Help [Stronger Japan]

[DuQuense]

Following WW1 Turkey & Iran both started on rapid Modernization Drives, 60 Years later Iran Exploded, under the Strain, and Turkey is still trying to Cope with Problems caused by the Strains.

In 1854 whe had the Opening of Japan, by the Americans, Under Adr. Perry. Foillowing this Japan, started on Rapid Modernization, & Industrialization. Japan adopted European Numbers, and the Metric System. For a while it flirted with adopting the Roman Alphabet, but decided it would be one to many changes.


By 1895, Japan had become strong enuff to Challange China and take Korea, Taiwan, & the [Liagong?] Penisulla, But not strong enuff to hold Liagong when the Europeans pushed,

If Japan had pushed it's Modernization any faster, they may have ended like Iran. So for more strengh they to start sooner.

So can any one come up with a POD between 1800-1854 that would let Japan start it's program earlier. allowing Japan to be farther along [Stronger] in 1895.

 

[NapoleonXIV]

The ban of Western Literature was lifted as early as 1720 and something of a Renaissance resulted from the "Dutch Learning" (so called because it came from the Dutch in Nagasaki, the only foreign trade permitted). Pressures to open were a major factor by the end of the 18thc and the Russians, in 1809, (I believe, but am not sure of that date) tried but failed to open the Hermit Kingdom. Your POD could come if they succeeded.

It is debatable, however, that an earlier opening would lead to a stronger Japan. Japans isolation had very much the effect of someone pushing down on a spring, it bounced back with greater strength for being compressed further (in this case longer). If Japan opened sooner it might have gone the way of China, letting in foreigners it thought it could control. The contrast between Perry's warships and what the Japanese had in 1854, combined with the Chinese experience, was a spur to modernization few other non-European nations were given.

I think Japan could be opened by Perry and still end up stronger than in OTL. Had Saigo Takamori, for instance, the real "last samurai" never lived long enough to give the old warriors the romantic cachet they got from his doomed rebellion, then the new government might have been truly revolutionary instead of just papering over the old samurai daimyo with a parliamentary facade. A more democratic Japan would probably have followed the example of the Western country it most resembled and admired, the United States, and attempted cultural and economic, instead of military, imperialism. Had they done so the Greater East Asian co-Prosperity Sphere might indeed have become the main power in the Pacific.