Japan (VTTRS)

Japan
日本国
Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku
Timeline: Victory To The Rising Sun
OTL equivalent: Japan including Taiwan, Sakhalin, and Shanghai and Ningbo.
Japan; 日本国; Nippon-koku or Nihon-kokuTimeline: Victory To The Rising Sun ; OTL equivalent: Japan including Taiwan, Sakhalin, and Shanghai and Ningbo.
Flag	Imperial Seal
	Anthem: ; Kimigayo; "His Imperial Majesty Reign" https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/File:Kimi_ga_Yo_instrumental.ogg;
	Japan (green)
Capital	Tokyo
Largest city	Shanhai
Official languages	Japanese
Regional languages	Hokkien; Mandarin; Hakka
Demonym	Japanese
Government	Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Legislature	National Diet
Establishment
Population
GDP (nominal)	2021 estimate
Currency	Japanese yen (¥)
Drives on the	left
Calling code	+81

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Japan (Japanese: 日本, Nippon or Nihon, and formally 日本国, Nihonkoku) is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, and Philippine Sea. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 6852 islands covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi); the seven main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, Okinawa, Taiwan, Kirils, and Karafuto, and a special administrative region (Shanghai). Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Shanghai, Fukuoka, Kobe, Taihoku, Tainan City, and Kyoto.

Japan is the tenth most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 206.3 million on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with more than 35.6 million residents.

Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC), though the first written mention of the archipelago appears in a Chinese chronicle (the Book of Han) finished in the 2nd century AD. Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and the imperial court based in Heian-kyō. Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō) and enforced by a class of warrior nobility (samurai). After a century-long period of civil war, the country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868.

In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan adopted a Western-modeled constitution and pursued a program of industrialization and modernization. Amidst a rise in militarism and overseas colonization, Japan invaded China in 1937 and entered World War II as an Axis power in 1941. After many victories in the Pacific War following the defeat of the Axis powers in Europe, Japan emerged victorious in 1946 and established itself as superpower, After the war, a fascist one-party dictatorship was in charge which it lasted from 1940 until 1960. After it's 1960 revolution against one-party rule, dubbed the Tokyo Spring, from which it resulted in transition to democracy, adopting a new constitution and began a military alliance with the United States. Under the 1960 constitution, Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, the National Diet.

Japan is a highly developed country, and a great power in global politics. Its economy is the world's top-largest by nominal GDP and the top-largest by PPP. Although Japan has renounced its right to declare war, the country maintains Self-Defense Forces that rank as one of the world's strongest militaries. After World War II and the Tokyo Spring, Japan experiences record growth in an economic miracle following mass economic reforms in 1960s alongside the Nakasone Plan in the early 1980s, becoming the second-largest economy in the world by 1972, which it later went on to surpass USA in the early 2000s. As of 2021, the country's economy is the top-largest by nominal GDP. Japan has the world's highest life expectancy. A global leader in the automotive, robotics and electronics industries, the country has made significant contributions to science and technology. The culture of Japan is well known around the world, including its art, cuisine, film, music, and popular culture, which encompasses prominent comic, animation and video game industries. Since the 21st century, Japan has been renowned for its globally influential pop culture, particularly in music (J-pop), TV dramas (J-dramas), animation (anime), art, video game industries, films and cinema, a phenomenon referred to as the Japanese wave. It is a founding member of WPTO as well as members of numerous international organizations including the United Nations (since 1962), OECD, G20 and Group of Seven.

Etymology[]

The name for Japan in Japanese is written using the kanji 日本 and is pronounced Nippon or Nihon. Before 日本 was adopted in the early 8th century, the country was known in China as Wa (倭, changed in Japan around 757 to 和) and in Japan by the endonym Yamato. Nippon, the original Sino-Japanese reading of the characters, is favored for official uses, including on banknotes and postage stamps. Nihon is typically used in everyday speech and reflects shifts in Japanese phonology during the Edo period. The characters 日本 mean "sun origin", which is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun".

