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Were The Effects That The West Had On Japan Positive?

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Were The Effects That The West Had On Japan Positive?
Were the effects that the west had on Japan positive?

Do you think change is a good thing to have in your life or the absolute worst? Well the decade of the 1890’s in Japan came along with many drastic and important changes to the country. Japan saw a transition from a country that was an inward-looking, intellectual society that was isolated for hundreds of years, that became a country which developed as a democracy and saw the coming of industrialization before it moved into a period of supreme nationalism. The influences on Japan from the west were a big deal and they changed the whole country, and made it better, they solved problems that had been there for as long as Japan was known, and they had a lot of new, better benefiting ways
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The word unchangeable sounds bad but it could not have had a more positive effect. There were new factories and cities, there were new jobs, many reforms were made on programs like the military or administrators, there was even new art and architecture which gave the country a fresh change. It was in the beginning of modernization, during the Meiji ruling, that Japan's new leaders embarked on a plan for radical reform. By these means they wanted to transform a country that was weak and backward into a strong, modern and industrial nation. They started out fast, borrowing absolutely anything they could from the west for around 20 years. That may seem silly to us, but without following the rapid industrialization they could not be a strong country. This new Japan would be capable of dealing with Western powers on equal terms and of throwing off the humiliating and unequal treaties that had been imposed while Japan was …show more content…
They had become an isolated country that knew nothing about the outside world, other than what the Dutch told them occasionally throughout the years. They began to get pressured and threatened by other the other countries who were in need of Japan’s ports for trading and the restocking of ships. Even though the Dutch fed them information about the advances in technology and other aspects that were changing in the world, they were not prepared when black ships began to show up and demand their ports open to all countries besides just the Dutch. I do not understand how these people believe that more problems were caused, then there were solved. So what that there was a shortage of better housing for those who were in need, that there was an increasing use of the automobile,that the public transportation systems were overcrowded, or that there was a shortage of open space for recreation due to the new buildings, and there was the constant worry of earthquakes and floods. All these problems can be easily solved and not all were caused from deciding to come out of isolation and become modernized. You could easily build new housing, or make more space for public transportation. Almost everywhere that you go will have a risk of floods or earthquakes, it is an inevitable risk on this earth. There was more good done then bad to this

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