A Brief History About Japan

The most noticed feature about Japan is that it is island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of China, Korea, and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. It comprises over 3,000 islands, the largest of which are Honshû, Hokkaidô, Kyûshû and Shikoku. Most of the islands are mountainous, and many are volcanic, including its highest peak, Mount Fuji. Its capital and largest city is Tokyo. The characters that make up its name literally mean "sun-origin" which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun." It also has the world's tenth largest population, with about 128 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people were living on the islands of Japan as early as the upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan begins with brief appearances in Chinese history texts from the 1st century CE. Influence from the outside world followed by long periods of isolation has characterized its history. Thus, its culture today is a mixture of outside influences and internal developments. Since adopting its constitution on May 3, 1947, it has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament, the Diet, which is one of the oldest legislative bodies in Asia. It is the world's second largest economy (by nominal GDP) and is a member of the United Nations, G8 and APEC.

The first signs of civilization on the Japanese Archipelago appeared around 10,000 BCE with the Jomon culture, characterized by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of pit dwelling and a rudimentary form of agriculture. Weaving was still unknown and clothes were often made of bark. The Jomon people made decorated clay vessels, however, often with plaited patterns. Some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery in the world may be found in Japan. The Yayoi period, starting around the third century BCE, introduced new practices, such as wet-rice farming, iron and bronze-making and a new style of pottery, brought by migrants from China or Korea. With the development of Yayoi culture, a predominantly agricultural society emerged.

The Japanese first appeared in written history in China’s Book of Han, in which it is recorded, "The people of Wa are located across the ocean from Lelang, are divided into more than one hundred tribes, and come to offer tribute from time to time." It is later recorded that in 57 CE, the southern Wa kingdom of Na sent an emissary named Taifu to pay tribute to Emperor Guangwu and received a golden seal. According to China's Book of Wei, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago in the third century was called Yamataikoku and was ruled by the legendary Queen Himiko.

The Kofun period, from the third century to the seventh century, saw the establishment of a dominant polity centered in the Yamato area. This gave rise to the Japanese imperial lineage that continues to this day. In the sixth century, Mahayana Buddhism was introduced through the kingdoms of Korea. Although there was some early resistance to its official adoption, Buddhism was promoted by the ruling class and eventually gained growing acceptance throughout the Asuka and Nara periods. Prince Shôtoku, in particular, helped spread Buddhism and Chinese culture through an edict marking the first official recognition of Buddhism as a national religion in 593CE, the introduction of a Chinese-style cap and rank system of classifying bureaucrats in 603CE, and the drawing up of a Seventeen-article constitution that promoted Confucian morals and virtues in 604CE.

Starting with the Taika Reform Edicts of 645CE, the Yamato court intensified the adoption of Chinese cultural practices and reorganized the government and the penal code based on the Ritsuryô, a historical law system based on the philosophies of Confucianism and Chinese Legalism. This paved the way for the dominance of Confucian philosophy in Japan until the nineteenth century. This period also saw the first use of the word Nihon as a name for the emerging state. The Nara period of the eighth century marked the first emergence of a strong central Japanese state, centered around an imperial court in the city of Heijô-kyô, or modern day Nara, which was modeled after Chang'an, the capital of the Tang China. In addition to the continuing adoption of Chinese administrative practices, the Nara period is characterized by the appearance of a nascent written literature with the completion of the massive chronicles Kojiki and Nihonshoki, as well as a further strengthening of Buddhism's influence, culminating in the construction of the Daibutsu at Tôdaiji in 751CE.

In 784CE, Emperor Kammu moved the capital to Nagaokakyô for a brief ten-year period, before relocating it to Heian-kyô in 794CE, where it remained for more than a millennium. This marked the beginning of the Heian period, when a distinctly indigenous Japanese culture emerged, noted for its art, poetry, and literature. During this time, Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji, the world's oldest surviving novel, and the lyrics of modern Japan's national anthem "Kimi ga Yo" were written. The court stopped sending diplomatic missions to China in 838CE, ending official relations with that country for the next 500 years, and the Japanese began to turn increasingly inward. The Fujiwara clan, which married its daughters into the imperial family, dominated politics.

The feudal era was characterized by the emergence of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the rival Taira clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo was appointed Shôgun and established a base of power in Kamakura near present-day Tokyo. After Yoritomo's death, another warrior clan, the Hôjô, came to rule as regents for the shoguns. Zen Buddhism was introduced from China in the Kamakura period, 1185 to 1333, and became popular among the samurai class. The Kamakura shogunate managed to repel Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, with assistance from a storm that the Japanese interpreted as a kamikaze, or Divine Wind. The Kamakura shogunate lasted another fifty years and was eventually overthrown by Emperor Go-Daigo, who was soon himself defeated by Ashikaga Takauji in 1333. The succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed to manage the feudal warlords - the daimyo - and a civil war erupted. The Ônin War, 1467 to 1477, is generally regarded as the onset of the "Warring States" or Sengoku period.

