Paths to Modernisation

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT History Class XI (Themes in World History), Chapter 7.

Big China, small Japan, and a surprise

At the start of the nineteenth century East Asia had an obvious giant: China, ruled by the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Japan was a small island country that seemed cut off from the world. A century later the picture had flipped. Japan defeated China in 1894–95 and then beat Russia in 1904–05, while China was in turmoil.

Why did two neighbours with a shared culture and a shared problem, the pressure of the West, end up on such different roads? This chapter follows four societies, Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea, and shows that there was no single path to being modern.

The setting: two very different countries

Sima Qian (145–90 BCE) is regarded as the greatest historian of early China, which shows how long both societies had been writing their own histories.

Japan before the Meiji: a land ready to change

The emperor lived in Kyoto but lost real power to the shoguns by the twelfth century. From 1603 to 1867 the Tokugawa family held the shogunate. The country was divided into more than 250 domains, each ruled by a daimyo, and the samurai were the warrior class who alone could carry swords.

Some late sixteenth century changes prepared the ground. Peasants were disarmed, daimyo had to live in their domain capitals, and land surveys identified taxpayers and graded the soil. A commercial economy and a merchant culture grew, and Edo became the most populated city in the world, with Osaka and Kyoto also large.

The Meiji Restoration: a revolution from above

In 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States arrived with warships and in 1854 forced Japan to sign a treaty opening trade. The humiliation split the ruling class. In 1868 a movement removed the shogun and brought the young emperor to Edo, now renamed Tokyo, the "eastern capital". The new reign was called Meiji, "enlightened rule". The slogan of the state became fukoku kyohei, "rich country, strong army".

Cause → effect. Foreign ships showed Japan it was weak → the shogun's rule lost trust → the Restoration of 1868 → the new government set out to build a strong state and a modern economy fast, so that Japan would not be colonised.

Zaibatsu. These were large business organisations controlled by individual families. They dominated Japan's economy until after the Second World War, and the post-war Occupation dismantled them.

Workers and protest. The number of manufacturing workers grew from 700,000 in 1870 to 4 million in 1913, and more than half of the modern factory workers were women. Women organised Japan's first modern strike in 1886. In 1897 Tanaka Shozo led the first agitation against pollution from the Ashio Mine.

Pause and predict: Japan introduced a parliament in 1889 but allowed only a limited vote. What does that tell you about the kind of modernisation the Meiji leaders wanted?

Check your answer: They wanted a strong, orderly state led from the top, and not a mass democracy. A parliament gave a modern look and a way to share some power, but the franchise stayed restricted.

Aggressive nationalism, then defeat

Between 1918 and 1931 elected prime ministers formed cabinets, but from 1899 only serving generals and admirals could be ministers in the armed services, which gave the military a strong hold. Japan built an empire: Taiwan was taken after the war with China (1895) and Korea was annexed in 1910. Militarism and fear of the West led to wars and, in 1945, to defeat.

Two views. For the exam: Japan's modernisation was a choice to join the West's methods so as to stay independent. Another reading: Japanese thinkers themselves disagreed. Fukuzawa Yukichi urged Japan to "expel Asia" and follow the West, Miyake Setsurei argued that each nation should develop its own special talents, and Ueki Emori led the Popular Rights Movement for constitutional government.

The 1920s and after. The "moga" or modern girl, a symbol of gender equality and cosmopolitan culture, appeared in the 1920s. After 1945 the American Occupation (1945–47) demilitarised Japan and added Article 9, the "no war clause", to the Constitution. Zaibatsu were broken up and women voted in 1946. The Tokyo Olympics and the Shinkansen bullet train of 1964 became symbols of recovery.

China: the century of pressure

China's modern story has three strands: early reformers (Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao), republican revolutionaries (Sun Yat-sen) and the Communist Party. All wanted sovereignty and equality, but each had a different plan.

The Opium War, 1839–42. Britain used force to expand its opium trade with China. The East India Company sold Indian opium in China to pay for tea, silk and porcelain, forming a triangular trade between Britain, India and China. The result was war and a weakened Qing state.

The Republic and the two parties. Sun Yat-sen founded the Guomindang and gave the Three Principles (San min chui): nationalism, democracy and socialism, meaning the regulation of capital and equalising of landholdings. After his death Chiang Kai-shek led the Guomindang, promoting a secular Confucianism and militarisation, and set "four virtues" for women: chastity, appearance, speech and work. The May Fourth Movement also called for changes in social life, such as an end to foot-binding.

Mao and the peasants. The Communist Party was founded in 1921. Mao Zedong based his revolution on the peasantry, unlike traditional Marxism, which relied on the industrial workers. In the Jiangxi soviet (1928–34) the Party tried land reform and a new marriage law. Pushed out by the Guomindang, it made the Long March to Yanan in 1934–35.

Pause and predict: in a mainly rural country with few factory workers, which class would a revolution have to win over?

Check your answer: The peasants. That is exactly why Mao's strategy centred on them, and it separates Chinese communism from the classical Marxist model.

The People's Republic. In 1949 the PRC was founded with a programme called New Democracy, an alliance of social classes. In 1958 the Great Leap Forward set up backyard steel furnaces and people's communes, and 26,000 communes covered 98 per cent of the farm population. The Cultural Revolution (launched in 1965, though many histories date it to 1966) sent Red Guards against "old culture, customs and habits" and put ideology above expertise, with a heavy cost to the economy and education.

Reform from 1978. Deng Xiaoping declared the Four Modernisations: science, industry, agriculture and defence. A wall poster of the time, "The Fifth Modernisation", demanded democracy. The protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989 were suppressed.

Taiwan and Korea: two other paths

Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang moved to Taiwan in 1949. The Cairo Declaration of 1943 had returned the island to Chinese sovereignty. Land reform and state planning transformed the economy, so that by 1973 Taiwan's GNP was second only to Japan in Asia. Martial law ended in 1987.

Korea. The Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ended with Japanese annexation in 1910. After liberation in August 1945 the country was divided along the 38th parallel, and the Korean War (1950–53) ended in an armistice. Under Park Chung-hee (in power from 1961, elected 1963) the state directed banks and big business towards exports. The Saemaul or New Village Movement (1970) modernised the countryside, and the Yusin Constitution of 1972 gave the president absolute authority. The June Democracy Movement of 1987 won direct elections, Korea joined the OECD in 1996, and in the 1997 financial crisis citizens donated gold in the Gold Collection Movement.

Two views. For the exam: The rapid growth of Taiwan and South Korea came from strong state guidance, with land reform in Taiwan and export promotion in Korea. Another reading: Economists have long argued over how much credit belongs to the state and how much to open export markets and market discipline. Some call the East Asian states "developmental states", while others say growth came mainly from market friendly policies with limited state help.

The four paths compared

Key people and terms

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Displacing Indigenous Peoples covers settler colonies, the first of three kinds of colonial rule, while this chapter shows societies that avoided or resisted that fate.
• Related: Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement is another story of a colonised society building its own path to freedom.