Why did Britain arm Japan pre-ww1 to 1920s?

Presumably Armstrong would not have been permitted to sell warships to Russia, but IDK.

Vickers built Rurik for Russia
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US yards were more than happy to sell to the Russians:
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Cruiser Varyag

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Battleship Retvizan
 
As France was aligned with Russia , would that be another reason for the Japanese no longer to favor France?
The Japanese bought a cruiser off the French that was lost without trace on its delivery voyage. The IJN went cold on French design and construction after that.

IJN Unebi
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The Clash: US- Japanese Relations Throughout History by Walter LaFeber.

As in the case of the OP, Bridge commands were given in English on IJN warships until the late 1920’s and early 30’s.
Do you have more sources for that claim? Because I can't find anything on the internet to back that claim up and if it's only coming from one source, I would be inclined to think it's wrong.
 
Do you have more sources for that claim?
Which claim? Adopting English during the modernisation phase or English being spoken on IJN ship bridges?

I'm sorry you'd put more value in 'the internet' over a history book written by one of America's most eminent Historians. Unfortunately most US-Japanese history focuses on 2 dates and the 1338 days in between when there is 150 years of between Japan and the US. The bulk of that history in the diplomatic realm in the State Department not the War Department. Maybe it's 'the internet' that's wrong, or written by people who don't read very widely or only enjoy history between Dec 7 1941 and Aug 6 1945.

English was necessary for the IJN, here is an example of a 1920's era ship design by Japanese designers trained in the UK and Europe. Note that its all in English.

http://gazo.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/hiraga2014/images/large/21540602/21540602-002_001.jpg
21540602-002_001.jpg
 
Which claim? Adopting English during the modernisation phase or English being spoken on IJN ship bridges?

I'm sorry you'd put more value in 'the internet' over a history book written by one of America's most eminent Historians. Unfortunately most US-Japanese history focuses on 2 dates and the 1338 days in between when there is 150 years of between Japan and the US. The bulk of that history in the diplomatic realm in the State Department not the War Department. Maybe it's 'the internet' that's wrong, or written by people who don't read very widely or only enjoy history between Dec 7 1941 and Aug 6 1945.

English was necessary for the IJN, here is an example of a 1920's era ship design by Japanese designers trained in the UK and Europe. Note that its all in English.

http://gazo.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/hiraga2014/images/large/21540602/21540602-002_001.jpg
21540602-002_001.jpg
The claim of making English their first language. That seems to extreme to have been seriously considered. It's one thing to make it a technical language in a certain field, but to have it be made the first language for the whole nation, as you seem to imply, sounds very wild. Like the myth of the US having made almost made German it's official language. I don't trust the author to have been an accurate authority on Japan as I have been reading reviews of the book and they both mention that he tends to make generalizations about Japanese culture. Truth be told, the only way I'd believe a statement as wild as the idea of Japan having almost made English a first language is if it came from a Japanese primary source, or at least from someone who I definitely can see is an expert on Japanese language and who studies the culture and history. And when I mean the "internet" I mean I can't find anything that mentions the idea of English being considered for Japan's first language. If such a thing was seriously considered, I'd think I'd find it mentioned more often, but in a semi quick search, I find nothing on that. And if it's only found in a single book by a person who's field of expertise is not specifically on Japanese culture or language or history, then I can't find myself so willingly to accept their words as fact.
 
Japan has just seen what the European Powers do to “uppity” Asians during the Boxer Rebellion.

I lived in Japan for a year and a half, in a fairly rural area where most people didn't have sophisticated views. There's a lot to like about Japan, but don't ignore their strong sense of national identity. In particular, I think you're making a mistake by assuming they would look at the Boxer Rebellion and think any of that applied to them. They're far more likely to identify with the European powers beating up the Chinese than they are with the "Asians". That goes double for the period we're talking about - remember that they are "the Yamato race", directly descended from the gods, and with a literal deity sitting on their throne. Of course the Chinese got defeated, it was their destiny to be so just like it was Japan's destiny to rule!

