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History

Ancient Times

    The Japanese archipelago was first inhabited more than 100,000 years ago, when it still comprised part of the continental Asian land mass. Archaeological discoveries have revealed that the ancient people inhabiting the archipelago in the Old Stone (Paleolithic) age lived mainly by hunting and gathering. The New Stone (Neolithic) age, dating from about 10,000 years ago, witnessed the manufacture of refined stone implements, the development of advanced hunting techniques using bows and arrows, and the production of earthenware containers for cooking and storing food. The era lasting from around 8000 to 300 B.C. is called the Jomon period after the jomon (cord-marked) style of pottery.

    Agriculture, primarily rice planting, and metalworking techniques were introduced from the Asian continent around 300 B.C. The inhabitants of Japan used iron farming tools in their daily life to increase agricultural production and bronze swords and mirrors for religious rituals. The division of labor widened the gap between ruling and subject classes at this time, and many small states were formed across the country. The era lasting from 300 B.C. to A.D. 300 is called the Yayoi period after the wheel-turned pottery that was produced during this time.
    Gradually the small states were unified, and by the fourth century a strong political authority centered in Yamato (now Nara Prefecture) ruled over the nation. The period from the fourth century through the sixth century saw great developments in agriculture as well as the introduction of Chinese culture, including Confucianism and Buddhism, via Korea. By the end of the fourth century contact had been established between Japan and the kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula. From Korea, such industrial arts as weaving, metalworking, tanning, and shipbuilding, which originally had been developed in China under the Han dynasty, were introduced into the country.
    The written form of Chinese, based on ideographic characters, was adopted, and through this medium the Japanese learned the rudiments of medicine, the workings of the calendar and astronomy, and the philosophy of Confucianism. Buddhism was introduced into Japan in 538 from India by way of China and Korea. The Chinese system of government provided a pattern on which Japan's rulers built their own system.

    The country's first permanent capital was established in Nara at the beginning of the eighth century. For more than 70 years, from 710 to 784, Japan's Imperial Family resided there and gradually extended its authority across the country. Until then the capital, or the seat of the throne, had been moved frequently within the area around the present cities of Nara, Kyoto, and Osaka.

    A new capital, modeled on the Chinese capital of the time, was built in Kyoto in 794. It remained the seat of the throne for more than 1,000 years. This transfer of the capital to Kyoto marked the beginning of the Heian period, which continued until 1192. This was one of the great periods of artistic development in Japan. Contacts with China were interrupted toward the end of the ninth century, and Japan's civilization began to take on its own special characteristics and forms.

    This was a process of assimilation and adaptation by which things introduced from outside gradually assumed an essentially Japanese style. The most typical instance of this process was the development during the Heian period of a Japanese script. The complexity of Chinese writing led writers and priests to work out two sets of syllabic systems based upon Chinese forms. By the middle of the Heian period these phonetic alphabets, or kana as they are called, had been improved and brought into fairly wide use, opening the way for a literature of a pure Japanese style, which was to flourish in place of that in the imported Chinese idiom.

    Life in the capital was marked by great elegance and refinement. While the court gave itself up to the pursuit of the arts and social pleasures, its authority over the martial clans in the provinces became increasingly uncertain. Effective control of the realm gradually passed out of its hands and became the prize for which two rival military families, the Minamotos and the Tairas, both of which traced their descent from previous Emperors, engaged in one of the most celebrated and hard-fought struggles in Japan's turbulent middle ages. The Minamotos finally prevailed, annihilating the rival Taira clan in the epic Battle of Dannoura on the Inland Sea in 1185.

Feudal Age

    The victory of the Minamotos marked the virtual eclipse of the imperial throne as the source of effective political power and the beginning of seven centuries of feudal rule under a succession of shoguns, or military rulers.

    In 1192 Yoritomo, head of the victorious Minamoto family, established the shogunate, or military government, at Kamakura, near present-day Tokyo, and assumed some administrative powers that had previously been held by the Emperors in Kyoto. In a reaction against what it considered the decadence of Kyoto in its devotion to the arts of peace, the shogunate in Kamakura encouraged austerity and the pursuit of the martial arts and disciplines required to restore effective control throughout the land, especially over restive clans in the remoter provinces. The Kamakura period, as the age of Yoritomo's shogunate is called, was an era in which bushido--the way of the samurai, or Japanese chivalry--prevailed.

