History of Japan, 1868-Present Quiz

Answer: Saigô Takamori

Saigô is one of Japan's most popular figures, the basis for the character played by Watanabe Ken in "The Last Samurai". Although he did disapprove of the new government's steady erosion of the position of the samurai class, Saigô does not much resemble Watanabe's character. Far from advocating a return to the days of swords and cavalry, he was the general of a formidable and modern army in Satsuma.

Nevertheless, when he rose in rebellion in 1877, his loyal samurai were defeated by the new Imperial Army and its commoner recruits. Saigô ended as a defeated samurai must, killing himself on the field of battle.

Answer: Toyota

Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo, along with Yasuda, are the original "big four" zaibatsu, with roots in family companies of the Edo Period. They adapted well to the Meiji revolution, and powered Japan's modernization in tandem with the government. Although they all suffered, to some extent, from MacArthur's anti-zaibatsu policies after WWII, they nevertheless have survived.

Toyota, on the other hand, was founded in the 1930s, as a new automotive branch of a family business that made automatic looms. It later became the world's largest maker of automobiles.

Answer: Itô Hirobumi

Itô was a Chôshû samurai, and sincere believer in the divine right of the imperial family to reign. He thus acceded to the demands for parliamentary government with reluctance. During a lengthy trip to Europe, he studied the various constitutional systems there, and eventually devised one for Japan based on that of Bismarckian Prussia. Bowing to the inevitability of party politics, Itô founded his own party and served as Prime Minister four times.

Itô's great rival was his fellow Chôshû warrior, the militarist Yamagata Aritomo, who eventually succeeded in driving him from the pinnacle of power. In 1909, en route to help negotiate with the Russians over Manchuria, he was assassinated by a Korean Nationalist.

Answer: Korea

In the late nineteenth century, the western powers were busy carving pieces off of a weakened China. Japan, seeking to join in, focused on Korea. Domination of the peninsula would give her a base on the mainland. It would also secure Japan's coastlines and prevent any other power, specifically Russia, from taking Korea and posing a threat to them.

Japan easily defeated China in 1895, and forced her to recognize Korean "independence". However, the western powers, alarmed by the new arrival, pressured Japan to give up most of what she had won. The Russians soon began their own push into the region, leading directly to the Russo-Japanese war of 1905. To the shock of the Europeans, Japan was victorious, and went on to dominate Korea until 1945.

Answer: The Taishô era

The Taishô Emperor, son of the Meiji Emperor, was stricken with meningitis when an infant, and suffered from mental illness all his life. In 1919, he ceased to carry out any of the functions of the office, which were taken up by his son and heir, who now became Prince Regent, and then Emperor in 1926 when the Taishô died.

Answer: The Control faction and the Imperial Way faction

The Kôdô-ha, or "Imperial Way" faction, were, like the socialists, disgusted by the self-serving behavior of Japan's political and business elites, especially as these groups continued to prosper while ordinary people suffered in the Great Depression. Unlike the socialists, however, they were fanatical anti-communists and supporters of the Imperial family. Their solution was to overthrow the party politicians and "restore" power directly to the Emperor.

The Tôsei-ha, or "Control" faction, were committed to the concept of total war, and believed a modern government and economy, albeit controlled by the military, were necessary for the industrialization such a war would require. After an attempted Kôdô-ha coup in 1936 failed, the Tôsei-ha, represented by such officers as Tôjô Hideki, emerged from the struggle victorious.

Answer: Manchukuo

Manchukuo, literally meaning "the country of the Manchus" was the ancestral homeland of the Qing Dynasty, which had conquered China in the seventeenth century. For the Japanese, Manchukuo provided the resources and trade that their own country lacked. It became their most vital asset, and the wars with China were fought, not so much to conquer China itself, as to assure Manchukuo's security.

Likewise, American demands that Japanese troops be withdrawn from China were not in themselves considered unacceptable by Japan's leaders, many of whom wished to find a way out of the quagmire. They were considered unacceptable because, it was believed, they would lead directly to the loss of Manchukuo.

Answer: The USSR

Japan was already a treaty partner with Germany and Italy, thanks to the Axis Pact of 1940. In 1941, however, Japan was increasingly bogged down in China and wanted to remove the threat from the Soviets in the north. The Soviets, despite their own pact with Nazi Germany, could read the signs.

They wanted to secure their eastern borders to prepare for the gathering storm in the west. When, two months later, Hitler did indeed break his pact with the USSR and launched Operation Barbarossa, the Japanese Foreign Minister, Matsuoka Yôsuke, argued that Japan should do likewise and join the German attack on Russia.