During the 16th century, traders and missionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, initiating the Nanban period of active commercial and cultural exchange between it and the West. Oda Nobunaga conquered numerous other daimyo by using European technology and firearms, and had almost unified the nation when he was assassinated in 1582. Toyotomi Hideyoshi succeeded Nobunaga and united the nation in 1590. Hideyoshi invaded Korea twice, but following several defeats by Korean and Ming Chinese forces and Hideyoshi's death, Japanese troops were withdrawn in 1598. After Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu utilized his position as the regent of Hideyoshi's son Toyotomi Hideyori as well as the conflicts among loyalists of the Toyotomi clan, to gain the support of warlords. When open war broke out, he defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu was appointed shôgun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo.

After defeating Toyotomi clan, at the Siege of Osaka in 1614 and 1615, the Tokugawa clan became the rulers, setting up a centralized feudal system. The Tokugawa shogunate enacted a variety of measures to control the daimyo, among them the sankin-kôtai policy of enforced rotation between fiefs and attendance in Edo. In 1639, the shogunate began the isolationist sakoku policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period. This is often considered to be the height of its medieval culture. The study of Western sciences, known as rangaku, continued during this period through contacts with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki. The Edo period also gave rise to kokugaku, or literally "national studies", the study of Japan by the Japanese themselves.

On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa. The Boshin War of 1867 to 1868 led to the resignation of the shogunate, and the Meiji Restoration established a government centered around the emperor. It adopted numerous Western institutions, including a modern government, legal system and military. A parliamentary system modeled after the British parliament was introduced, with Ito Hirobumi as the first Prime Minister in 1882. Meiji era reforms transformed the Empire into an industrialized world power that embarked on a number of military conflicts to increase access to natural resources. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, 1894 to1895, and the Russo-Japanese War, 1904 to 1905, Japan gained control of Korea, Taiwan, and the southern half of Sakhalin.

The early 20th century saw a brief period of "Taisho democracy" overshadowed by the rise of Japanese expansionism and militarization. World War I enabled Japan, which joined the side of the victorious Allies, to expand its influence and territorial holdings. Its expansionist policy continued with the occupation of Manchuria in 1931. As a result of international condemnation for this occupation, Japan resigned from the League of Nations two years later. In 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany was signed thus joining the Axis Powers in 1941. In 1937, other parts of China were invaded, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937 to 1945, after which the United States placed an oil embargo. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. This act brought the United States into World War II. During the Pacific War, Japanese forces in occupied territory were neutralized. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, there was no choice but to agree to an unconditional surrender. The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on September 2, 1945. The war cost millions of lives and left much of the country's industry and infrastructure destroyed.

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, May 3, 1946, was convened to prosecute Japanese leaders for crimes against peace and humanity, such as the Nanking Massacre, where between 100,000 and 300,000 civilians were murdered by the Japanese Army. The GHQ, headed by General Douglas MacArthur, lobbied successfully to keep Emperor Hirohito's name off of the list of indictable war criminals, and he was allowed to retain his position as emperor. In 1947, a new pacifist constitution was adopted. This sought international cooperation and emphasized human rights and democratic practices. Official American occupation lasted until 1952 and Japan was granted membership in the United Nations in 1956. Under a program of aggressive industrial development and with US assistance, Japan achieved spectacular growth to become the second largest economy in the world, with a growth rate averaging 10% for four decades. This ended in the late 1990s when it suffered a major recession from which it has since been slowly recovering.

Japan is currently a leading nation in the fields of scientific research, technology, machinery and medical research with the world's third largest budget for research and development at US$130 billion, and over 677,000 researchers. Some of its more important technological contributions are found in the fields of electronics, machinery, industrial robotics, optics, chemicals, semiconductors and metals. Japan leads the world in robotics, possessing more than half of the world's industrial robots used for manufacturing. It also produced QRIO, ASIMO, and Aibo. It is also home to six of the world's 15 largest automobile manufacturers and seven of the world 20 largest semiconductor sales leaders. It has also made headway into aerospace research and space exploration. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) conducts space and planetary research, aviation research, and development of rockets and satellites. It also built the Japanese Experiment Module, which is slated to be launched and added to the International Space Station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2007 and 2008.

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