surrendered to the government and turned into prefectures,
under the control of an appointed governor. Taxation was
centralized, and a modern bureaucratic state replaced the
old feudal one. In 1869 the equality of all social classes
before the law was introduced, and restrictions on internal
migration and trade were abolished. The samurai class
was abolished, though not without having to put down some
rebellions. Individual property rights on land were
introduced, and people were allowed freedom to enter and
practice any trade. The state became heavily involved in
the construction of infrastructure. In contrast to the attitudes
of absolutist regimes to railways, in 1869 the Japanese
regime formed a steamship line between Tokyo and Osaka
and built the first railway between Tokyo and Yokohama. It
also began to develop a manufacturing industry, and
(Ōkubo Toshimichi, as minister of finance, oversaw the
beginning of a concerted effort of industrialization. The lord
of Satsuma domain had been a leader in this, building
factories for pottery, cannon, and cotton yarn and importing
English textile machinery to create the first modern cotton
spinning mill in Japan in 1861. He also built two modern
shipyards. By 1890 Japan was the first Asian country to
adopt a written constitution, and it created a constitutional
monarchy with an elected parliament, the Diet, and an
independent judiciary. These changes were decisive
factors in enabling Japan to be the primary beneficiary from
the Industrial Revolution in Asia.
I N THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY both China and Japan were
poor nations, languishing under absolutist regimes. The
absolutist regime in China had been suspicious of change
for centuries. Though there were many similarities between
China and Japan—the Tokugawa shogunate had also
banned overseas trade in the seventeenth century, as
Chinese emperors had done earlier, and were opposed to
economic and political change—there were also notable
political differences. China was a centralized bureaucratic
empire ruled by an absolute emperor. The emperor
certainly faced constraints on his power, the most important
of which was the threat of rebellion. During the period 1850
to 1864, the whole of southern China was ravaged by the