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Jomon and Yayoi Eras Archaeological research indicates that the earliest inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago migrated over land bridges from Northeast Asia about 30,000 years ago. Other evidence also suggests that there may have been some migration by sea from Southeast Asia during a period of general migration toward the Pacific Ocean. The first signs of civilization appeared around 10,000 BC with the Jōmon culture, characterized by a mesolithic to neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of pit dwelling and a rudimentary form of agriculture. Weaving was still unknown and clothes were often made of bark. Around that time, however, the Jomon people started to make clay vessels, decorated with patterns made by impressing the wet clay with braided or unbraided cord and sticks. The oldest surviving pottery in the world may be found in Japan, although the dating is disputed. Japan first appeared in written history in 57 AD with the following mention in Book of Later Han: "Across the ocean from Luoyang are the people of Wa. Formed from more than one hundred tribes, they come and pay tribute frequently." The start of the Yayoi period around 300 BC marked the influx of new practices such as rice farming, shamanism and iron and bronze-making brought by migrants from China via the Korean peninsula. Japan was then called Yamataikoku and ruled by a shaman queen named Himiko. The ensuing Kofun era, beginning around AD 250, saw the establishment of strong military states centered around powerful clans. The Yamato Court, suppressed the clans and acquired agricultural lands, maintained a strong influence in the western part of Japan (the Asuka region). Based upon the Chinese model, they developed a central administration and an imperial court system and society was organized into occupation groups: farmers, fishermen, weavers, potters, artisans, armorers, and ritual specialists.
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Buddhism were introduced by Baekje, to which Japan provided military support. Buddhism was introduced to Japan in the year 538 or 552 and was promoted by the ruling class. Prince Shotoku devoted his efforts to the spread of Buddhism and Chinese cultural in Japan. He is credited with bringing peace and harmony to the Japanese nation through proclamation of Seventeen-article constitution. He wrote in a letter to the Emperor of China that the Emperor of the land where Sun rises (Japan) sends a letter to the Emperor of the land where Sun sets (China), implying a declaration of equal footing with China which angered the Chinese emperor. Starting with the Taika Reform Edicts of 645, Japanese intensified the adoption of Chinese cultural practices and reorganized the government and the penal code in accordance with the Chinese administrative structure (the Ritsuryo state) of the time. This paved the way for the dominance of Confucian philosophy in Japan until the 19th century. The use of the word Nihon for the emerging state first appeared around the end of the 7th century. The Nara period of the 8th century marked the first emergence of a strong Japanese state, centered around an imperial court in the city of Heijo-kyo (now Nara). The imperial court then moved briefly to Nagaoka, and then to Heian-kyō (now Kyoto). Historical writing in Japan culminated in the early 8th century with the massive chronicles, Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters, 712) and Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720). These chronicles give a legendary account of Japan's beginnings in which the people are descendants of the gods themselves. According to the myths contained in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Japan was founded in 660 BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu, a direct descendant of the Shinto deity Amaterasu, or the Sun Goddess. The myths also claim that Jimmu started a line of emperors that remains unbroken to this day. However, historians believe the first emperor who actually existed was Emperor Ōjin, though the date of his reign is uncertain. For most of Japan's history, however, actual political power has been in the hands of the court nobility, the shoguns, the military and, more recently, the prime minister. A distinctly indigenous culture emerged during the Heian period which lasted for nearly four centuries. After absorbing so much from the mainland over several centuries, the Japanese began to experience a growing sense of self-confidence and appreciation of their own land and heritage. The arts and literature flourished and, in the early 11th century, Lady Murasaki wrote the world's oldest surviving novel called The Tale of Genji. Although trade expeditions and Buddhist pilgrimages continued, the court decided to discontinue official relations with China. The Fujiwara clan's regency regime dominated politics during this period.
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Japan's medieval era was characterized by the emergence of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the rival Taira clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo was appointed Seii Tai-Shogun and established a base of power in Kamakura. After Yoritomo's death, another warrior clan, the Hojo, came to rule as regents for the shoguns. The Kamakura shogunate managed to repel Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, with assistance from a storm that the Japanese interpreted as divine intervention (kamikaze, Divine Wind). The Kamakura shogunate lasted another fifty years and was eventually overthrown by Ashikaga Takauji in 1333. The succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed in the management of daimyo, and a civil war erupted. The Onin War rampaged throughout Japan from 1467 to 1477. Vassals rebelled against their liege lords and peasants rebelled against their superiors. This led to the "Warring States" or Sengoku period. During the 16th century, traders and missionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, initiating the Nanban ("southern barbarian") period of active commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga conquered numerous other daimyo by using European technology and firearms, and had almost unified the nation when he was assassinated in the Incident at Honnoji in 1582. Toyotomi Hideyoshi succeeded Nobunaga. He united Japan in 1590. Hideyoshi twice invaded Korea, but Ming China came to Korea's aid. After several defeats and Hideyoshi's death, Japanese troops were quickly withdrawn in 1598.