It might sound silly, but people really thought that way, and to an extent still do.
 
I lived in Japan for a year and a half, in a fairly rural area where most people didn't have sophisticated views. There's a lot to like about Japan, but don't ignore their strong sense of national identity. In particular, I think you're making a mistake by assuming they would look at the Boxer Rebellion and think any of that applied to them. They're far more likely to identify with the European powers beating up the Chinese than they are with the "Asians". That goes double for the period we're talking about - remember that they are "the Yamato race", directly descended from the gods, and with a literal deity sitting on their throne. Of course the Chinese got defeated, it was their destiny to be so just like it was Japan's destiny to rule!

It might sound silly, but people really thought that way, and to an extent still do.
To add to this,they weren't European, but the Japanese literally were one of the powers beating up the Chinese.
 
People keep talking about the money Britain earned from selling the warships to Japan - which is true. However, weapons sales are usually not once-only transaction, they're package deals. With especially more complex weaponry, you have to pay money to train and familiarize the crews with the systems and how to move and shoot. That's always more money, and while eventually the client's military can train its own men out of familiarity with the weapons, it needs time and training to reach that point, and that brings money to the coffers of the weapon salesmen (who are usually also the ones providing the training).

It also serves to create ties between seller and buyer. When you send your officers to work with their officers and train them, they get to know each other a little better, eventually forming business and even personal ties. It's an excellent example of 'soft power' by influence, since now you have ties to some of the more influential and ambitious officers in another country's military, as battleships and warships are generally seen as important ladders for one's career. It allowed the locals to have a good opinion of your officers, and it creates ties you can use for later, as said officers owe their careers and advancement to your training.

The creation of close bonds between officers has been both a blessing and a curse. It allows the reigning Great Powers and Superpowers to make friends, it makes political statements, and it can cause trouble down the line. Sadat made a definitive statement in 1972 by ejecting the Soviet advisors who had grown friends with their Egyptian liaisons, and put American ones instead. Some time before his death, Hugo Chavez started getting aircraft and training from Russia, as all his pilots and aircraft up to that point had been from the prior government, and thus were American-supplied and American-trained, so their loyalty was suspect. Iran purged its officer corps immediately after the Islamic Revolution not only because they were loyal to the Shah, but many of them had been training, working, and corresponding with American advisors in previous years, making their loyalty very suspect. Similarly, Stalin purged a lot of his officer corps as tensions rose with Nazi Germany; before Hitler's rise to power, several German corporations were working with the USSR as a way to circumvent the arms limitations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, and there were concerns they'd have gotten too chummy with people now supplying the most rabid anti-Communist/anti-Russian government in Europe.

So basically, equipping and training the Japanese was not just business, but a way to keep a close ally in the region and a counter to Russia in the Far East. Had they not needed the USA's help more, they would have continued to be friends with Japan in the 1920s and 1930s.

I'd add more, but everyone else already covered the other points I was going to make.
 
Japan could support a Fleet large enough to counter the Russians and Germans in the Pacific. Australia, Canada and New Zealand combined couldn't and the US wasn't interested in foreign entanglements. Japan was really the only available option other than funding a second Royal Navy for the Pacific.
There was a long term alternative which was to wait to seek a US alliance in the Pacific. Until the 20s, Britain saw the IJN as a better option.
It took Europeans a long time to realize that the XX century was going to be the American Century, and Britain was probably the last to understand just how large is the difference between Great Power and Superpower.
 
Boxer_Rebellion

China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg


This one is always popular.
And wrong. Uncle Sam should be in there.
China is where US "Open Door" internacional capitalism first clashed with tradicional imperialism. Seeing it as just Europeans slicing the cake is reductive. The US was about to prove that they could eat the cake and have it.
 
The claim of making English their first language. That seems to extreme to have been seriously considered. It's one thing to make it a technical language in a certain field, but to have it be made the first language for the whole nation, as you seem to imply, sounds very wild. Like the myth of the US having made almost made German it's official language.

