Why Did Japan Modernise and China and Korea Didn't?

You could argue that it was conservative (in the sense of status quo, the Shogunate/Bakufu) versus pragmatic ultra-conservative or even reactionary (restoring the Emperor). If I recall correctly, the Imperial Rescript to His Majesties Soldiers and Sailors described the various Shogunates as "usurpers".

Usurpers seems appropriate enough for discussion's sake.

Status quoists vs. reformists? The connotation of "progress" may be inappropriate though.

Restructurists? Restorationists would be accurate, I suppose.
 
I don't think the Tang and Song missions can be called tribute missions, because I'm pretty sure they weren't offering tribute.

Ack. Think I misspoke. The tribute missions (and missions in general) from Japan to China had ended. The missions from China to Japan were not formally received. That prior to the 11th c. there were missions to China I don't dispute.

At the same time, the Sino-centric worldview did linger in Japan but it was a bit warped: the Song mission noted that the Japanese nobility were interested in and practiced Tang dynasty cultural forms. As for politically, by then China was politically insignificant to them and would remain so until the Mongol invasions.
 
So what would you call the other side of the civil war from the Meiji government?

Not trying to argue, as my knowledge is fairly rudimentary, but I'd appreciate seeing more.

I would call one side the Imperialist and the other the Shogunist (Shogunist were just conservatives, but imperialist were a mix of ultra reactionnaries and progressists)). You see, the Shogunate tried to modernize the countries quickly after Japan's own Unequal Treaties (begining by the Convention of Kanagawa, forced upon Japan by Commander Perry of the USA) and invited a French military mission to train the troops of the Bakufu (after the English apparently refused). The movement of opposition started after the Unequal treaties were called sonno joi (restore the emperor, expel the barbarians) and the emperor soon called for it too. The biggest problem of the shogunate was that is was divided and undecided. If the second Choshu expedition was won by shogunal forces and Yoshinobu was a stronger leader or a someone else became Shogun, the Meiji restoration wouldn't happen but the Shogunate would continue the modernization too. Actually after the defeat of the Bakufu, the imperialist faction was expecting a return to the isolation of the country (remember : expel the barbarians), but Meiji chose to continue it.
 
Usurpers seems appropriate enough for discussion's sake.

Status quoists vs. reformists? The connotation of "progress" may be inappropriate though.

Restructurists? Restorationists would be accurate, I suppose.

Definitely rule out "progress/progressive", the concept was not within their worldview or political vocabulary at the time. Say restorationist as the publicly used label, reformist as the goal.
 
I would call one side the Imperialist and the other the Shogunist (Shogunist were just conservatives, but imperialist were a mix of ultra reactionnaries and progressists)). You see, the Shogunate tried to modernize the countries quickly after Japan's own Unequal Treaties (begining by the Convention of Kanagawa, forced upon Japan by Commander Perry of the USA) and invited a French military mission to train the troops of the Bakufu (after the English apparently refused). The movement of opposition started after the Unequal treaties were called sonno joi (restore the emperor, expel the barbarians) and the emperor soon called for it too. The biggest problem of the shogunate was that is was divided and undecided. If the second Choshu expedition was won by shogunal forces and Yoshinobu was a stronger leader or a someone else became Shogun, the Meiji restoration wouldn't happen but the Shogunate would continue the modernization too. Actually after the defeat of the Bakufu, the imperialist faction was expecting a return to the isolation of the country (remember : expel the barbarians), but Meiji chose to continue it.

Ack again. Thank you, forgot about expel the barbarians. I have doubts about how far the Shogunate could have gone with modernization without some sort of revamp or abolition of the caste system. By abolishing it (legally anyway) and moving the onus of changes to the Emperor, some of the tensions from those changes are muted. Otherwise they are jumping through hoops trying to adapt the existing system.
 
So, what held China back was;

a) factionalism that held back modernisation

b) a worldview that discouraged learning from western countries as opposed to Japan's inferiority complex.

Interesting.

Cheers for that guys, that was really informative. :)
 
a) factionalism that held back modernisation

More like the faction that won didn't want any modernisation. In Japan factionalism was also an issue and it didn't keep then from modernizing, it's even the contrary, it was factionalism that provocked the modernization (IMHO).
 
