ABSTRACT
The year 1868 was as dramatic and important in Japanese history as the year 1941. In 1868 the boy emperor, Meiji, guided by a small group of warlord-noblemen, or genro, established the Japanese capital in Tokyo and began the modernization of Japan. Japan’s most important colony was to be Korea. The Japanese engaged the Chinese in a rivalry for control of that strategic peninsula. China refused to yield, and the Japanese attacked Chinese forces in Korea in July 1894, declaring war four days later. The Japanese contended that since America had acquired a Pacific empire by annexing Hawaii and conquering the Philippines, Japan had a perfect right to pursue similar ambitions. A naval arms race among the great powers followed the end of the war. The competition was tempered at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–22. Japanese behavior in China became atrocious.
