The Tokugawa System: The Rise Of The Modernization Of Japan

Japan is a country which has experienced massive growth and sudden modernization politically and economically. The country’s growth, however, did not spring from nowhere. Japan as it is today is a result of many events that led to the rise and collapse of multiple government systems and economic customs from the 1600s to post-World War Two.

Japan began as an island country with a feudal system. Society was structured in a hierarchical pattern underneath an emperor and many Shoguns, who ruled over parts of the land. The Tokugawa System pervaded Japan from 1600 to 1868 and foreign trade was minimalized. Originally, the Tokugawa System worked and the Japanese economy flourished without the input of the Western nations, but the efforts of British,

The Meiji State began the modernization of Japan and its economy. The Constitution was phase one of modernization. Phase two was incorporating infrastructure, phase three was building heavy industry, and finally, phase four was building light industry (Stanton 2016). Japan began to allow Western trade openly as an attempt to grow and modernize the economy and so that Japan would not be unwittingly taken advantage of economically, as China had been. In fact, the divvying of China to the Western world was a warning that Japan took seriously (Stanton 2016). During the Meiji State, the emperor’s political power shrank, and the rise of political parties within Japan also contributed to the Meiji State’s eventual collapse (Stanton 2016). In 1924, a military coup placed the military in charge of the

After the military coup of 1924 and leading up to the war, Japan sought to emulate Western imperialism (Stanton 2016). The modernized military sought to promote Japanese interests abroad, evident in the invasion of Manchuria and the colonization of Korea (Stanton 2016). The invasion of Manchuria and Korea set up Japan’s imperialist era leading up to and during the Second World War. Following World War Two, Japan’s political system received an overhaul from the United States after Japan surrendered. The United States rewrote Japan’s constitution to mimic the American constitution, shaping the country into a democratic constitutional monarchy with a representative parliament. The United States also incorporated a smaller military into the Japanese constitution, which leads to the state of Japan’s military today. Japan’s vast economic and political development have paved the path for both benefits and challenges that now face Japan.

Multiple challenges face Japan in the modern world. One particular challenge to Japan is the fact that Japan is a small, densely populated island country with little natural resources. Without many natural resources on Japan’s own soil, however, trade and industry could pose a challenge for Japan’s economic growth. Oil is imported from the Dutch and the Indies while other natural resources such as coal, tin, copper, and iron are often imported from places like Siberia and China (Stanton 2016).