Meiji Restoration

Meiji Restoration, in Japanese history, the political revolution in 1868 that brought about the final demise of the Tokugawa shogunate (military government)—thus ending the Edo (Tokugawa) period (1603–1867)—and, at least nominally, returned control of the country to direct imperial rule under Mutsuhito (the emperor Meiji).

The Meiji Restoration initiated a process of political centralization, social restructuring, and economic transformation that modernized Japan. It enabled the country to emerge as an industrialized power capable not only of resisting Western domination but also of becoming a global power in its own right. Under the emperor Meiji, Japan was victorious in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), and just seven years after his death it was recognized as one of the five great powers at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–20). The Meiji Restoration is therefore almost universally regarded as the dividing line between traditional and modern Japan.

Background and the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate

Under the Tokugawa shogunate Japan was governed for more than 250 years through the bakuhan system, a decentralized arrangement in which the shogun exercised national authority while regional lords (daimyo) retained substantial control over their domains. Society was formally divided into a four-tiered hierarchy—samurai, peasants, artisans, and merchants—with the samurai class occupying a privileged administrative and military role. By the mid-19th century, however, this system was under strain from chronic famines, peasant uprisings, and the mounting debt of the samurai class.

This internal fragility reached a breaking point in 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States. Leading a squadron of “Black Ships” into Edo Bay, Perry demanded that Japan open its ports to American trade and diplomatic relations. Confronted with superior naval power, the shogunate was forced to end two centuries of national isolation (sakoku) and sign a series of unequal treaties that granted foreign powers humiliating judicial and economic privileges. The inability of the Tokugawa government to resist these demands was widely perceived as a sign of weakness, triggering a domestic political crisis that developed into a movement to overthrow the regime.

Restoration of imperial rule and the new leadership

The restoration event itself consisted of a coup d’état in the ancient imperial capital of Kyōto on January 3, 1868. The perpetrators announced the ouster of Tokugawa Yoshinobu (the last shogun)—who by late 1867 was no longer effectively in power—and proclaimed the young Meiji emperor to be ruler of Japan. Yoshinobu mounted a brief civil war that ended with his surrender to imperial forces in June 1869.

Although proclaimed as a restoration of imperial rule, political power in practice was exercised by a small group of reformist leaders, many of them young samurai from feudal domains (hans) historically hostile to Tokugawa authority, notably Chōshū, in far western Honshu, and Satsuma, in southern Kyushu. They were motivated both by growing domestic problems and by the threat of foreign encroachment. Observing China’s defeats in the Opium Wars and the erosion of its sovereignty, as well as the expansion of Western imperial power elsewhere in Asia, they concluded that Japan must modernize rapidly in order to preserve its independence.

They believed that the West depended on constitutionalism for national unity, on industrialization for material strength, and on a well-trained military for national security. Adopting the slogan “Enrich the country, strengthen the army” (“Fukoku kyōhei”), they sought to create a nation-state capable of standing on equal footing with the Western powers. Knowledge was to be sought in the West, the goodwill of which was essential for revising the unequal treaties that had been enacted.

Early Meiji reforms

The early goals of the new government were expressed in the Charter Oath (April 1868), which committed the government to establishing “deliberative assemblies” and “public discussion,” to a worldwide search for knowledge, to the abrogation of past customs, and to the pursuit by all Japanese of their individual callings. The first action, taken in 1868 while the country was still unsettled, was to relocate the imperial capital from Kyōto to the shogunal capital of Edo, which was renamed Tokyo (“Eastern Capital”). That was followed, after the end of the fighting, by the dismantling of the old feudal regime. The administrative reorganization had been largely accomplished by 1871, when the domains were officially abolished and replaced by a prefecture system that has remained in place to the present day.

All feudal class privileges were abolished as well. Also in 1871 a national army was formed, which was further strengthened two years later by a universal conscription law. In addition, the new government carried out policies to unify the monetary and tax systems, with the agricultural tax reform of 1873 providing its primary source of revenue. Another reform was in the area of education. Japan’s first Ministry of Education was established in 1871 to develop a national system of education; it led to the promulgation of the Gakusei, or Education System Order, in 1872 and to the introduction of universal education in the country, which initially put emphasis on Western learning.

Resistance and the Meiji Constitution

The revolutionary changes carried out by restoration leaders, who acted in the name of the emperor, faced increasing opposition by the mid-1870s. Disgruntled samurai participated in several rebellions against the government, the most famous being led by the former restoration hero Saigō Takamori of Satsuma. Those uprisings were repressed only with great difficulty by the newly formed army. Peasants, distrustful of the new regime and dissatisfied with its agrarian policies, also took part in revolts that reached their peak in the 1880s.

At the same time, a growing popular rights movement, encouraged by the introduction of liberal Western ideas, called for the creation of a constitutional government and wider participation through deliberative assemblies. Responding to those pressures, the government issued a statement in 1881 promising a constitution by 1890. In 1885 a cabinet system was formed, and in 1886 work on the constitution began. Finally, in 1889, the Meiji Constitution was officially promulgated. It was presented as a gift from the emperor to the people, and it could be amended only upon imperial initiative. Largely the handiwork of the genro (elder statesman) Itō Hirobumi, the constitution established a bicameral parliament, called the Diet—in full Imperial Diet (Teikoku Gikai)—that was to be elected through a limited voting franchise. The first Diet was convened the following year, in 1890. A privy council composed of the Meiji genro, created prior to the constitution, advised the emperor and wielded actual power.

Societal transformation

Economic and social changes paralleled the political transformation of the Meiji period. Although the economy still depended on agriculture, industrialization was the primary goal of the government, which directed the development of strategic industries, transportation, and communications. The first railroad was built in 1872, and by 1890 the country had more than 1,400 miles (2,250 km) of rail. Telegraph lines linked all major cities by 1880. Private firms were encouraged by government financial support and aided by the institution of a European-style banking system in 1882. Those efforts at modernization required Western science and technology, and, under the banner of “Civilization and Enlightenment” (“Bunmei kaika”), Western culture, from current intellectual trends to clothing and architecture, was widely promoted.

Wholesale Westernization was somewhat checked in the 1880s, however, when a renewed appreciation of traditional Japanese values emerged. Such was the case in the development of a modern educational system that, though influenced by Western theory and practice, stressed the traditional values of samurai loyalty and social harmony. Those precepts were codified in 1890 with the enactment of the Imperial Rescript on Education (Kyōiku Chokugo). The same tendency prevailed in art and literature, where Western styles were first imitated, and then a more selective blending of Western and Japanese tastes was achieved.

Legacy

By the early 20th century, the goals of the Meiji Restoration had been largely accomplished. Japan was well on its way to becoming a modern industrialized country. The unequal treaties that had granted foreign powers judicial and economic privileges through extraterritoriality were revised in 1894, and, with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 and its victory in two wars (over China in 1894–95 and Russia in 1904–05), Japan gained respect in the eyes of the Western world, appearing for the first time on the international scene as a major world power. The death of the emperor Meiji in 1912 marked the end of the period, though several of the important Meiji leaders carried on as genro in the new regime (1912–26) of the Taishō emperor.