User:Beefmangoes/"Europeanisation"

"Europeanisation" ("Oukashugi" in Japanese), refers to the popularly held belief that adopting various European culture and customs were necessary in order to achieve modernization.

In Japan

In the 1880's, the Government of Meiji Japan, in adopting the policy of europeanisation, encouraged European institutions, culture, customs, and mannerisms in an effort to be recognized by westerns powers as having achieved modernity.

Europeanization policy

An illustration of a western-style ball held at the Rokumeikan banqueting house in Tokyo

As minister for Foreign Affairs, Inoue Kaoru sought a revision of the Ansei Treaties, one of a series of unequal treaties forced upon Japan by the major western powers of the 19th century. By way of legal, constitutional, and cultural reforms, in addition its willful subjugation to international law, Kaoru wished for Japan to be recognized as a member of the "civilized nations".

[[Category:Japanese foreign policy]]