Why Was Japan Able To Mondernise So Successfully?

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Why was Japan able to modernise so successfully? The Modernisation of Japan involved many contributing factors that led to a successful reform. There was the abolition of feudalism by 1871, and the reforms that followed thereafter, which made Japans ultimate success in modernisation by 1895 possible. These major reforms took place in areas such as political and judicial, military and education, and economic and industrial. They were successful because they were shaped and reformed upon other styles and methods that Japan had seen others countries use and the trials and errors that they had seen China make. It was Japans ability to incorporate all these reforms into one single body, which ultimately enabled Japan to successfully modernise to the level of a recognisable world power by 1905.

From 1603, the Tokugawa Shoganate ruled Japan in a feudalised fashion. This was where Japan operated with a feudal hierarchy, consisting of the Emperor, then the Shogun, who exercised all the governing power.

Beneath the Shogun were the daimyo, or feudal nobles and then the Samurai who were the warrior class. At the base of the feudal scale were the merchants, the peasants and the artisans, naturally the masses of the people resided in this class. The Shogun produced many good rulers and the country operated peacefully. But even this peace caused civil unrest. Internal groups such as the Samurai, the merchants, the daimyos and the peasants found problems and grew impatient with their positions. Change was needed, and soon. The final blow came when Japan was forced to open to western civilisation in 1854 with the arrival of Commodore Perry and the Treaty of Kanagawa. As a result of this action, many other treaties between several western powers followed and Japan was now open to the world. As bad as this may...