CHAPTER 1

Japan:New nation-Stateand Its Constitution

THE TOKUGAWA FOUNDATION

The defining development in Japan's modern history is the transformationof its centuries-old feudal society into a nation-state in the secondhalf of the nineteenth century. The transformation was not willed but wasbrought about by a fortuitous confluence of the collapse of Tokugawarule, which had controlled Japan for two and a half centuries, and thesuccessful demands of Western nation-states that Japan end its more thantwo centuries of isolation from the non-Asian world.

Tokugawa rule had given Japan more than two centuries of politicaland governmental stability that, in turn, had provided an opportunity forconsiderable economic and social development and change. But at thesame time great scientific, technological, economic, and social changeswere taking place in Europe and North America that resulted, among avast array of other things, in the emergence of the modern nation-state.The coming together of these two developments eventually led to thecreation of Japan's first written constitution.

The rule of the militarily powerful Tokugawa family extended fromthe opening decades of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenthcentury. The Tokugawa system was politically stable but not unchanging.Tokugawa society was changing economically and socially, with theinevitable result that the Tokugawa grasp on power was slipping. By about1850, political challenges, long kept under control, to Tokugawa powerwere developing. At this juncture the Tokugawas were confronted withan external challenge they were unable to handle.

In 1853 Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry of the United States,a very young nation-state, appeared in Japanese waters and demandedthat Japan end its policy of seclusion, thus concluding the first step in themission he had been given by U.S. president Millard Fillmore. Perry returnedin 1854 and concluded the treaty that ended Japan's isolation fromthe Western world. Within a few years a group of European nation-statesconcluded similar unequal treaties with Japan that gave the Western powerslegal and economic rights they did not grant to Japan in return.

The emerging opposition denounced the Tokugawa for both betrayingthe policy of their own ancestors and simultaneously permitting thehated "barbarians" to tread on Japan's sacred soil. Their battle cry became"Revere the Emperor; expel the barbarians!" "Revere the Emperor" waspolitical shorthand for ending Tokugawa control over the throne, whichgave their rule legitimacy. The Tokugawas were unable to resist the pressurefrom their domestic foes. In the late 1860s the Tokugawa regimecame to an end with a negotiated agreement under which the Tokugawaswould give up their monopoly over government for shared responsibilitywith their opponents. But the latter, interpreting the Tokugawa concessionas a sign of fatal weakness, soon made it clear that there would be nosharing. The Tokugawa resorted to military force to retain some power,but after fighting sporadic and limited battles for several years they gavein.

The collapse of the long-lived regime was momentous, but it wasessentially a political act. It was simply the transfer of political powerfrom one segment of the ruling class to another. It was not a civil war or abloody revolution, either of which would have disrupted society. In theabsence of such disruption Japan was in a position to initiate its transitionfrom a feudal to a national society.

The society the Tokugawas left behind was still feudal, but it containedelements that would serve as a firm foundation for a new and vastlydifferent national society. These elements were held in common with thecontemporary Western nation-states.

First, there was human mass or population. The population in 1870was more than 30 million, a figure probably attained by about 1700. Interms of mere numbers this was similar to the larger Western nations atthe time, such as the United States. Second, each Western nation wasidentified with a specific area of the earth's surface, usually referred to asthe homeland. Japan's island nature gave it a naturally defined area of itsown. Historically, no wars had been waged over territorial boundaries.Moreover, Japan's people were ethnically unified. Here again the country'sisland nature played an important role. There were no successful foreigninvasions, no large waves of immigration, and relatively few indigenousAinu.

By the late nineteenth century Japan had twelve centuries of recordedhistory as an ethnically separate people. Intimately woven into that historywas society's high culture, created and conserved in its earlier centuriesby the imperial court and later by the dominant warrior class. Poetry,prose, calligraphy and its closely allied arts, ceramics, painting, and dramaconstituted an enduring heritage, thereby strengthening ethnic unity.

Another invaluable characteristic of the population at the end of theTokugawa period was a high rate of literacy, estimated to have been about50 percent, which compared favorably with the rate of Western nations.The samurai and the imperial court nobles had schools. For commoners,schools were held in Buddhist temples (tera koya) to create the widespreadliteracy required for the smooth operation of the complex Tokugawa society.Such things as a flourishing publishing industry for popular literatureand family and village records were marks of a literate society. The existingliteracy rate simplified the task of training the population to acquire newideas and technological skills and to carry out the new and innovativetasks required by nation building.

Of fundamental importance to nation building was leadership. InJapan's long history there are few charismatic leaders. The triumvirate...