This has already been discussed several times already, and people have discussed most of the major issues on this thread, but I'll try to quote some of my more recent posts and add more information, although most of them are oriented toward Korea.

China could probably have been able to modernize somewhat by 1900 with a PoD before 1870 or so, but its general ethnocentrism had historically prevented it from looking outward, and its size would have prevented it from enacting changes on a widespread scale. Also, the Qing was ruled by the Manchus, although most of the population was Han Chinese, which could have caused ethnic tensions during industrialization, while other minority populations, mostly located in the north and west, could have caused further difficulties if they made more direct attempts to assert independence.

On the other hand, Korea, under the Joseon dynasty, had been a tributary of the Ming and Qing for over 500 years, which limited its ability to grasp the situation outside its borders, even after the Opium Wars greatly weakened China. France sent an expedition to the peninsula in 1866 due to religious reasons, and the United States sent some warships in 1871 due to the General Sherman incident. However, due to Korean resistance, and Europe's general disinterest in the area, it was not until 1876 when Joseon was forcibly opened after Japan forced it to sign the Treaty of Ganghwa. Neither the Heungseon Daewongun, who had been ruling as regent for his son since 1863, nor the Andong Kim clan, which he had overthrown in order to restore power to the monarchy, would have been willing to accept Western intervention.

A more direct approach from the Western powers would have probably turned Korea into a colony or a protectorate . . . The latest possibility for reform that I can think of would be the Gapsin Coup in 1884, in which a pro-Japanese faction attempted to enact structured reforms on a widespread scale, although it was suppressed a few days later when the queen decided to oust them with backing from the Qing. At the time, the monarchy's policies were focused on balancing the different factions supporting Japan, China, and Russia, so it would have been very difficult for Korea itself to concentrate on reforms with set goals in mind. By the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and the establishment of the Korean Empire in 1897, it would be too late for Korea to escape Japanese influence.

In addition, Joseon would need to maintain a population of around 20 million during the 19th century. For comparison, its population had tripled to 18 million within 150 years or so from 1600 to 1750, mostly due to the importation of cash crops as a result of the Columbian Exchange. However, the population actually decreased to 12-15 million by 1850 because of overcrowding due to the lack of major cities, and the capital/largest city had no more than a few hundred thousand inhabitants by 1900. In other words, reorganizing and building new infrastructure would be necessary for changes to be made on a widespread scale and have a greater impact on society, which would be extremely difficult due to Joseon's generally negative stance on foreigners at the time.

As I stated earlier, instead of attempting to pursue its own path, Korea was trying to balance Chinese, Japanese, and Russian interests, although it often favored one side over the others at certain points in time. Although Joseon had been a tributary of the Qing for centuries, the Opium Wars and further concessions greatly weakened China's grip over Korea, although until the 1890s, the Chinese did occasionally send troops due to Korean requests for intervention.

On the other hand, Japan began to install reforms starting in 1868, although some had been implemented earlier, soon after Perry forcibly opened up the state in 1854. Japan then created its own unequal treaty and imposed it on Korea in 1876, which theoretically attempted to detach the latter from China, but in reality began to gradually force Korea under Japan's influence. Several coups and uprisings soon followed due to political turmoil, most of which were disorganized, but the Donghak Peasant Revolution eventually led to the creation of the Gabo Reforms in 1894. Meanwhile, the First Sino-Japanese War broke out in the same year, causing China to effectively lose influence in Korea. In the following year, the queen was then brutally assassinated by Japanese agents, causing Gojong to temporarily seek refuge in the Russian legation in 1896.

Although the Gabo Reforms, which had been heavily influenced by Japanese reforms, were repealed while the monarch was in exile, and Korea began to favor Russia at the expense of other powers, public opinion, along with establishment of cordial relations between Russia and Japan, forced Gojong to return to the palace in 1897, and declare the Korean Empire in the same year. However, given Japan's actions and preparations up to that time, it was too little, too late. The Russo-Japanese War, which broke out in 1904, ended in a Japanese victory mostly because the Russians had underestimated the Japanese, was slow in transporting supplies and reinforcements from Europe, and a revolution broke out in 1905 due to social unrest. Although the Russians could have theoretically defeated the Japanese in a different situation, the combination of factors in the previous sentence ultimately left Japan with undisputed control over Korea, and ultimately Manchuria, until the end of WWII.

