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ii. Japan's programme of modernisation was carried out in an environment dominated by Western imperial powers. While it imitated them it also attempted to find its own solutions.

Japanese nationalism was marked by these different compulsions - while many Japanese hoped to liberate Asia from Western domination, for others these ideas justified building an empire.

iii. It is important to note that the transformation of social and political institutions and daily life was not just a question of reviving traditions, or tenaciously preserving them, but rather of creatively using them in new and different ways.

For instance, the Meiji school system, modelled on European and American practices, introduced new subjects but the curriculum's main objective was to make loyal citizens. A course on morals that stressed loyalty to the emperor was compulsory.

Similarly, changes in the family or in daily life show how foreign and indigenous ideas were brought together to create something new.

4. The Chinese path to modernisation was very differnt. Foreign imperialsim, both Western and Japanese, combined with a hesitant and unsure Qing dynasty to weaken government control and set the stage for a breakdown of political and social order leading to immense misery for most of the people.

Warlordism, banditry and civil war exacted a heavy toll on human lives, as did the savagery of the Japanese invasion. Natural disasters added to this burden.

5. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a rejection of traditions and a search for ways to build national unity and strength. The CCP and its supporters fought to put an end to tradition, which they saw as keeping the masses in poverty, the women subjugated and the country undeveloped.

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Qing reformers such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao realised the need to strengthen the system and initiated policies to build a modern administrative system, a new army and an educational system, and set up local assemblies to establish constitutional government. They saw the need to protect China from colonisation.

The negative example of colonised countries worked powerfully on Chinese thinkers. The partition of Poland in the eighteenth century was a much discussed example. So much so that by the late 1890s it came to be used as a verb: 'to Poland us' (bolan wo). India was another such example. In 1903, the thinker Liang Qichao, who believed that only by making people aware that China was a nation would they be able to resist the West, wrote that India was 'a country that was destroyed by a non-country that is the East India Company'.

He criticised Indians for being cruel to their own people and subservient to the British. Such arguments carried a powerful appeal as ordinary Chinese could see that the British used Indian soldiers in their wars on China.

Above all many felt that traditional ways of thinking had to be changed. Confucianism, developed from the teachings of Confucius (551-479 BCE) and his disciples, was concerned with good conduct, practical wisdom and proper social relationships. It influenced the Chinese attitude toward life, provided social standards and laid the basis for political theories and institutions. It was now seen as a major barrier to new ideas and institutions.

To train people in modern subjects students were sent to study in Japan, Britain and France and bring back new ideas. Many Chinese students went to Japan in the 1890s.
They not only brought back new ideas but many became leading republicans. The Chinese borrowed even Japanese translations of European words such as justice, rights, and revolution because they used the same ideographic script, a reversal of the traditional relationship.
In 1905, just after the Russo-Japanese war (a war fought on Chinese soil and over Chinese territory) the centuries old Chinese examination system that gave candidates entry into the elite ruling class was abolished.

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Massive demonstrations in February 1947 had led the GMD to brutally kill a whole generation of leading figures. The GMD, under Chiang Kai-Shek went on to establish a repressive government forbidding free speech and political opposition and excluding the local population from positions of power.

However, they carried out land reforms that increased agricultural productivity and modernised the economy so that by 1973 Taiwan had a GNP second only to that of Japan in Asia.

The economy, largely dependent on trade has been steadily growing, but what is important is that the gap between the rich and poor has been steadily declining.

Even more dramatic has been the transformation of Taiwan into a democracy. It began slowly after the death of Chiang in 1975 and grew in momentum when martial law was lifted in 1987 and opposition parties were legally permitted.

The first free elections began the process of bringing local Taiwanese to power. Diplomatically most countries have only trade missions in Taiwan. Full diplomatic relations and embassies are not possible as Taiwan is considered to be part of China.

The question of re-unification with the mainland remains a contentious issue but “Cross Strait” relations (that is between Taiwan and China) have been improving and Taiwanese trade and investments in the mainland are massive and travel has also become easier.

China may be willing to tolerate a semi-autonomous Taiwan as long as it gives up any move to seek independence.

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1. When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the Guomindang retreated. The long and exhanusting war weakened China. Prices rose 30 per cent per month between 1945 and 1949, and utterly destroyed the lives of ordinary people.
Rural China faced two crises : one ecological, with soil exhaustion, deforestation and floods, and the second, a socio-economic one caused by exploitative land-tenure systems, indebtedness, primitive technology and poor communications.

2. The CCP had been founded in 1921, soon after the Russian Revolution. The Russian success exercised a powerful influence around the world and leaders such as Lenin and Trotsky went on to establish the Comintern o the Third International in march 1918 to help bring about a world governmnet that would end exploitation.

3. The Comintern and the Soviet Union supported communist parties around the world but they worked within the traditional Marxist understanding that revolution would be brought about by the working class in cities.
Its initial appeal across national boundaries was immense but it soon became a tool for Soviet interests and was dissolved in 1943. Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who emerged as a mzy’or CCP leader, took a different path by basing his revolutionary programme on the peasantry. His success made the CCP a powerful political force that ultimately won against the Guomindang.

4. Mao Zedong's radical approach can be seen in Jiangxi, in the mountains, where they camped from 1928 to 1934, secure from Guomindang attacks. A strong peasants council (soviet) was organised, united through confiscation and redistribution of land. Mao, unlike other leaders, stressed the need for an independent government and army.
He had become aware of women's problems and supported the emergence of rural women's associations, promulgated a new marriage law that forbade arranged marriages, stopped purchase or sale of marriage contracts and simplified divorce.

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(Imp.)