A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (43 page)

These young men had dual motives. On the one hand they had a genuine nationalistic desire to do the best for their country in the face of
foreign threat. On the other, they had a desire to achieve personal success for themselves, a success they felt had been denied them under the old sh
gunal regime.
¹
They were far from shackled by dedication to the old regime, but neither were they shackled by ideological commitment to a full imperial restoration in actual practice as well as name. It was simply a question of doing whatever was best for themselves and the nation. For the moment at least, carrying the authoritative banner of an imperial restoration seemed a good way to proceed. Fortunately for themselves and the nation, they had a maturity and wisdom beyond their years. Fortunately for the imperial family, Mutsuhito did as he was told.

Their first aim was to consolidate the new regime. People had been greatly alarmed by the turbulent events of the coup. A sort of mass hysteria was one response to the traumatic change occurring in their long-settled world.
²
The public needed reassurance that stability – rather than the emperor – had been restored.

It was vital that lingering armed resistance was quickly put down.
³
Edo was a centre of resistance by some 2,000 troops, but it was fully secured by July. The sh
gunal loyalist Enomoto Takeaki (1836–1908) had fled Edo with a fleet of warships and taken them to Hokkaid
, declaring it a republic and receiving a degree of recognition from America, but he was defeated in June the following year.
⁴
Resistance was still to spring up in various forms for some years, but with the defeat of Enomoto order was effectively restored for the short term at least.

It was also vital that the emperor himself gave reassurance, especially about how Japan was going to deal with the foreign threat. In April 1868, just three months after being restored, he and his advisers issued the Charter Oath (of Five Articles).
⁵
This promised

•
public discussion of ‘all matters’;

•
the participation of all classes in the administration of the country;

•
freedom for all persons to pursue their preferred occupation;

•
the abandoning of ‘evil customs of the past’ (unspecified);

•
the seeking of knowledge throughout the world in order to strengthen the country (or more literally, ‘to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule’).

It was clear from this fifth article that the new government was planning not to confront the foreign threat but to learn from it and incorporate its strengths. The earlier xenophobic catchphrase ‘
Sonn
J
i
’ (‘Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians’) was soon to be replaced by more pragmatic and constructive slogans such as ‘
Wakon Y
sai
’ (‘Japanese spirit, Western learning’). This approach to modernisation was – ironically but almost certainly consciously – similar to that of governments of the ancient Yamato and Nara periods. The past was a useful lesson for the modern.

Japan was fortunate it had the luxury of being allowed to learn at its own pace and in its own way, for just like China in those ancient times, or for that matter the Europeans in the sixteenth century, the western powers of the nineteenth century were not really interested in colonising Japan – though this does not mean that there was no threat whatsoever of this and that the Japanese could relax. On his way to Japan in 1853 Perry had raised the American flag in the Japanese ‘outpost’ of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, though the Japanese had taken it down again without incurring American retaliation, and Perry had also recommended to Washington that America consider occupying the Ry
ky
Islands.
⁶
In fact, as late as 1887 the young geographer-intellectual Shiga Shigetaka (1863–1927), in his popular work
Nany
Jiji
(Current Affairs in the South Seas), was to sound a warning about possible western takeover of Japan based on his observations of the development of Australia and New Zealand by the Anglo-Saxon races, whom he greatly admired but also in a sense feared. Shiga writes of his discussion in New Zealand in 1886 with a Maori chief, Wi Tako:
⁷

Wi Tako asked me if Japan had ever had a war with Great Britain, and I replied that in Japan we also used to have chiefs of local clans throughout provinces who maintained vast domains across the country, and that some of the clans had disputes with the British. Fortunately they had not been of such serious nature as to threaten invasion. And so we have been able to maintain our independence thus far, but I had to admit this could only have been due to good fortune. Thinking back on it one realises how lucky we have been to have maintained such freedom when one considers the limited advantages we have over the West. … Wi Tako asserted that the cause of rapid oppression in his country had resulted from constant warring with the British and looked sorrowful and angry as he said this. Alas! Japan could be another New Zealand. As I look up at the autumn sky of these Southern Seas, I fear the threat to my home country far away. Having witnessed such cultural and racial oppression in New Zealand, I – as a son of the new Japan – must take immediate action to make my people aware of this possibly happening back home.