Japan

Abstract

The present imperial family are the direct descendants of the house of Yamato which united the nation in about AD 200. From 1186 until 1867 successive families of the military Shoguns exercised temporal power. For centuries Japan followed a policy of national isolation. The 16th century marked the beginning of foreign trade but in the 17th century all exchange with Europeans and all trade, except with the Dutch, was proscribed. Not until 1859 was the country opened to foreign trade and residence. In 1867 the Emperor Meiji recovered the imperial power after the abdication on 14 Oct. 1867 of the fifteenth and last Tokugawa Shogun Keiko. In 1871 the feudal system (Hôken Seido) was abolished and in the early 1890s constitutional government was introduced by the Emperor. Japan’s victory over Russia in the war of 1904 prevented Russian expansion into Korea and consolidated Japan’s position as the strongest military power in Asia. Japan used the pretext of the Anglo-Japanese alliance to attack Chinese territory during the First World War. Bad feelings over the terms of the subsequent peace treaty led to continuing hostility between the two countries.