ABSTRACT
The geopolitical event in East Asia at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth was Japan's replacement of the collapsing Chinese Empire as the region's leading Asian power. Japan's rise was the result of the success of Meiji leaders in remaking their country on the model of the West. A serious challenge to the Meiji government was the 'Freedom and People's Rights Movement', which mounted nationwide demonstrations demanding the establishment of a constitution and parliament along the lines of those of Britain and France. The Meiji leadership decided that Japan would have to acquire a modern industrial base, since they realized that the West's power grew out of the smokestacks of its factories. If the Sino-Japanese War heralded Japan's emergence as an imperialist power, the Russo-Japanese War marked its arrival as a Great Power. The success of Japan's state-sponsored industrialization depended ultimately on the government's ability to extract wealth from agriculture and transfer it to industry.