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After Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu utilized his position as a regent of Toyotomi Hideyori, Hideyoshi's son, and also the conflicts among loyalists of the Toyotomi family to gather daimyo around him, and defeated his rival clans in the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu was appointed to be shogun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo (Tokyo). After defeating Toyotomi clan, at the Siege of Osaka in 1614 and 1615, the Tokugawa clan became the ruler of Japan both in name and reality and set up the centralized feudal system with the Tokugawa shogunate at the head of the feudal domains. After Ieyasu, the Tokugawa shogunate enacted a variety of measures to control the daimyo, among them the sankin-kotai of alternating between home and attendance in Edo. In 1639, the shogunate began the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period, often considered to be the height of Japan's medieval culture. The study of Western sciences, known as rangaku, continued during this period through contacts with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki. This period saw the development of the ethnocentrickokugaku philosophy .
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On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa. The Boshin War of 1867 to 1868 led to the resignation of the shogunate, and the Meiji Restoration established a government centered around the emperor. One of the main figures that helped bring change was Fukuzawa Yukichi who wrote "Leaving Asia", encouraging Japan to disassociate itself from China and Korea and modernize through Westernization.
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During the Meiji period, Japan adopted numerous Western institutions, including a modern government, legal system, and military. Japan introduced a parliamentary system modeled after the British parliament, and Ito Hirobumi became the 1st Prime Minister in 1885. These reforms helped transform the Imperial Japan into a world power, which eventually decided to expand its territorial control by defeating China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The Russo-Japanese war was significant because it was the first time that an Asian country had defeated a European imperial power. By 1910, Japan amalgamated Korea, Taiwan, and the southern half of Sakhalin. The early 20th century saw a brief period of "Taisho democracy" overshadowed by the rise of Japanese expansionism. World War I enabled Japan, which fought on the side of the victorious Allies, to expand its influence in Asia, and its territorial holdings in the Pacific. In 1920 Japan joined the League of Nations and became a member of the security council. In 1936, however, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany, and then later joined Germany and Italy to form the Axis Powers in 1940 that opposed the original World War I Allies. Japan continued its expansionist policy and invaded China, occupying Manchuria in 1931, and continued its expansion into China in 1937, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), which lasted until the end of World War II. In 1941, Japan attacked the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor and declared war on the Allies after which Germany declared war on the United States a week later, bringing the United States into World War II. Japan continued its invasion and invaded and occupied British, Dutch, and U.S. colonies that now make up the present-day countries of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. After a long campaign in the Pacific Ocean, Japan lost many of its initial territorial gains especially after the defeat at the Battle of Midway, and American forces moved close enough to begin strategic bombing of Tokyo, Osaka, and other major cities that culminated in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 214,000 people, mostly civilians. After the atomic bombings, Imperial Japan signaled its willingness to surrender on the condition that the Emperor be allowed to continue as the symbolic head of state. The formal surrender documents were signed September 2, 1945 (V-J Day) on the USS Missouri while moored in Tokyo Bay. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was convened on May 3, 1946 to prosecute Japanese war crimes, including atrocities like the Nanking Massacre. Emperor Hirohito, however, was given immunity and retained his title.
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The war cost millions of lives in Japan and other countries, especially in East Asia, and left much of the country's industries and infrastructure destroyed. Official American occupation lasted until 1952. In 1947, Japan adopted a new pacifist constitution, seeking international cooperation and emphasizing human rights and democratic practices. Japan granted membership of United Nation in 1956. After the American occupation, under a program of aggressive industrial development and U.S. assistance, Japan achieved spectacular growth to become the second largest economy in the world with remarkable pace averaging growth of 10% for four decades. Despite a major stock market crash in 1990 and the resulting recession from which the country is recovering gradually, Japan remains a global economic power today and is now bidding for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. |
Japan suffered a major stock market crash in 1990 and the resulting recession from which it has been recovering gradually. Japan remains a global economic power today and is now bidding for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Japan Information: Inside |