    In 1213 real power was transferred from the Minamotos to the Hojos, the family of Yoritomo's wife; serving as regents for the shogun, they maintained the military government in Kamakura until 1333. During this period, the Mongols twice attacked northern Kyushu, once in 1274 and again in 1281. Despite inferior arms, Japanese warriors successfully held the field and prevented the invaders from penetrating into the interior. Following the destruction of most of their fleet by typhoons, which struck on both attempted invasions, the Mongol forces withdrew from Japan.

    A short-lived restoration of imperial rule, from 1333 to 1338, was followed by a new military government established by the Ashikaga family at Muromachi in Kyoto. The Muromachi period continued for more than two centuries, from 1338 to 1573. During this period the austere disciplines of bushido found expression in aesthetic and religious activities and set their mark indelibly on the country's arts, whose chief characteristic even today is a classic sense of restraint and simplicity.
    After two centuries of rule, the shogunate in Muromachi was confronted by a growing challenge to its authority from rival clans in other parts of the country. Toward the end of the sixteenth century Japan was torn by civil wars as provincial lords battled for supremacy. Order was finally restored by the great general Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590. In 1592 and 1597 Hideyoshi launched two invasions of Korea, both of which eventually failed in the face of Korean and Chinese resistance. His work of pacifying and uniting Japan was consolidated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was during this transitional period of civil wars that many of Japan's most famous castles were built.

Unity in Isolation
    Having established himself as effective ruler of all Japan, Ieyasu founded his shogunate in Edo, as Tokyo was then known, in 1603. This was a major turning point in Japanese history. Ieyasu created the mold in which almost every facet of the nation's life, particularly its political and social institutions, was cast for the next 265 years.
    As one means of preserving the integrity of the social and political structure that Ieyasu erected, the Tokugawa shogunate took the drastic step of virtually closing Japan's doors to the outside world in 1639. The first Westerners had reached the shores of Japan in the previous century during the Muromachi period. Portuguese traders landed on a small island in southwestern Japan in 1543, introducing firearms into the country. They were followed in the next few years by Jesuit missionaries, led by Saint Francis Xavier, and groups of Spaniards. Dutch and British traders also established themselves on Japanese soil.
    This influx of Europeans had a profound influence on Japan. The missionaries made numerous converts, particularly in southern Japan. The shogunate realized that Christianity could be potentially as explosive a power as the firearms that accompanied it. Christianity was eventually proscribed, and the Tokugawa shogunate barred entry to all foreigners, except a handful of Dutch traders confined to the small island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay, some Chinese living in Nagasaki, and occasional royal envoys from Lee-dynasty Korea. For two-and-a-half centuries these people were the only contacts between Japan and the outside world. It was through the Dejima traders that Japanese scholars were able to acquire a basic knowledge of Western medicine and other sciences during the country's long period of isolation.

Restoration of Imperial Rule
    Japan came under increasing pressure around the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century to open up its shores to the outside world. At home, the rigid social and political structure created by Ieyasu was beginning to feel the stresses caused by the advancing times.
    In 1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States entered Tokyo Bay with a squadron of four ships. He returned the following year and succeeded in persuading the Japanese to conclude a treaty of amity with his country. This was followed by the conclusion of similar treaties with Russia, Britain, and the Netherlands, thus opening Japan once more to foreign intercourse. These treaties were changed four years later to treaties of commerce, and a similar treaty was concluded with France.
    The impact of these events increased the pressure of the social and political currents that were undermining the foundations of the feudal structure. There was great turmoil for about a decade, until the feudal system of the Tokugawa shogunate eventually collapsed in 1867 and full sovereignty was restored to the Emperor in the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Modern Period
    The Meiji era (1868-1912) represents one of the most remarkable periods in the history of nations. Under Emperor Meiji, Japan set out to achieve in only a few decades what had taken centuries to develop in the West--the creation of a modern nation with modern industries, modern political institutions, and a modern pattern of society.
    In the first years of his reign, Emperor Meiji transferred the imperial capital from Kyoto to Edo, the seat of the former feudal government. The city was renamed Tokyo, meaning "eastern capital." A constitution was promulgated, establishing a cabinet and bicameral legislature. The old classes into which society had been divided during the feudal age were abolished. The whole country threw itself with energy and enthusiasm into the study and adoption of modern Western civilization.
    The Meiji Restoration was like the bursting of a dam behind which had accumulated the energies and forces of centuries. The surge and ferment caused by the sudden release of these energies made themselves felt overseas. Before the nineteenth century ended, the country became involved in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, which ended in victory for Japan. One consequence of the war was Japan's acquisition of Taiwan from China. Ten years later, in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, Japan once again emerged victorious, acquiring South Sakhalin, which it had ceded to Russia in 1875 in exchange for the Kurile Islands, and having its special interests in Manchuria recognized. After excluding other powers from exercising any influence over Korea, Japan first made Korea its protectorate in 1905 and then annexed it in 1910.

