Modernisation of china and japan

Industrial societies far from becoming like each other have found their own paths to becoming modern. The histories of Japan and China show how different historical conditions led them on widely divergent paths to building independent and modern nations.

i. Japan was successful in retaining its independence and using traditional skills and practices in new ways.
However modernisation generated an aggressive nationalism, helped to sustain a repressive regime that stifled dissent and demands for democracy, and established a colonial empire that left a legacy of hatred in the region as well as distorted internal developments.

ii. Japan's programme of modernisation was carried out in an environment dominated by Western imperial powers. While it imitated them it also attempted to find its own solutions.

Japanese nationalism was marked by these different compulsions - while many Japanese hoped to liberate Asia from Western domination, for others these ideas justified building an empire.

iii. It is important to note that the transformation of social and political institutions and daily life was not just a question of reviving traditions, or tenaciously preserving them, but rather of creatively using them in new and different ways.