For the Chinese, the nineteenth century was a period of waking up and realizing why the Middle Kingdom had fallen behind the West in economic growth. Not only had this large and once prosperous country fallen behind economically (with its apparent failure to industrialize), it also fell prey during the two Opium Wars to the same country that first embarked upon the Industrial Revolution – Britain. Consequently, a long period of autarky came to an end. While initially China was forced to open up only several “treaty ports” for trade and commerce, eventually the entire country was subjected to the influences of the West, and in spheres that went far beyond trade and commerce to also include industry, education, and even politics. By assembling data from a variety of previously untapped historical sources, this chapter attempts to analyze the Western influences that shaped the economic trajectories of late imperial China.

Leading explanations for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 using international relations theory adopt some version of the “rise of Japan” narrative. The focus of these studies is to explain the outbreak of war in 1894 as a result of the disruption in the systemic status quo or as an early warning signal toward Japan’s expansionism by highlighting the newly acquired military power and status of Japan – and the challenge this posed to China. Rather than treating the war as a purely bilateral interstate conflict, I instead characterize the clash between China and Japan in the late nineteenth century as part of a series of militarized crises involving multiple stakeholders from both in and out of the region during the breakdown of the treaty port system in East Asia. I also show how the Sino-Japanese War had both immediate and enduring consequences for East Asian international relations: intensified strategic competition over East Asian territories among not only Japan and China but Western powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States.

This chapter describes the experiences of a farmer-merchant, Shinohara Chūemon, in the new Yokohama treaty port between 1859 and 1873. By examining the activities, decisions, and fortunes of one individual in the context of the new global space of Yokohama, the chapter offers an interpretation of continuity and change during the turbulent final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. It explores the ways in which the opening and expansion of foreign trade in Yokohama led to far-reaching transformations of Japan’s society, economy and culture. The chapter interprets the transformation of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century as not only a top-down revolution initiated by the leaders of the Meiji Restoration, but also a bottom-up process led by countless individuals in search of greater economic well-being.

Western arms played a significant role as a new means of violence leading to the Meiji Restoration and in the ensuing civil war in Japan 1868–69. This chapter explores how industrial arms manufacturing and the global arms trade in the 1860s fueled wars in multiple locations worldwide including Japan. As domains and the Shogunate prepared for battle domestic demand for foreign arms soared precipitously overshadowing any other form of international trade. With their global and regional connections local Western merchants such as L. Kniffler & Co. in Nagasaki and the Schnell brothers in Yokohama supplied several sides in the Japanese conflict with military goods ranging in size from gunpowder to gunboats. Nevertheless, the rifle became the prevalent Western weapon for combat in Japan and it is the rifle that became the centerpiece of military strategy and social reform. Contrary to the prevalent image of arms trading limited to a few young risk takers like Thomas Glover, this study shows the widespread and short-term creation of military goods trade networks through abundant foreign supply and great domestic demand.

This chapter takes up the Tengu Insurrection of 1864–1865 to consider how the Japanese people reacted to the threat of civil war in the years before the Meiji Restoration. It focuses on a small domain, Ōno in Echizen province, to highlight the reactions of domain leaders and subjects to the intrusion of the Mito rebels - loyalist samurai who tried to rid the country of foreigners after the opening of ports. Before their defeat, the Mito rebels marched through several smaller domains that refrained from confronting them due to a lack of military training and resources. Although its leadership had been an early adopter of Western learning and weaponry, the Ōno domain ended up bribing the rebels to make them bypass the domain’s castle town. The chapter details the profound fear of warfare among local commoners and even samurai. In this region far away from the treaty ports, educated commoners were well-informed of current events in other parts of Japan, yet also drew on the cultural memory of the sixteenth-century Warring States period to make sense of the fighting. The chapter emphasizes the open-endedness of thinking about war in Japan on the eve of the age of military conscription.