Activity 1

Between 1894 and 1900 the Western powers and Japan carved China into spheres of influence and protectorates. Within these territories the imperialist powers enforced economic and legal arrangements that benefited mainly themselves. Let's compare the Chinese policies of the two youngest of the great Western powers, Germany and the United States. Read the following article that appeared in an 1899 issue of The Atlantic Monthly: "The Breakup of China and Our Interest In It." When you finish, take a look at Kaiser William II's statement concerning German interests in China (1900). What, according to the Kaiser, can Germany gain by entering China? According to The Atlantic Monthly article, how might the U. S. benefit from involvement in China? How do German and American interests as articulated here resemble and differ from each other? What do these differences suggest about how and why Germany and the U. S. pursued imperialist goals?

Activity 2

After the Meiji Restoration of 1867 Japan modernized at an astonishing rate. In 1889 the new nation adopted a formal constitution modeled after those of Western nations. Read this constitution with the following questions in mind: What native Japanese ideas and principles can you detect in this document? What Western constitutional principles do you notice? Do you think this is a liberal constitution? Why or why not? Now consider the remarks of an observer looking back at the decades of Japanese modernization. Read the following excerpt from Okuma's Fifty Years of New Japan (1907-08). What, according to Okuma, has Japan gained from the West, and how has it changed? How has Japan not changed in the face of Western influences? What is Okuma's general attitude toward the new Japan: does he value or regret the result of Japan's years of contact with the West? How did the West react to the emergence of the new Japan? For one Western view, read Theodore Roosevelt's The Threat of Japan (1909). Why does Roosevelt view modern Japan as a threat to the U. S. rather than a potential ally or partner on the world stage?