The early 1800s, Americans sought places in Japan for resupplying ships. Commodore Matthew Perry was sent in 1853 to open trade with Japan. The 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa established diplomatic relations and protections for shipwrecked sailors. Further treaties in 1858 opened more ports to foreign trade. Unlike China, Japan realized it had to adapt Western ways to survive. This began the Meiji Era, where Japan rapidly modernized its government, military, education and industrial capacity to become a world power by 1900. Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 demonstrated it had become the first Asian nation to defeat a European power militarily.

2.  The early 1800, Americans were interested in Japan
because they needed places where their ships could stop
for food, fuel, water and protection.
 The American government sent Commodore Matthew
Perry on 1853 to Japan.
Commodore Matthew Perry

3.  In February 1854, Perry returned with ten ships and he carried many
presents for the Japanese officials.
 They agreed to the Treaty of Kaganawa.
 This treaty opened two Japanese treatment for shipwrecked sailors,
and set up diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The signature page of the English version of the Treaty of Kanagawa,
signed by Matthew Perry

4.  In 1858, a second treaty opened more
ports. It also granted extraterritoriality to
Americans to Japans.
 This is also called the “Harris Treaty” or
“Treaty of Amity and Commerce (United
States – Japan)”
 It was signed on the deck of the USS
Powhatan in Edo (now Tokyo) Bay on
July 29, 1858. It opened the ports of
Kanagawa and four other Japanese cities
to trade and granted extraterritoriality to
foreigners, among a number of trading
stipulations.

6.  Unlike the Chinese rulers, the Japanese decided that
their country could survive only by adapting some
western ways.
 One of the first changers was in the shogunate (Office
of the Emperor)
 The Treaty of Kanagawa had caused anti – foreign
demonstrations.
 In 1867, strong leaders among nobles forced the
shogun to give up his powers.
 In 1868, the emperor was restored to power

7.  The capital was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo.
 Emperor Matshuhito, aged fifteen, named his
reign Meiji, meaning “ enlightened rule”
 During 45 years of Meiji Era, Japan became a
powerful, modern state, the first industrialized
country in Asia.
 Japanese leaders sent their own people to study
all the major Western powers.
 In 1872, the emperor ended feudalism. - the
dominant social system in medieval Europe.
 In 1899, he set forth a constitution like that which
Bismarck had written for the German Empire.
Emperor
Matshuhito of
Japan

8.  Although it provided for a two house legislature, the emperor
remained supreme.
 Only the lower house was elected.
 Military leaders had great power in government. The army was
based on the German model and navy on the British.
 Compulsory education was introduced and illiteracy was
almost wiped out.
 The government adopted new laws and new judicial system,
patterned after Western one.
 All foreign rights were of extraterritoriality were gone by 1899.

9.  Japanese leader knew that Western power
strength was based on industrial power, thus
they pushed ahead with a major program to
make Japan strong industrially and by 1900
there was half million factory workers.
 Japan developed a “mixed” system of private
and governmental enterprise led by a few rich
families .

11.  Japan became a modern industrial nation and at
the same time became imperialistic.
 In Meiji Era alone, the population grew from
about 30 to more the 50 million.
 Early 1876, the Japanese had obtained trading
privileges in Korea. This angered the Chinese
and later led to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-
1895.

12.  Japan won and major gain of territory.
 The Treaty of Shimonoseki ended the war and gave
Japan the islands of Taiwan, Pescadores and Liaotung
Peninsula of Manchuria. Russians were expanding into
Manchuria too.
 Russia leased the peninsula and harbor for itself through
a treaty with China. This and other Russian moves in
Korea and it angered Japan.
 Fighting began when Japan, without declaring war,
attacked the Russian fleet at Port Harbor.

13.  Japan won the Russo-Japan War.
 This was the first time in modern history that an
Asian country had defeated a European country.
 With the Treaty of Porthsmouth 1905, Japan also
got a sphere of influence in Korea and won the
southern half of the Russia island of Sakhalin.
 5 years later, Japan took over Korea.

15.  India and China became victims of
European Imperialists, and later smaller
Asian countries as well as many islands in
the Pacific became victims of European
Imperialism.
 A rival came, and it was the United States.

17.  When China became open to Western
exploitation in the middle of 19th century, the
Russians also stepped into the country.
 The Russians founded the town of
Vladivostok in 1860.
 In 1890, Russia began building Trans-Siberia
Railroad.
 Russian imperialists were also moving into
parts of Persia.

18.  In 1907, Britain and Russia signed an agreement
promising that neither country would take over
Afghanistan.
 In Southeast Asia, Britain and France were two rivals.
 The French first moved into area in the late 18th
century.
 By the middle of 1800, hostile Asian feelings led
attacks on French missionaries.
 A French fleet attacked and captured Saigon in 1860.
 During the next twenty years, France took control of
Cochinchina, Cambodia and Annam.

19.  In 1893, the French took over Laos.
 They grouped all these areas together to form the
French colony if Indochina and it was nearly thirty
percent larger in area than France itself.
 Burma too had come under British influence.
 Burma was formally added to India in 1855.
 The Netherlands was another important European
power in this region and it controlled the East Indies.
 In 1798, the home government took over and it made
the territory a colony called the Netherland East Indies.

20.  Great Britain, the leading naval power held
Australia, New Zealand, and many Pacific
Islands.
 These included Fiji and the southern
Solomons.
 During the 19th century, Americans and
Europeans settled in the Hawaiian islands.
 In 1898, congress took over the Hawaiian
islands and in 1959, Hawaii became the 50th
state.

21. The End!