The Japanese government has inaugurated a new…

The Japanese government has inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, has sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and has hired more than three thousand Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan (O-yatoi gaikokujin).

Russian pressure from the north had appeared again after Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky had gained Outer Manchuria at Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860).

This had led to heavy Russian pressure on Sakhalin which the Japanese had eventually yielded in exchange for the Kuril islands (1875).

The Ryukyu Islands are similarly secured in 1879, establishing the borders within which Japan will "enter the World".

Beginning in 1868, Japan had begun to undertake political, economic, and cultural transformations emerging as a unified and centralized state, the Empire of Japan (also Imperial Japan or Prewar Japan).

Japan's industrial revolution had begun about 1870, as national leaders decided to catch up with the West.

The government has built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development.

Modern industry first appears in textiles, including cotton and especially silk, which is based in home workshops in rural areas.

In 1871, a group of Japanese politicians known as the Iwakura Mission had toured Europe and the USA to learn western ways.

The result has been a deliberate state-led industrialization policy to enable Japan to quickly catch up.