China and Japan share various cultural ideas with each
other. With their geographical proximity, they have continued to influence one
another. However, despite their similarities, there are also ways which these
two nations differ, and that is their view of the white man from the west.
Both China and Japan confronted challenges from Western
imperial powers and ended up signing unequal treaties with the West. However,
one stark difference in their reaction to these unequal treaties. The Japanese government,
currently under the Meiji regime chose to develop themselves through Westernization
in Japan. The Qing government, on the other hand, decided to keep the
traditional Chinese values and institutions in China. China’s efforts at
reforms were focused on dealing with the traditional methods to the growing western
influence in the country. Chinese cultural pride was profoundly ingrained in
their mindset that it turned into an impediment. It blinded numerous Chinese,
stopping them from identifying the requirement for fundamental change and to assimilate
new information from the west. Unlike China, Japanese efforts then was to
understand and recreate foreign technology to meet their military and
industrial requirements. These endeavors proved to be successful. The Meiji
then saw that military technology and industrialization could not be removed
from institutional structures that created these developments in the West. They
displayed minor hesitation in altering or ending traditional institutions for
those that could give Japan the modernity it needed to prosper as nation.
In conclusion, the Meiji Restoration was the Japanese’
success in assimilating western idea to their traditional way of things.
Proving that opening themselves for criticisms and help from western power
could be used to empower themselves.