With an earlier PoD in which Japan almost certainly does not begin industrializing at the rate that it did in OTL, other European powers, such as Russia, could have either brought Korea under their control given specific incentives, such as warm-water ports for Russia, or could have led Korea to learn more about Europe in order to pursue more specific reforms with set goals. However, the reality is that Korea's actions had been heavily influenced by those of Japan beginning in 1876, and its temporarily favorable approaches to China and Russia had been due to aggressive actions from Japan. In other words, regardless of the extent of Japanese influence in an ATL, it's really hard to say exactly how Korea could have modernized given the political and social turmoil at the time.

I hope that helps.

So whats the big difference? Why didn't Europeans come trying to break off parts of Korea and Japan as well? There weren't any European concessions in Edo or Kyoto or Nagoya or anything, (or Seoul, for that matter) and Japan didn't have anything like the unequal treaties.

See above for when the French and the Americans sent ships to Korea. Also, although the Portuguese were the first to contact China in 1517, and the Ming finally allowed them to stay in Macau around 1557, the Europeans never managed to extract concessions outside of trading ports, which was mainly restricted to Canton until the Opium Wars. The main reason was that China had traditionally conducted trade relations on a tributary basis, with some exceptions, and they certainly did not see the individual European powers as rivaling it economically or militarily until the Industrial Revolution drastically increased efficiency in Western Europe, and it was too late by then. Because China had a complex trading system of its own, ranging from contacts in Northwest and Southwest Asia, and possessed plenty of resources within its borders, there was no particular need to adopt widespread reforms until the late-19th century, and generally speaking, it was too late by then.

Also, I have no idea what you mean by Japan never signing an unequal treaty. Wikipedia states that there were six unequal treaties conducted from 1854-61 between Japan and the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Russia, and Prussia. Of course, the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese War proved to Europe and the US that the treaties were essentially useless, but that didn't make them any less valid before then.

Korea: tributary ally of China sharing a land border. That China supported it in the 16th century against Japanese invasion lingered in memory. Push come to shove, China would rescue/preserve it as is if necessary.

I'm not really sure what this is supposed to say. The Ming never invaded Joseon, and the latter was founded on the basis of promising tribute in return for peaceful negotiations, and the Imjin War was one result. However, the Manchus invaded Korea twice, and forced them to switch allegiance from the Ming to the Qing, before reunifying China Proper. Joseon continued to defy the Qing to a degree by continuously acknowledging Ming, instead of Qing, era names, because they still considered the Manchus to be barbarians. Although during the 19th century, China did come to Korea's aid when requested, the cause and effect that you stated doesn't really make sense.
 
I've sometimes wondered how much the Qing court's location played a role. The people most familiar with the Europeans were people on the coast, after all.

As OTL shows, they were well aware of the Russian threat...

I wouldn't discount Japan's relative sophistication either. It had a literacy rate comparable to late 18th century Europe at the time of the Meiji restoration, a pretty sophisticated financial system, etc.
 
As OTL shows, they were well aware of the Russian threat...

Yes, but the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 caused the Russians to give up the area around the Amur River, and a later treaty settled the boundary north of Mongolia. It was not until 1858, well after the First Opium War, that the Treaty of Aigun forced the Qing to accept concessions and move its border further south. During the 18th century, both sides somewhat recognized the threats that the other proposed, but they were content with setting definitive boundaries and maintaining trading posts along the area. The fact that the Qing was also busy with expeditions against the Mongols, Tibet, and Vietnam during the late 17th-early 18th centuries, then with Xinjiang, Burma, Taiwan, Nepal, and Vietnam during the mid-late 18th century, suggests that the Qing was more concerned with other affairs at the time.
 
Yes, but the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 caused the Russians to give up the area around the Amur River, and a later treaty settled the boundary north of Mongolia.

The treaty of Nerchinsk is actually what I mean; the treaty recognized the Tsar as an equal, was drafted in Latin, etc.

This is because the steppes and the North were the traditional threat to China, not some traders from across the sea.
 
The treaty of Nerchinsk is actually what I mean; the treaty recognized the Tsar as an equal, was drafted in Latin, etc.

This is because the steppes and the North were the traditional threat to China, not some traders from across the sea.

That's true. My point was just that barring extensive butterflies, before 1800, Russia wouldn't be a major factor in causing the Qing to conduct thorough reforms.
 
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