MAKING OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

East Asia was in a state of fluctuation. The once-powerful Qing Empire in China was left reeling from the Opium Wars and Western intervention. Japan saw this as an opportunity to fill the void. Japan sought to gain power and influence in East Asia through modernization and westernization. Japan began trading with western powers more than with China. At this time, China’s experience was not going well with empires. While they were once the powerhouse of East Asia, the Opium Wars left them in shambles. Japan took advantage, taking over as the powerhouse of East Asia but as a more westernized nation.

The primary source about Mo Guokang helps to elaborate on some of the problems with the Chinese government during World War II. The article talks about how Mo Guokang was a “committee member” of the government of Wang Jingwei but had no talent or education. Mo was not qualified to be in such a position but due to her connection to Chen Gongbo. The article describes both Chen and Mo as traitors too. The source portrays Mo as someone who was not qualified to be in their position in any way but found someone more powerful, who they consider a traitor, to help keep them in power. This source is said to be a tabloid article, so it might be very biased, but it still shows at least one person view on the Chinese government at the time. They saw a lot of corruption and bad in it and they wanted to write about it, maybe this was an attempt to expose them.

Imperialism changed Eastern Asia as we know it. Western Europe’s influence created a vacuum in power as they profited off of a weakening China. This void filled by a growing Japan that wanted to separate itself from China and Korea to modernize and prevent European powers from taking advantage of them. Japan saw the results of a declining Qing China after the Opium Wars, unfair trade deals, and internal conflicts and wanted to ensure they would not become a victim of it. Japan also began to grow their army. East Asia had been struggling with their own conflicts, but Western Europe brought their own wars to the area.

This mass enrollment in Japanese schools was effective as both boys and girls were to attend. Though as individuals from China and Korea attended their schools and learned western ideas such as socialism and anarchism, they began to become radicalized. Upon their return to their homeland, they began to question the authority of the Japanese control and started terroristic attacks and events like the Boxer Rebellion. This structure is very similar to the imperialistic nations controlled by Europe. Japan felt they had the authority to control China and Korea but also educated them in their ‘modern society’ yet still seeing these two nations as lesser. The Japanese military began to take advantage of on Korean and Chinese women and use them for their bodies. One women Kimiko Kaneda said “I felt as if we were taken here to be killed” (Testimony of former Comfort Woman, Kimiko Kaneda (South Korea)). This disrespect for humanity led to even more social unrest between Japan and Korea and China as more civil unrest occurred.

Japan and China entered World War II with the Nanjing Massacre where Japanese military men killed and raped many people of Nanjing. This dark moment in Japanese and Chinese history shows how their already natural national conflicts were amplified with the presence of European ideas of modern society and contradictory views of a government’s power.

East Asia was deeply destabilized by the experience of empire, at least regarding the status quo of China and Japan both having been power players in the region around the late 19^th century. As discussed in September 16^th’s in-class lecture, one pivotal moment in recent East Asian history was the Opium War. After Western military intervention to ensure continued opium trade in China, the country was left reeling. Qing influence in East Asia steadily declined, as even its neighbor Japan took notice of its defeat, slowly moving away from trade with China in favor of trading with the West.

Japan not only reevaluated its trading relationship with China at the time, but also saw the writing on the wall; if they did not mobilize quickly as a nation and adopt the imperialist mindset of the Western imperialist nations, they too would be swept up in their “interventions”. This resulted in the steady Japanese cultivation of “modernity”, such as through its schooling within the country, or through its citizens coming back from studying abroad in Western, imperialist countries. Through a simultaneous push of efforts towards modernization, Japan would be set to become a budding imperialist power of its own.

The aftermath of World War 1 provided the context for the beginnings of Japanese imperialist expansion as well as regional resentment. After the war, Japan came into possession of some Chinese territory. Over time this prompted serious resentment on the part of the Chinese, especially among students in Beijing, who organized a series of protests known as the May 4^th Movements. They espoused the merits of “New Culture”, which served as a regional response to both Japanese imperialism through Chinese nationalism, as well as critiquing long-held archaic Chinese cultural traditions, such as foot-binding for girls.

