When the Japanese clobbered Pearl Harbor, and loud was the American outcry of perfidy, the Japanese response might have applied the words of the old song, “You made me what I am today; I hope you’re satisfied.” The West, and particularly the United States, insisted on dragging Japan out of feudal seclusion. The motive, as given pious expression by a precursor of Commodore Perry, was to “heal their diseases… and trade a little.” The reluctant recruit to Western-style civilization, like the groundhog, would have preferred to stay underground. But once Japan was dragged kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century, it decided, in the interest of self-preservation, to emulate its self-imposed tutors with a vengeance. Its objectives, its methods, and its manners were all adopted from them, and soon it was being said of the Japanese that they “imitate perfectly.”
Dr. Neumann tells the story of modern Japan well and aptly. With the deposition of the Shogunate (accomplished with the aid of a lend-lease ironclad, formerly the property of the Confederacy), Japan made enormous strides in westernizing itself after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The original idea was to develop enough military power so that it could retire again into its shell when some cataclysm overtook the West. But, with modernization and the acquisition of military strength, it altered its aspirations to coincide with those of the Western nations—expansion, empire, resources, trade.
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