9.7 Japan Modernizes and Other Responses

Notes

Some states modernized quickly to resist Western domination.

• In 1853, U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrived with warships; the Treaty of Kanagawa (1854) opened Japanese ports.
• Angry at the shogun's weakness, reformers restored power to the emperor in the Meiji Restoration (1868).
• Meiji Japan modernized: it studied Western governments, built railroads and factories, created a modern army and navy, required schooling and adopted a constitution (1889).
• Japan became an imperial power: it defeated China (1894 to 1895) and took Taiwan, defeated Russia (1904 to 1905), the first modern Asian victory over a European power, and annexed Korea (1910).
• The Ottoman Empire tried reforms (the Tanzimat) but lost territory and was called the "sick man of Europe."
• Egypt built the Suez Canal (1869) with French help; heavy debt led to British control in 1882.
• In Latin America, economic imperialism let foreign companies control mines and plantations, and the U.S. built the Panama Canal (opened 1914).