshaws, and a horse-drawn streetcar. The centerpiece and focus of public attention is a new electric streetl ight. In combining traditional form with modern content, this painting symbolizes the unique ability of the Japanese to borrow ideas from abroad while

preserving much of the essence of their traditio nal culture.

 c A r t R e s o u r c e , N Y

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As the Japanese invited technicians, engineers, ar-chitects, and artists from Europe and the United States to teach their ‘‘modern’’ skills to a generation of eager stu-dents, the Meiji era became a time of massive con-sumption of Western artistic techniques and styles.

Japanese architects and artists created huge buildings of steel and reinforced concrete adorned with Greek col-umns and cupolas, oil paintings reflecting the European concern with depth perception and shading, and bronze sculptures of secular subjects.

Cultural exchange also went the other way as Japanese arts and crafts, porcelains, textiles, fans, folding screens, and wood-block prints became the vogue in Europe and North America. Japanese art influenced Western painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, and James Whistler,

who experimented with flatter compositional perspectives and unusual poses. Japanese gardens, with their exquisite attention to the positioning of rocks and falling water, became especially popular.

After the initial period of mass absorption of Western art, a national reaction occurred at the end of the

After the initial period of mass absorption of Western art, a national reaction occurred at the end of the