The rest of the government, however, favored expanding south to secure the resources of Southeast Asia. Matsuoka was ousted from the government and the neutrality pact between Japan and the USSR remained intact - until 1945.

Answer: Kamikaze

The Kamikaze suicide pilots were favorite material for both Japanese and US propagandists - the former lauding them as examples of fanatical, self-sacrificing loyalists, the latter denouncing them as examples of Japanese insanity. In truth, their fate demonstrates neither of these things. It points, rather, to an often-lamented tendency in Japan - an inability to stand up for oneself against authority.

Coerced, by and large, into "volunteering", the Kamikaze pilots spent their last night in a special barracks. They did not, however, spend it in happy anticipation of dying for the Emperor. The staff whose job it was to tidy the barracks the next morning reported that every pillow was regularly soaked with tears, as the doomed young men spent their last night on Earth trying to hide their fear and horror from their friends.

Answer: Yamaguchi

Yamaguchi, at the southern end of Kyûshû, is roughly mid-way between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was never discussed as a target, to the best of my knowledge.

Kyôto, heart of Japan's culture, was considered because of the psychological effect its destruction would have. It was saved by Henry Stimson, US Secretary of War, who had long admired the city. Yokohama was also considered, being for all intents and purposes a section of industrial Tôkyô, but one that had not already been razed by the March firebombing. In the end, the shortlist was Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Kokura in northern Kyûshû, where there was a large arsenal. Kokura was the primary target on August 9, 1945, but the bombers, finding it covered with cloud, moved on to their secondary target - Nagasaki.

Answer: The Liberal Democratic Party

"Liberal", "Democratic", and "Party" are all misnomers. The LDP politicians are the heirs of the Meiji-era oligarchs, an impressive group, but not noted for their liberal or democratic instincts. The LDP is not really a party. In the Meiji Era, Japan's ruling elite was made up of competing factions with "branches" in business, the civil service, and the military. The only difference now is that the military aspect is gone. Forced to adjust, after WWII, to a strengthened parliamentary system, each faction now has a parliamentary "branch". Collectively, these branches of the elite factions pretend to all be members of the same political party and call themselves the LDP. The LDP is not part of Japan's political system: it is Japan's political system.

The party preserves its power by gerrymandering, giving disproportionate electoral weight to economically unviable rural areas whose votes it buys with subsidies and pork-barrel construction projects. Of course, the mechanisms exist by which Japanese voters could end the long reign of the LDP. But it must be said - the LDP has also kept public support by being astonishingly successful. In 1945, Japan was in ruins; they have made it the second largest economic power in the world.

Answer: Lockheed

The Lockheed scandal, which began in the 1970s, affected West Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands as well as Japan. Lockheed, seeking contracts for its aircraft, had bribed politicians in all these countries.

In Japan, the scandal felled Tanaka, whose faction dominated the LDP and who is one of the few leaders in its history to stand out as an individual. His office had received $3 million from Lockheed. Tanaka was arrested, tried, and, in 1983, sentenced to four years in jail. He was still appealing the sentence when he died in 1993. His daughter, Tanaka Makiko, was elected to her father's parliamentary seat, and later served as Japan's first female Foreign Minister in the cabinet of another flamboyant individualist, Koizumi Junichirô.

Answer: Okinawa

Dominated by Satsuma Domain since the seventeenth century, and annexed by the Meiji government in the 1870s, the people of Okinawa long felt that they were treated as second-class Japanese. Then, in 1945, their islands bore the brunt of the Allied attack and suffered through a horrific battle in which around 100,000 Okinawan civilians died.

Although their second-class status is officially abolished, Okinawa's second-class treatment continues, thanks to the Japan-US security treaty. Okinawa makes up 1% of Japan's land mass, but hosts two thirds of the US troops stationed in the country, despite 85% opposition from the people who live there.

Answer: Kôbe

The earthquake struck on January 17, in the early morning. It measured 7.3 on the Japan Meteorological Agency scale. Over 6,000 people died in the disaster. In Japan, it is known as the Great Hanshin Earthquake, Hanshin being the region encompassing Kôbe, Ôsaka, and Kyôto.

1995 is also the year that the Aum Shinrikyô cult released sarin nerve gas on four trains in the Tôkyô subway. All in all, 1995 was one of the most momentous years in Japan's post-war history.

Answer: Naruhito

Officially, the Emperor does not have a name. "Naruhito" was his personal name when he was a boy, but since succeeding to the throne, he has been known simply as "His Majesty the Emperor". This is understandably confusing to foreigners, who continue to call him by the same name that they did when he was growing up.