Imperial geographies: Remapping Japan's ports, coal, and empire in Northeast Asia, 1850--1900

This dissertation reconsiders the rise of Japanese imperialism in two ways, both of which employ an overtly geographical approach. The first is to examine the rise of Japanese imperialism from a connective, rather than comparative, perspective in order to demonstrate how the Japanese interacted and coevolved with contemporaneous empires in East Asia, especially the British informal empire. The geography of these connections is centered on maritime space. The second is to explore the early stages of Japanese imperialism, while the country was itself a semicolony under the treaty port system, from the local level. This entails highlighting how global processes of exchange and empire shaped and were shaped by local place-making.;I use the port city of Moji, strategically situated at the juncture of the Kanmon and Korean Straits, as the geographical core of this exploration. Through Moji and its coal exports, I introduce "special trading ports," a set of restricted international ports operating under full Japanese jurisdiction in the late nineteenth century. The existence of these ports serves to dispel three assumptions: first, the treaty ports were the country's only system of international trade operating at this time; second, the treaty port system hegemonically impeded Japan's commercial development; and third, Japan's fledgling empire developed in relative isolation from other imperial powers of the day.;The Moji Shinpo, this port city's daily newspaper, is the primary source consulted. Moji's regional, national, and global connections as well as the economic concerns of its boosters can be found throughout its pages. In particular, I use it to trace Moji's economic and military development, its role in key international shipping networks, intercultural contacts outside the treaty ports, and the symbiosis between imperialism and place-making.;By considering the unique purview of the special trading ports, Japan's coal industry and its exports, Moji's inter-imperial maritime connections, and the convergence of local self-interest and national duty in the last years of the nineteenth century, I argue that the creation of Japan's empire started at the local level as Mojiites negotiated complex processes to fight for their own city and their own dreams.