| In 1960's, under the great impact of European and American changes, early modernization of China and Japan began to officially launch with the respectively opportunity of "Westernization Movement" and the "Meiji Restoration". However, the outcome of Sino-Japanese War determined the success or failure of the early modernization of the two countries.After the Opium War a series of new changes have taken place in Chinese society:the emergence of domestic strife and foreign aggressions; the threatened traditional economic structure, natural economic disintegration; advanced thinkers put forward the idea of learning from the West; formed a new political group "Foreign Affairs School"; set up a new institution "Zongli Yamen"; from 1960's to 1990's, the domestic and foreign environment was relatively stable; which prepared for the launch of early modernization. In this context, the Westernization Movement made a successful first step towards the modernization in the military, economic, educational, ideological, and political aspects by conducting "self-reliance" and "seek-rich" activities.At the same time, a series of changes also have taken place in Japanese society in the late shogunate rule:shogunate rule is full of crisis; capitalism has been developed briefly; under the enlightenment of "Thought Lan", reformation idea of overturning Mufu rule was formed; the bourgeoisie lower samurai came into being and they overthrew the shogunate rule and the new Meiji government; in the 1960's there has been relatively peaceful international environment; which laid the foundation for the launch of early modernization. In this context, the Meiji govese capitalist economy; lift of national crisis; prompted Japanese transformation to the imperialist stage and promoted effectively the success of Japan's early modernization process. Taking Sino-Jernment initially realized the Japanese social transformation from traditional form to a modern one in the political, economic, military, education, and ideological aspects by adopting a series of "destroying the old" and "establishing the new" measures.Without the strong influence of external factors, the early modernization of China and Japan would develop more comprehensively and deeply with the common trend.The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War produced very different effects to the early modernizations of China and Japan, and changed their original development trends. Sino-Japanese War led to the end of the Westernization Movement in China; the deepening national crisis; the heavy economic losses; intensification of social conflicts and eventually the setback of China's early modernization. In contrast the War led to the rapid development of the Japanapanese War as a dividing point, the quite opposite development paths resuanlted in the totally different outcomes. Sino-Japanese War has become a watershed between the success and failure of the two countries' early modernizations. |
