The Transition Of The East Asia Strategy Of Japanese Meiji Government

This article takes Japan’s East Asia strategy from 1868 to 1894 as the research object,and focuses on the process of Japan’s East Asia strategy transforming from prioritizing internal governance to pursuing advantages,and then to dominating East Asia.At the beginning of the Meiji Restoration,the Japanese government established the goal of "internal governance first" following the bankruptcy of the conspiracy of Korean conquest,and used this as a starting point to carry out foreign exchanges and domestic construction,then achieved outstanding results.In the implementation of Japan’s East Asia Strategy,the existence of the old tribute order in East Asia conflicted with Japan’s conception of order.The Japanese government adopted an expansionary policy and achieved unexpected great results.This became the turning point of strategic goal of Japan’s East Asia which shifted from internal governance to expansion.At this time,Japan realized that its own strength was not yet able to compete with the Qing court,and adopted a gradual expansion strategy,attempting to realize its own expansion with the concept of promoting Korea’s "neutralization" as a starting point.On the one hand,Japan wants to rely on the concept of "neutralization" of Korea,to change North Korea’s status under the framework generally recognized by the Qing government,and realize the joint governance of Korea by China and Japan,even to guarantee the neutrality of Korea by multiple countries,thereby promoting the integration of the Western international system and the tribute system.Japan’s strategic goal was designed from the perspective of balance of power when its own strength was insufficient.On the other hand,Japan is also secretly expanding its own military power.In the two crises of the Renwu Mutiny and the Jiashen Incident,Japan realized the gap in naval power between China and Japan.Active preparations for war was executed under poor financial condition.However,as the conflicts between Britain and Russia in the Far East diminished,and the competition between China and Japan in North Korea became increasingly fierce,coupled with the weakening of the coordinating faction against China in Japan’s domestic politics,Japan’s goal of "pursuing superiority" gradually became unsustainable.Japan’s East Asia strategy reached a critical point,and it was the Dongxue peasant uprising in North Korea in 1894 that broke this critical state.In this crisis,the Sino-coordination party headed by Ito Hirofumi made mistakes in the judgment of the situation,and successively made the Mutsuzong forces in the cabinet who supported the war to take advantage of it.Under the dual pressure of domestic politics and the international situation,Ito finally turned to war.Japan’s East Asian strategic goals changed violently,which shifted to dominating East Asia.This article reveals the influence of the interaction between the two systems in modern East Asia,and analyzes many problems that Japan has in formulating and implementing the East Asia strategy from the perspective of Japanese decision-makers.Japan’s East Asian strategy seems to be successful due to it gained a lot,but in fact failed completely——Japan formed a strategic culture of risk preference in the process of the shifting of Japan’s East Asia Strategy,which is the reason why Japan in the long run defeated in WWII.