Board: OCR | Unit: Y217 | Component: 2 (Non-British Period Study)
About this option
Japan 1853–1937 covers one of the most dramatic modernisation projects in world history — from the forced opening of Japan by Commodore Perry through the Meiji Restoration, industrialisation, militarism, and the emergence of Japan as a major imperialist power. Students examine how a feudal society transformed itself into an industrial state in less than two generations, the nature of Meiji government, the role of the military in politics, imperial expansion into Korea and China, and the political and social strains that produced the ultra-nationalist militarism of the 1930s.
Key themes
- The opening of Japan: Perry’s black ships, the unequal treatiesUnequal Treaties Full Description:
A series of treaties signed with Western powers and Japan during the 19th and early 20th centuries. These agreements, forced upon China through gunboat diplomacy, stripped the nation of its sovereignty and control over its own economy.The Unequal Treaties were the legal shackles of semi-colonialism. They forced China to open “treaty ports” where foreign law applied, ceded territory (like Hong Kong), fixed tariffs at artificially low levels to favor foreign goods, and granted “extraterritoriality”—meaning foreigners were immune to Chinese law and could only be tried by their own consuls.
Critical Perspective:The struggle to abrogate these treaties was the central emotional engine of Chinese nationalism. The revolution was fuelled by the perception that the Qing dynasty had become the “running dog” of these foreign powers. The continued existence of these treaties under the early Republic undermined the legitimacy of any government, as no regime could claim to be sovereign while foreign gunboats patrolled its rivers and foreign laws ruled its cities.
Read more, and the crisis of the Tokugawa shogunate - The Meiji Restoration 1868: the overthrow of the shogunate, the nature of the Meiji regime, and the slogan ‘rich country, strong army’
- Meiji modernisation: constitutional government, land reform, industrialisation, the abolition of the samurai class, and the creation of a conscript army
- Imperial expansion: the Sino-Japanese War 1894–95, the Russo-Japanese War 1904–05, and the annexation of Korea
- Taisho democracy: the limited democratisation of the 1910s–20s and the political parties
- The rise of militarism: the army’s role in politics, the Manchurian Incident 1931, and the drift to ultra-nationalism
- Japan and China: the Second Sino-Japanese War 1937 and the beginning of the Pacific crisis
What the exam asks
Y217 is a depth study. Questions require analytical depth within a defined period, focusing on causation, significance, and historical judgement. Students are expected to engage with historical debate and are rewarded for the ability to challenge or qualify interpretations rather than simply describing events.
Historiography
Japanese modernisation and militarism have been interpreted through comparative and structural frameworks:
- The Meiji Restoration: top-down modernisation driven by a state elite versus a more complex social process involving samurai entrepreneurs, regional domains, and foreign pressure. How far was Japan’s modernisation unique, and how far does it fit comparative models of late industrialisation?
- The causes of Japanese militarism: structural explanations (the constitutional weakness of civilian government under the Meiji constitution), the role of the army as an autonomous political actor, or the response to specific international pressures in the 1930s?
- Japanese imperialism: was it driven by economic necessity, strategic insecurity, or ideological nationalism? The debate about the similarities and differences between Japanese and European imperialism
- Taisho democracy: how genuine was the democratic trend of the 1920s, and was the militarist turn of the 1930s an aberration or the revelation of the Meiji system’s fundamental character?