Similar resistance can be observed in a Chinese tabloid article published a few years after World War 2, where Japanese imperialism had ravaged the Chinese mainland. The article focuses on the supposed personal history of a Chinese woman, Mo Guokang, who had served as the mistress of Chen Gongbo, a significant political figure that operated within the Chinese puppet regime set up by Japan. They are both constantly mentioned first with “traitor” throughout the article and served to drive home the “evil” of these collaborators to a foreign government. There are details of how Mo Guokang came to wield considerable influence through her relationship with Chen as his mistress, though much of its information cannot be confirmed through this lone article given its tabloid, sensationalist origins. In fact, one could argue that the story was somewhat distorted and biased, as the article scoffs at the idea that Mo “sought refuge” through sexual favors, when it could be said instead that she was indeed fearing for her life like many other Chinese women. In any case, what can definitely be confirmed is a continued sense of nationalist sentiment through the production of this article, pushing for a unified China, as was the case with the May 4^th Movement.

This week we discussed, read, and learned about East Asia in the 20th century. Since the Qing was now falling in China, Japan began to take over and soon was in complete control.  After being relatively isolated for the past couple centuries, they began to dominate with new ideals of westernization and nationalism. The opium wars added insult to injury as opium was forced into China. The Qing’s fall from power ultimately led to China’s initial downfall, as well as lots of embarrassment among members of the Chinese c0mmunity. This showed the weakness of imperial government which led to uprisings such as the boxer rebellion. People were not happy, and the overthrow of imperial government was a long time coming.

In contrast, Japan also made large changes around this time. Before taking over China, they adopted a western-style, industrial lifestyle that saw importance in things such as equal education. However, they still kept their identity, unlike China. Women though were now taught a variety of skills, but were mainly taught to carry on traditions. They were still nowhere near equal to men. Japan was also able to militarize very quickly and being attacks on Korea and eventually China. However, this left long-term resentment, but there was fortunately not fighting in the aftermath of these attacks. The nations rarely used violence in years following.

In conclusion, Japan was much more successful in their efforts than China. They kept their identity but at the same time were able to become a powerful force and industrialize. The Chinese were simply left embarrassed by their weak government.

The hype of the Qing dynasty created a massive hierarchal imbalance of powers between the Japanese and the Chinese. Eventually. however, the dynasty begins to fall and Japan is on a rise to power in Asia (1868). One important theme that is highlighted during this time period is the role of women in this society. Japanese men feel the need to modernize these women but at the expense of them still learning enough to be good mothers. So everything created for these women is somewhat superficial, even though these women have a lot more freedom, for example, women now lead tea groups, they are still at a loss for their autonomy because everything they do is controlled by men. The rebellious acts they then claimed, really gave some of these women back their autonomy. For example, a massive rebellion (Beijing rebellion) that set these women apart, or women like Qui Jin. And although things were getting better, they were also getting worse, because of the objectification of these women. From today reading one of the women, Mo Guokang faces the trials and tribulations of the comfort women who are being sent to army men to destress. So, again, we see the role of women and trials and tribulations that they face as a struggle between claiming their autonomy but also losing it at the same time.

With the growing importance of trade around the 1850s, Japan ended its era of isolationism and moved unto trade and imperialism. Mutshito gaining rule after the military dictatorship of the shoguns who were against foreign demands.

From Fukuzawa Yukichi article, Upon Commodore Perry’s arrival in Japan, people were getting to appreciate the usability as well as the ethos of the western civilization.  People came to understand that the civilization was not brought in as long as the Shogunate were in existence because old-fashioned institutions and conventions were incompatible with modernism. So as to say if Japan remained isolated, it would have been unable to become powerful and wealthy or in other words become exposed to imperialism. This was what brought upon the Meiji restoration which caused rapid modernization as well as providing women with basic human rights.

The first source showed how powerful imperial japan had become as it generally talked about its control over women in China and South Korea. The main idea and content of the source are comfort women who were women forced into sexual slavery by the imperial Japanese army before the second world war. The purpose of the source is to essentially show the decline of the essence of western civilization throughout the Meiji restoration. The value of the source is that it is simply a primary source; the information is coming first hand from a comfort woman who has gone through the experience and has witnessed the situation. However, one limitation of the source is that it can be biased since it is coming from one point of view.