The Japanese Empire and Russia, 1868–1945
The Japanese Empire and Russia, 1868–1945
- David WolffDavid WolffHokkaido University
Summary
As Russia expanded eastward in the early and mid-19th century, it came into increasing contact with the Japanese Empire. In turn, after the modernizing Meiji revolution premised, in large part, on fears of Western countries, such as Russia, the Japanese began to expand westward, leading to further collisions. War was avoided for the first thirty six years, but the next forty years were bloody, with Russia and Japan fighting three times. Although the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 (called the “Japanese-Russian War” in Japanese) has been depicted in Japan as a victory and the apogee of empire, it also put the Island Empire on the road to future wars it could not ultimately win. The USSR was one of the victor nations taking the Japanese surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay in September 1945. Thus, Russia played an active role in both the glorious heights and shattering conclusion of the Japanese Empire. The clashes with Japan also influenced Russian history. Russia’s defeat in every land battle and the loss of two-thirds of its naval forces defied expectations and set off a sequence of events that, among other causes, fatally weakened the Russian Empire, both internally and externally. Revenge would come forty years later. Although Stalin failed to garner many of the fruits of victory he had hoped for, especially in regard to Japan, the very presence of vast Soviet armies in the Chinese northeast at the end of World War II put them in a position to midwife the Chinese communist revolution, mainly by handing over the captured Japanese weapons to Mao Zedong’s army. The meeting of Russia and Japan in the period from 1868 to 1945 gave birth to modern northeast Asia, a region whose rapid and recent rise to prosperity has been riddled with conflicts and controversies.
Subjects
- Borderlands
- China
- Diplomatic/International
- Japan
- Military