Japan’s Meiji Transformation and the Seeds of Later Collapse

I was just learning about the Meiji generation which modernised Japan.

They approached Western society with humility and pragmatism, sending missions abroad to study foreign systems and institutions, and adapting what they saw as effective. In the process, they jettisoned several aspects of traditional Confucian ideals, such as disdain for the merchant class, the rigidity of hereditary social hierarchy, and the prioritisation of moral virtue over practical, technical knowledge.

This departure from Confucian orthodoxy was not merely ideological; it was necessary. Traditional Confucian social structures were built around static hierarchies and moral cultivation suited to agrarian bureaucracies, not industrial nation-states. The Meiji leaders understood that to compete with Western powers, Japan needed a more dynamic and open social order. That meant dismantling the feudal caste system, promoting commerce, and elevating technical expertise over classical scholarship. By discarding elements of Confucianism that prioritised filial obedience and moral elitism, the Meiji state could promote meritocracy, entrepreneurialism, and national unity under a modern bureaucratic state. Without this ideological break, Japan might have remained stagnant and vulnerable to colonisation, like other non-Western nations of the time.

By doing so, they created a society that embraced innovation, rewarded talent regardless of birth, and fostered rapid industrial and institutional transformation. This laid the foundation for Japan’s emergence as a modern power, which allowed it to renegotiate and eventually dissolve unequal treaties with Western powers by the early 20th century, decades before China succeeded in doing the same. Unlike China, which only managed to fully eliminate these treaties after prolonged conflict, foreign invasion, and revolution, Japan achieved this diplomatic normalisation largely without large-scale military confrontation or mass bloodshed.

However, the institutional strength built by the Meiji generation began to decay in the hands of the following generation. Although the Meiji pioneers had made critical reforms, they failed to remove deeper elements of Confucian political culture, such as the belief in loyalty to authority as a moral absolute and the subordination of the individual to the collective. These lingering ideas, left unchallenged, took root in the next generation. Combined with a lack of exposure to external models, since many of them had not lived or studied abroad, their worldview became increasingly narrow, shaped by nationalist education and an inward-looking political environment, with little room for critical engagement or alternative perspectives.

This generation retained the authoritarian elements of Confucianism, which were later weaponised by the militarist regime to demand unquestioning obedience to the emperor and the state. At the same time, they abandoned the more humanistic dimensions of Confucian thought, such as ethical self-cultivation, the moral accountability of rulers, and the value of principled dissent, which had historically provided internal checks on power.

Many Western nations, by contrast, had developed alternative frameworks such as liberal constitutionalism, protection of individual rights, and institutional checks and balances that, while far from perfect, helped to contain authoritarian tendencies and prevent total systemic collapse.

Without the institutional humility of the Meiji pioneers, the pluralistic ethics of Confucian tradition, or the adoption of alternative frameworks prevalent in Western nations, the state became ideologically brittle and vulnerable to ultranationalist fanaticism. This ultimately steered Japan toward imperial aggression, domestic repression, and catastrophic defeat in World War II.