saw "the fulfillment of [Japan's] national power in the decisive victories in the two major wars against China and Russia, in the annexation of Korea, the acquisition of Formosa and Sakhalin, and the expulsion of Germany from the Shantung peninsula." However, the ultranationalists warned that Japan was letting foreign powers decide too many issues over which Japan should have had control, such as the "disposition of the gains of the war with Germany" (256). They also warned of domestic dangers, including the charge that Western ideas were becoming entrenched: "The growth of dangerous thought threatens social order, and our national polity, which has endured for three thousand years, is in danger" (257).
The role of the emperor was inevitably questioned in such turbulent circumstances. Japan was placed in a relatively brief time at the center of the stage of world activity, militarily and eco
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