Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0198/01986.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 29KB | 457 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01986}
$Pretitle{230}
$Title{Japan
Chapter 1A.   Historical Setting}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Rinn-Sup Shinn}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{japan
japanese
century
military
imperial
period
china
court
time
political}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Himeji Castle*0198601.scf
}
Country:     Japan
Book:        Japan, A Country Study
Author:      Rinn-Sup Shinn
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 1A.   Historical Setting

[See Himeji Castle: Himeji Castle, built in the late sixteenth century and
located seventy-two kilometers west of Osaka, is one of the finest remaining
examples of feudal castle architecture.]

     Geography has been a significant factor in the historical evolution of
Japan. In its formative centuries the country was spared foreign invasions and
impositions, being shielded by the sea from all centers of early civilization
except China, which itself was not close enough to intrude in Japanese affairs
but not distant enough to be entirely inconsequential. In fact in the
indigenous development of political, cultural, and social life, geographical
proximity to China had extensive and far-reaching consequences. Initially
through the sinicized local kingdoms in the Korean peninsula and later
directly, the Japanese borrowed heavily from China and adapted Chinese
patterns to their environment and traditions. The result is a distinctive
Japanese culture within which, however, certain elements are still
identifiable as Chinese-influenced.

     China was not the only source of foreign influence, however. The process
of borrowing, adaptation, and reinterpretation was affected also by contacts
with European missionaries and traders beginning in the sixteenth century-and,
of course, by the Japanese defeat in World War II and the resulting Allied
occupation, the principal agent of which was the United States. In their early
contacts with Western "barbarians" the Japanese showed a mixture of curiosity
and suspicion. This ambivalence led to two centuries of self-imposed national
isolation until 1854 when Japan was shocked to realize that the sea could no
longer provide the natural shield against the technologically superior Western
military powers. The rude awakening generated a mood of anxiety and a host of
searching questions about how best to cope with seaborne pressure from
Westerners to end the country's isolation. The decision to yield to the
Western demand for trade in the mid-nineteenth century was a significant
turning point in Japanese history. It provided impetus for the overthrow of
the feudal dictatorship of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868).

     Of much greater significance was the fact that this ending was the
beginning of a new Japan, no longer encumbered by the feudal norms and
practices of the preceding seven hundred years. It was during those feudal
centuries, however, that the basic social, political, and cultural patterns of
contemporary Japan had crystallized. Politically the country had been under
dual authority: the emperor was limited to ceremonial functions symbolizing
the continuity of the nation but the actual power of governance was exercised
by a military strong man called the shogun and a hereditary ruling class
consisting of territorial lords and warriors.

     Imperial rule restored in 1868 under the youthful Meiji emperor, a new
Japan began to take shape under a small group of young samurai (warriors) who
held commanding positions as the oligarchs of the new order. Their overriding
purpose was to bring about political, economic, social, and military
modernization of Japan and to enable the country to compete with the Western
powers on equal terms. The dramatic success attained in modernization, as
measured by victorious wars with China and Russia, brought with it a degree of
social evolution and a large measure of economic progress. Politically the new
Japan became a constitutional monarchy. Political parties were formed and
participated in elections to the national legislature, called the Imperial
Diet, but the supremacy of the oligarchy-controlled executive branch acting in
the name of the emperor was beyond challenge. The Meiji oligarchy wanted a
prosperous and militarily powerful Japan but not a democratic polity based on
popular sovereignty. The Meiji ruling elite and its bureaucratic successors
sought not only to preserve but to emphasize the values of unquestioning
obedience to superiors, absolute loyalty to the emperor and his
representatives, and self-sacrifice. Belief in the divine origin of the
emperor and the nation was revived to stimulate national loyalty, and an
aggressive nationalism was rationalized in terms of a sacred mission claimed
for the nation.

     Japan's role as a major power was enhanced further in the second decade
of the twentieth century, and its expansionist designs on the Asian mainland
heightened the uneasiness of China and Western powers. At home there was
social and economic unrest occasioned by the end of World War I boom
conditions. Internal tensions, coupled with growing Japanese frustrations
caused by Western efforts to contain Japanese expansionism, took on
increasingly nationalistic undertones. In the 1930s the problems were
compounded by the severe effect on Japan of worldwide depression, and an
ultranationalist military group was able to arrogate power to itself,
resulting in an attempt to impose Japanese hegemony over China, and after
1941, over the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. Both efforts were
ultimately unsuccessful.

     The military defeat in the Pacific war in 1945 brought a period of
foreign occupation, the first in Japanese history. Occupation forces
instituted an ambitious program of social, political, and economic reform to
lay the foundation of a democratic Japan. A new constitution guaranteed civil
liberties and established a parliamentary system of government responsive to
the electorate. Legal measures were initiated to remove old social
inequalities, and land reform and economic reconstruction, financed for the
most part by the United States, greatly stimulated economic recovery and
growth.

     The occupation was terminated in 1952 and independence restored to Japan;
since then the country has prospered economically as a result of the
initiative and hard work of its people and favorable international conditions.
The political system continued to function through the civility of
parliamentary politics. Conservative dominance under the Liberal Democratic
Party remained unbroken, but the opposition, though disunited, continued to
hold enough parliamentary seats to block any government attempt at
constitutional amendment. In foreign affairs Japan regained and further
enhanced its position as a major economic power engaged in worldwide
competition. Militarily its dependence on the United States for security
continued, while internal debates on the pros and cons of an expanded defense
establishment engaged growing public attention. By the mid-1970s the country's
steadily rising prosperity had generated a mood of self-confidence. Prosperity
was not without cost, however. It was tempered by anxiety about an array of
issues concerning population pressure, industrial pollution, housing
shortages, urbanization, and uncertainties over stable access to oil and other
raw materials.

Early Japan

     The racial origins of the Japanese people are not established, but most
ancestors of the people are believed to have migrated from northern Asia to
Hokkaido and from northeast Asia, via Korea, to Kyushu, and possibly also from
southeast Asia. Predominantly Mongoloid in physical type, they probably spoke
languages related to the Altaic family, which includes the Korean and
Mongolian languages. The known exception to Mongoloid origin are the Ainu
people, found mainly in northern Japan, who some believe to be descended from
early Caucasoid peoples of northern Asia.

     Recent archaeological finds show evidence of human settlement in Japan
much earlier than was pre