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China and Japan Respond to the West

China and Japan Respond to the West. Applying the Five Habits of Historical Thinking to Better Understand China, Japan, and the West. In 1852, U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry changed Japan’s history when he arrived there to demand that Japan open itself to trade with the United States.

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China and Japan Respond to the West

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  1. China and Japan Respond to the West Applying the Five Habits of Historical Thinking to Better Understand China, Japan, and the West

  2. In 1852, U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry changed Japan’s history when he arrived there to demand that Japan open itself to trade with the United States. Matthew Perry Perry meeting the imperial commissioners at Yokohama

  3. Japan was an ancient, highly developed civilization. Few felt any need for trade or other contact with Europeans or with the West in general. Salt gathering at Suzaki A market in Edo, Japan, in the early 1800s

  4. However, the West’s growing industrial strength and military might made it clear to Japan’s leadership that it could not simply tell Perry to go away.

  5. Japan decided to allow foreign merchants to trade, but it also began a vast and broad plan to industrialize and modernize rapidly. Japanese prints of Perry's steamship (bottom), and his fleet and a map of the coast of Soshu (right)

  6. In 1868, this response led to an upheaval known as the “Meiji Restoration.” The restoration did return all authority to Mutsuhiro, the Meiji emperor (right), but was much more than that. It was a way to begin to construct a powerful unified nation-state that could rapidly undertake modernization.

  7. Japan sent experts to learn the ways of the West. A unified and very determined political leadership then adapted these to Japanese culture. Dr. Juichi Soyeda (left), of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Japan and the Japanese American Society of Tokyo, and Tadao Kamiya, chief secretary of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, on a visit to the U.S. in 1913

  8. Meanwhile China also faced demands from the West to open itself to trade. Like Japan, it had long allowed only very limited contact with foreigners. The Chinese port city of Guangzhou (Canton), 1900. Until 1842, Canton was the main port at which foreign merchants were able to trade with Chinese merchants.

  9. Also like Japan, China was for centuries an ancient and powerful civilization, and a leader in technology as well. Imperial Palace Terraced rice paddies Confucius

  10. However, by the early 1800s, China was beset by troubles and was too weak to resist European power. A famine relief effort China’s population soared in the 1800s, when famine and peasant unrest became more common. Modern battleship (in back) and Chinese junk Europe moved rapidly ahead in technology and industry.

  11. China was also trying to control a major problem with opium addiction. However, the British insisted on selling opium in China. It was one product they knew they could sell for the Chinese goods they wanted.

  12. In the two Opium Wars, the British forced China to stop trying to control the opium trade there. • First Opium War (1839–1840) • Second Opium War (1856–1860) Two scenes from the Second Opium War

  13. Treaties ending these wars forced China’s Manchu rulers to open many new ports, pay reparations for war damages, and agree to many other concessions. Two scenes from one of the new treaty ports, Shanghai

  14. What did the ordinary Chinese or Japanese citizen think of their nations’ various showdowns with the Western powers? That’s not an easy question to answer. ?

  15. After all, the past itself is gone. All we have to go on is the historical record. Primary source documents like these are one kind of record. Yet they often leave out as much as they reveal. ?

  16. As the first of the Five Habits of Historical Thinking puts it: “History is not the past itself.” It is an account of the past based on primary source evidence left behind. Five Habits of Historical Thinking History is not the past itself The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation Time, Change, and Continuity Cause and Effect As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

  17. The second of the Five Habits describes what we call “The Detective Model.” How would this apply to China, Japan, and the West?

  18. Like a detective, a historian sets out to solve a key problem or answer a major question. “Why was Japan much more willing than China to adopt Western ways in the 1800s?” ?

  19. But this question—“Why was Japan much more willing than China to adopt Western ways in the 1800s?”—only leads to many others. How did each society view the West, its people, and ideas? How did Japan’s ruling elites differ from those in China? Did the two nations differ in how they had experienced the West’s impact? Was the West more hostile or aggressive in dealing with eitherof the two nations? ?

  20. To answer such questions, historians must look for clues, or evidence. The problem is the sources are incomplete, and usually they do not all agree.

  21. For example, here is one Chinese’s view of the foreign “barbarians” from the West. “We should now order one-half of them [our scholars] to apply themselves to the manufacturing of instruments and weapons and to the promotion of physical studies… The intelligence and ingenuity of the Chinese are certainly superior to those of the various barbarians; it is only that hitherto we have not made use of them.” Feng Kuei-Fen, 1850s

  22. However, in this Japanese illustration, Japan and Great Britain are shown working well together. In 1900, an international force invaded China to free Europeans held by Boxer rebels. About half the troops sent to do this were Japanese. Here Japanese and British troops fight alongside one another.

  23. “We should now order one-half of them [our scholars] to apply themselves to the manufacturing of instruments and weapons and to the promotion of physical studies… The intelligence and ingenuity of the Chinese are certainly superior to those of the various barbarians; it is only that hitherto we have not made use of them.”

  24. Both China and Japan changed enormously in the century after Perry’s voyage and the Opium Wars. A plant of the Mitsui Company, boiling cocoons and reeling silk, Maebashi, Japan, 1905

  25. However, both societies retained many key aspects of their cultural and political institutions. Meiji Emperor of Japan, reigned 1867–1912 Upper-class Manchu men, China, 1901

  26. So to fully understand the history of this era in Asia, you have to see how change and continuity constantly interact.

  27. The fourth of the Five Habits is “Cause and Effect.” For example, what caused China’s failure to respond to the West as effectively as Japan did in the late 1800s? “The Europeans were far more interested in controlling China and carving it up.” “Japan did not suffer the internal upheavals, famine, and chaos of China in the 1800s.” “China’s ruling Manchu elite was not popular and not able to unify China effectively.” “European demands for indemnity payments ruined China, not Japan.”

  28. Some historians emphasize the West’s impact on China. Others see internal problems in China as the key factors. European Pressures Internal Problems “The Europeans were far more interested in controlling China and carving it up.” “Japan did not suffer the internal upheavals, famine, and chaos of China in the 1800s.” “European demands for indemnity payments ruined China, not Japan.” “China’s ruling Manchu elite was not popular and not able to unify China effectively.”

  29. Another challenge for historians is to see things they way those at the time saw them. The fifth of the Five Habits deals with this challenge. Five Habits of Historical Thinking • History is not the past itself • The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation • Time, Change, and Continuity • Cause and Effect • As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View

  30. After all, it’s hard enough to empathize with others around us. How much harder is it to see the world the way these people did? “Ever since the Manchus poisoned China, the flame of oppression has risen up to heaven, the poison of corruption has defiled the emperor’s throne…” Taiping rebels, 1852 “The intelligence and ingenuity of the Chinese are certainly superior to those of the various barbarians; it is only that hitherto we have not made use of them.” Feng Kuei-Fen, 1850s “Now that we are about to establish an entirely new form of government, the national polity and the sovereign authority must not in the slightest degree be yielded to subordinates.” Kido Koin, 1868

  31. Keep the Five Habits in mind as you do the rest of this lesson on the interactions between China, Japan and the West in the late 1800s and early 1900s. • Tasks ahead: • Interpret several primary sources • Read and debate two secondary sources • Draw your own conclusions about this past episode

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