Intellectual Change and the Reform
Transcript of Intellectual Change and the Reform
In China, in the mid-1870s…
Publications from Kiangnan Arsenal translation
bureau- 1860s to 1890s-13,000 copies, limited sale.
Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Condition of the West sold 250,000
immediately in 1866.
Mid- to late 19th century, the image of Japan to
Chinese leaders – grudging admiration
Meiji Japan held a very special place in the minds of
the Confucian reformers. (Huang Zunxian’s Riben
Guozhi, 1887)
What about Japan?
1867/68, the Tokugawa era
found an end in the Meiji
Restoration. The emperor Meiji
(1852-1912) was moved from
Kyoto to Tokyo which became
the new capital – imperial
power was restored.
The actual political power was
transferred from the Tokugawa
Bakufu into the hands of a
small group of nobles and
former samurai.
Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the Last
Shōgun 1837-1913 Emperor Meiji (1852-1912)
Rangaku
The Tokugawa Period
(1600-1868)
1641-1853, closed to
foreigners –- only one
Dutch trading port in
Nagasaki Harbor
“Dutch Learning”
Covered a variety of topics:
Medicine
Engineering
Biology
Japan’s first treatise on western study of anatomy,
1774 Voltage experiments, 18th century
Japanese schematic drawing of
a Dutch microscope. Scientific studies of insects, 18th century.
Perry and “Black Ships”
Summer of 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry enters Edo Bay with his “Black Ships” under orders by president Millard Fillmore to inquire into possibility of opening diplomatic and commercial relations
Samuel Wells Williams and one Cantonese as interpreters
Townsend Harris concludes economic treaty with Japan in 1856, insists on many clauses as in “Unequal Treaties”
China as a Warning to Japan
Wei Yuan’s works circulated widely in Japan, maritime defense – Sakuma Shōzan’s writing
News from China, variety of sources (first-hand observations collected by Japanese merchant ships in the 1860s; from Nagasaki through Dutch reports, publications brought back by travelers to Shanghai.)
“Disasters” “Opium threatening” – not to repeat the Chinese experience
A number of important Restoration leaders went to Europe through Shanghai in the 1860s – “forest of foreign masts in Shanghai,” impossible to continue old patterns of seclusion.
Their reports “uncertain course of events in China” “European discernment of Japanese efficiency and Chinese failure” – encouraged Restoration leaders and a potential “competition”
Meiji Restoration Most of the people who
carried out the Meiji Restoration were young samurai who wanted to return to the past
Meiji leaders instead want to look to future
Respected material superiority of West and wanted to emulate it through modernization
New slogan “Rich Nation, Strong Army” (“Fukoku-kyōhei”)
“Civilization and Enlightenment”
By 1870s Japanese not
interested in restoring
past but joining march of
Western Progress
Nearly twenty year
search to incorporate
Western “Civilization
and Enlightenment”
(“Bunmei-kaika”)