Japan in East Asia: Unpromising and Discouraging Future in 19th Century

Japan's modern history and colonization of Asia by the west are inseparably related to each other. There are three major points we should consider as prerequisites for describing a history of modernizing Japan.

1. At the starting point of Japan's modernization, Japan was faced with growing military threats from Great Britain, Russia, France, Netherlands, U.S.A., Germany, etc. while nothing but their battles for domination in Asia prevented them from fully and easily colonizing Asia. Therefore, they were still fighting for supremacy in Asia while Japan was going through a process of modernizing herself, so as to maintain her own independence. ex. Great Britain completed her control over India just 10 years before Meiji Restoration in 1868, Burma in 1886, and Malay peninsula in 1909. France took Vietnam by force in 1887. Netherlands officially colonized Indonesia in 1904. U.S.A. annexed Hawaii in 1898, and seized Philippine the same year. Russia was posing a great threat to Japan in those years.
2. As shown in the above, Japan was completely surrounded by the western militaristic nations who had strong belief in colonialism for their own benefits. Even China was struggling with difficulties to preserve her own lands since China was in a deteriorating state resulting from its excessive bureaucracy. Korea was just a vassal state of China. Japan vehemently desired that Korea would soon become independent from China and would quickly modernize herself, thereby strengthening Japan's defense against the western aggression. Either the western powers or Russia would have colonized the Korean peninsula if nothing done. The only option left for Japan was to help Korea become independent from China. Japan had much stronger awareness of risks since Japan had experienced long-lasted Samurai period.
3. China and Korea were powerless and helpless. However, they had harbored ungrounded superiority complex over Japan. Ex. Sino-centrism They tended to regard Japan's modernizng efforts as a disturbing factor to Sino-centrism.

Without keeping three points in one's mind, one must not see a history of Japan in relation to what China fabricates and what both Koreas fabricate.