You have to consider it against the background of modernisation and that the Japanese language, which varied all over Japan, was based on Chinese. It's not unprecedented for nations to adopt another language. Singapore is de jure Malay but de facto English, there are 4 official languages but English is the lingua franca. The government even has campaigns for Singaporeans to speak English properly. When Indonesia gained independence the largest proportion of the population spoke Javanese but they adopted a small island's Bahasa as the national language because Javanese was hard to learn.

I don't trust the author to have been an accurate authority on Japan as I have been reading reviews of the book and they both mention that he tends to make generalizations about Japanese culture.
So you wont read the book but will read reviews... Do the reviewers have Bancroft prizes for History?

Truth be told, the only way I'd believe a statement as wild as the idea of Japan having almost made English a first language is if it came from a Japanese primary source, or at least from someone who I definitely can see is an expert on Japanese language and who studies the culture and history.

No, I said 'considered', not 'almost made'. Note that the Mori Arinori mentioned in the article was an Education Minister during the Meiji Period so would have been in the right position to implement such a change if adopted as policy.

Language, script and modernity. Pascal Griolet
The Japanese writing system was the target of criticism and reform during the latter half of the 19th century. In order to implement a coherent education, some like Mori Arinori suggested adopting English; others like Nanbu Yoshikazu proposed the adoption of the Latin alphabet and the abolition of Chinese characters. This paper shows that, contrary to the image that everything has changed in Japan within a few years around the Meiji Restoration (1868), from the initial debates of the late-Edo, it has taken over forty years to see the Japanese language unshackled from Chinese, yet without being destroyed and transformed into English, and for the building blocks of a “national language” (kokugo) to emerge.
 
There was a long term alternative which was to wait to seek a US alliance in the Pacific. Until the 20s, Britain saw the IJN as a better option.
It took Europeans a long time to realize that the XX century was going to be the American Century, and Britain was probably the last to understand just how large is the difference between Great Power and Superpower.
Did GB not simply think that it was impossible to get US to agree to an alliance, not that it would not be preferable to a Japanese one?
 
Did GB not simply think that it was impossible to get US to agree to an alliance, not that it would not be preferable to a Japanese one?
IMO they regarded th US a bigger more credible threat than Japan. An alliance with Japan was directed primaraly against Russian but had a secondary role as generating an "offshore balancer" against US expansion in the Pacific.
 
Did GB not simply think that it was impossible to get US to agree to an alliance, not that it would not be preferable to a Japanese one?
The US was supposed to join the League of Nations (reasonable as it was a US idea in the first place) and be engaged with the rest of the world.
 
It takes two to tango.

The UK spent most of the 19thC eliminating conflicts with the US, arguably because the UK knew it couldn't project enough force to the Western Hemisphere, but mostly because it was making too much money out of the US.

The bigger problem with closer relations was the US. Remember the Founding Fathers did not like foreign entanglements. Then there was 1812 and the mixed signals from the UK during the Civil War. And the inward looking need to conquer the continent before looking out. And we are dealing with a teenager great power with all the angst, tantrums, selfishness, self confidence, preening, and aggressive display that comes with a nation at that stage.

Before the UK could even think of alliances with the US it had to convince the US that the US needed them. That was a work of decades.
 
And wrong. Uncle Sam should be in there.
China is where US "Open Door" internacional capitalism first clashed with tradicional imperialism. Seeing it as just Europeans slicing the cake is reductive. The US was about to prove that they could eat the cake and have it.

Yet the USA didn't have a Treaty Port like all the others, since 1864.

The US wanted Trade, sure, but was doing things differently than the other Great Powers. US Merged their holdings at Shanghai with the UK to form the International in 1864, and released options in Tientsin in 1880, but retained the so called Treaty Rights for how US Citizens were to be treated across the Chine territory.
While the UK had the most Trade of all the Treaty Ports by 1900(over 70%) US was at 8%, there were 1,400 British missionaries and 1,000 were American. The next largers groups were the Swedes and Norwegians, around 100.
 
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