    Emperor Meiji, whose enlightened and imaginative rule had helped to guide the nation through the dynamic decades of transformation, died in 1912, before the outbreak of World War I. By the end of this war, which Japan entered under the provisions of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, Japan was recognized as one of the world's great powers. Emperor Taisho, who succeeded Emperor Meiji, was in turn succeeded by Emperor Hirohito in 1926, and the Showa era began.

    This era opened in an atmosphere of promise. The nation's industries continued to grow, and its political life seemed soundly rooted in parliamentary government. New factors, however, began to have a disturbing influence. The worldwide depression unsettled the nation's economic life. Public confidence in the political parties waned after the exposure of a number of scandals. Extremists exploited the situation, and the military clique seized the opportunity offered them by the confusion of the times. The influence of the political parties steadily declined. After the Lugouqiao Incident led to the outbreak of war with China, the parties were forced to unite on a single platform of cooperation in the war effort. They were finally dissolved, and in their place was erected a united national party. With the Diet's functions reduced to little more than those of a rubber stamp, there could be no parliamentary obstruction to the tide of events that finally led to the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941.

From 1945 to the Present
    In August 1945 an exhausted and battle-weary Japan accepted the surrender terms of the Allied powers, and by imperial edict the people laid down their arms. For more than six years after the surrender, Japan was placed under Allied, mainly American, control.
    Under the Occupation authorities, led by General Douglas MacArthur, various social and political reforms were carried out. Agricultural land was redistributed in favor of former tenants. Workers were assured of their rights to organize trade unions and to strike. The major zaibatsu--the great holding companies based on family ties--were dissolved. Women were given the right to vote and other rights. Freedom of assembly, speech, and religion were guaranteed. In 1947 a liberal new constitution was enacted.
    In 1951 Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which signified its return to the community of nations as a reformed state. By this treaty, Japan regained its right to conduct foreign affairs, which had been suspended under the Occupation.
One of the most immediate tasks in the postwar years was economic rehabilitation. With the sympathetic support of the United States and other nations, Japan was admitted to various international organizations, which enabled the country to participate in free multilateral international trade. By the mid-1960s Japan had become economically strong enough to compete successfully in the open markets of the world.
    Parallel to the rehabilitation of the economy, Japan made efforts to restore its international position diplomatically. Beginning with its admission to the United Nations in 1956, Japan became an increasingly active participant in international political as well as economic and social forums. The security arrangements with the United States, originally signed in 1951, were revised in 1960 with a view to making them more reciprocal. War reparations had been paid off by the mid-1960s. After a prolonged series of negotiations, Japan established formal relations with the Republic of Korea in 1965. Only two decades after its defeat, Japan had almost completely recovered from the ruins of the war. The Tokyo Olympics of 1964 symbolized the new confidence of the Japanese people and the country's increasing stature in the international community.
    Since 1945 Japan has enjoyed a remarkable degree of domestic political stability. Except for a brief period of socialist government in 1947 and 1948, the conservatives have maintained a constant majority in the Diet.
    After the mid-1960s, Japan began to face several new types of problems both internally and externally. With the immediate needs of life satisfied, the people began to seek other goals, especially improvements in the quality of life. Students expressed discontent in their schools and universities. Various citizen's groups called for the rectification of social inequalities. And the problem of pollution brought on by the country's all-out pursuit of economic development increasingly attracted public attention.

    The shift to a low growth economy in the 1970s, together with an increasingly severe international economic environment, greatly influenced the lives of the Japanese people, bringing about changes in their thinking and life styles. Values have become more diversified, and many people now place more importance on self-expression and the pursuit of more personalized goals. The reversion of Okinawa (the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands) from U.S. administration to Japan in 1972 and rapprochement with the People's Republic of China in the same year were two remarkable events in the 1970s. As regards its role in the world economy, Japan has taken various measures to liberalize its markets. As an important member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development committed to the maintenance of free trade, Japan currently plays a significant role in the areas of trade, finance, and economic and technological assistance. Since 1975 Japan has been a member of the annual seven-nation economic summit, which was held in Tokyo in 1979 and 1986.
    In view of Japan's increasing national power and the growing expectations of other countries in its international role, the Government from the mid-1980s has adopted a positive attitude toward expanding Japan's contribution to the global community.