This study will discuss the historical and ideological developments of Japan's continental expansionism from the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 16th century to 1937. Hideyoshi was a feudal lord who helped unify the country and develop centralized power after civil wars tore the nation apart. His distrust of missionaries and other foreigners was in part a result of the civil wars and of the fear of future disunity. Turning outward from domestic concerns, and using the military power he had assembled to put down internal strife, Hideyoshi developed "an obsession with China. In 1592 and 1598 he launched two invasions of Korea as the first steps toward the conquest of China" (Bunge 13). His efforts were unsuccessful, defeated by combined Korean-Chinese forces and later by a return of the internal disunity he had feared.
The Tokugawa Period followed Hideyoshi, and with it an internal order which lasted until the latter half of the nineteenth century. National seclusion rather than expansionism prevailed as the political ideology of the era (Pyle 30-31). However, the shogunate imposed a rigid, hierarchical, Confucian-based, socioeconomic and political structure which included nationalistic impulses, giving rise to "the cult of the emperor" (Bunge 18), which in turn would play a role in later expansionism.
Also, the efficiency of the Tokugawa system led to the modernization of Japan which in turn led to the drive for expansionism and the addition of foreign markets and resources. In fact, the opening of Japan to trade in the 19th century began the process leading to the next stage of expansionism.
The turning-in process of the Tokugawa Shogunate had created a unified and stable country, but it had also made Japan weak to influences from abroad. Foreign traders besieged Japanese ports for access to that nation's lucrative markets and resources. Japan watched England defeat China in the Opium war, and, like China, Japan was f...