section_path: Imperialism by country/Japan
section_name: Japan
paragraph_text: Japan
  
  For over 200 years, Japan maintained a feudal society during a period of relative isolation from the rest of the world. However, in the 1850s, military pressure from the United States and other world powers coerced Japan to open itself to the global market, resulting in an end to the country's isolation. A period of conflicts and political revolutions followed due to socioeconomic uncertainty, ending in 1868 with the reunification of political power under the Japanese Emperor during the Meiji Restoration. This sparked a period of rapid industrialization driven in part by a Japanese desire for self-sufficiency. By the early 1900s, Japan was a naval power that could hold its own against an established European power as it defeated Russia.
  
  Despite its rising population and increasingly industrialized economy, Japan lacked significant natural resources. As a result, the country turned to imperialism and expansionism in part as a means of compensating for these shortcomings, adopting the national motto " Fukoku kyōhei " (富国強兵, "Enrich the state, strengthen the military").
  
  And Japan was eager to take every opportunity. In 1869 they took advantage of the defeat of the rebels of the Republic of Ezo to incorporate definitely the island of Hokkaido to Japan. For centuries, Japan viewed the Ryukyu Islands as one of its provinces. In 1871 the Mudan incident happened: Taiwanese aborigines murdered 54 Ryūkyūan sailors that became shipwrecked. At that time the Ryukyu Islands were claimed by both Qing China and Japan, and the Japanese interpreted the incident as an attack on their citizens. They took steps to bring the islands in their jurisdiction: in 1872 the Japanese Ryukyu Domain was declared, and in 1874 a retaliatory incursion to Taiwan was sent, which was a success. The success of this expedition emboldened the Japanese: not even the Americans could defeat the Taiwanese in the Formosa Expedition of 1867. Very few gave it much thought at the time, but this was the first move in the Japanese expansionism series. Japan occupied Taiwan for the rest of 1874 and then left owing to Chinese pressures, but in 1879 it finally annexed the Ryukyu Islands. In 1875 Qing China sent a 300-men force to subdue the Taiwanese, but unlike the Japanese the Chinese were routed, ambushed and 250 of their men were killed; the failure of this expedition exposed once more the failure of Qing China to exert effective control in Taiwan, and acted as another incentive for the Japanese to annex Taiwan. Eventually, the spoils for winning the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 included Taiwan.
  
  In 1875 Japan took its first operation against Joseon Korea, another territory that for centuries it coveted; the Ganghwa Island incident made Korea open to international trade. Korea was annexed in 1910. As a result of winning the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan took part of Sakhalin Island from Russia. Precisely, the victory against the Russian Empire shook the world: never before had an Asian nation defeated a European power, and in Japan it was seen as a feat. Japan's victory against Russia would act as an antecedent for Asian countries in the fight against the Western powers for Decolonization. During World War I, Japan took German-leased territories in China's Shandong Province, as well as the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands, and kept the islands as League of nations mandates. At first, Japan was in good standing with the victorious Allied powers of World War I, but different discrepancies and dissatisfaction with the rewards of the treaties cooled the relations with them, for example American pressure forced it to return the Shandong area. By the '30s, economic depression, urgency of resources and a growing distrust in the Allied powers made Japan lean to a hardened militaristic stance. Through the decade, it would grow closer to Germany and Italy, forming together the Axis alliance. In 1931 Japan took Manchuria from China. International reactions condemned this move, but Japan's already strong skepticism against Allied nations meant that it nevertheless carried on.
  
  During the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan's military invaded central China. Also, in 1938–1939 Japan made an attempt to seize the territory of Soviet Russia and Mongolia, but suffered a serious defeats (see Battle of Lake Khasan, Battles of Khalkhin Gol). By now, relations with the Allied powers were at the bottom, and an international boycott against Japan to deprive it of natural resources was enforced. A military move to gain access to them was deemed necessary, and so Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States to World War II. Using its superior technological advances in naval aviation and its modern doctrines of amphibious and naval warfare, Japan achieved one of the fastest maritime expansions in history. By 1942 Japan had conquered much of East Asia and the Pacific, including the east of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, part of New Guinea and many islands of the Pacific Ocean. Just as Japan's late industrialization success and victory against the Russian Empire was seen as an example among underdeveloped Asia-Pacific nations, the Japanese took advantage of this and promoted among its conquered the goal to jointly create an anti-European " Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere ". This plan helped the Japanese gain support from native populations during its conquests especially in Indonesia. However, the United States had a vastly stronger military and industrial base and defeated Japan, stripping it of conquests and returning its settlers back to Japan.