The name "Japan" is based on Chinese pronunciations of 日本 and was introduced to European languages through early trade. In the 13th century, Marco Polo recorded the early Mandarin or Wu Chinese pronunciation of the characters 日本國 as Cipangu. The old Malay name for Japan, Japang or Japun, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect and encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia, who brought the word to Europe in the early 16th century. The first version of the name in English appears in a book published in 1577, which spelled the name as Giapan in a translation of a 1565 Portuguese letter.

History[]

Main article: History of Japan

Prehistoric to classical history[]

A Paleolithic culture from around 30,000 BC constitutes the first known habitation of the islands of Japan. This was followed from around 14,500 BC (the start of the Jōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture. Clay vessels from the period are among the oldest surviving examples of pottery. From around 700 BC, the Japonic-speaking Yayoi people began to enter the archipelago from the Korean Peninsula, intermingling with the Jōmon; the Yayoi period saw the introduction of practices including wet-rice farming, a new style of pottery, and metallurgy from China and Korea. According to legend, Emperor Jimmu (grandson of Amaterasu) founded a kingdom in central Japan in 660 BC, beginning a continuous imperial line.

Japan first appears in written history in the Chinese Book of Han, completed in 111 AD. Buddhism was introduced to Japan from Baekje (a Korean kingdom) in 552, but the development of Japanese Buddhism was primarily influenced by China. Despite early resistance, Buddhism was promoted by the ruling class, including figures like Prince Shōtoku, and gained widespread acceptance beginning in the Asuka period (592–710).

The far-reaching Taika Reforms in 645 nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation. The Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms. These reforms culminated with the promulgation of the Taihō Code, which consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central and subordinate local governments. These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium.

The Nara period (710–784) marked the emergence of a Japanese state centered on the Imperial Court in Heijō-kyō (modern Nara). The period is characterized by the appearance of a nascent literary culture with the completion of the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and architecture. A smallpox epidemic in 735–737 is believed to have killed as much as one-third of Japan's population. In 784, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital, settling on Heian-kyō (modern-day Kyoto) in 794. This marked the beginning of the Heian period (794–1185), during which a distinctly indigenous Japanese culture emerged. Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji and the lyrics of Japan's national anthem "Kimigayo" were written during this time.

Feudal era[]

Japan's feudal era was characterized by the emergence and dominance of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the Taira clan in the Genpei War, samurai Minamoto no Yoritomo established a military government at Kamakura. After Yoritomo's death, the Hōjō clan came to power as regents for the shōgun. The Zen school of Buddhism was introduced from China in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and became popular among the samurai class. The Kamakura shogunate repelled Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281 but was eventually overthrown by Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo was defeated by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336, beginning the Muromachi period (1336–1573). The succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed to control the feudal warlords (daimyō) and a civil war began in 1467, opening the century-long Sengoku period ("Warring States").

During the 16th century, Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries reached Japan for the first time, initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga used European technology and firearms to conquer many other daimyō; his consolidation of power began what was known as the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the death of Nobunaga in 1582, his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, unified the nation in the early 1590s and launched two unsuccessful invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597.

Tokugawa Ieyasu served as regent for Hideyoshi's son Toyotomi Hideyori and used his position to gain political and military support. When open war broke out, Ieyasu defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. He was appointed shōgun by Emperor Go-Yōzei in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo (modern Tokyo). The shogunate enacted measures including buke shohatto, as a code of conduct to control the autonomous daimyō, and in 1639 the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period (1603–1868). Modern Japan's economic growth began in this period, resulting in roads and water transportation routes, as well as financial instruments such as futures contracts, banking and insurance of the Osaka rice brokers. The study of Western sciences (rangaku) continued through contact with the Dutch enclave in Nagasaki. The Edo period gave rise to kokugaku ("national studies"), the study of Japan by the Japanese.

Modern era before Tokyo Spring (until 1960)[]

In 1854, Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the outside world with the Convention of Kanagawa. Subsequent similar treaties with other Western countries brought economic and political crises. The resignation of the shōgun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the emperor (the Meiji Restoration). Adopting Western political, judicial, and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution (November 29, 1890), and assembled the Imperial Diet. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Empire of Japan emerged as the most developed nation in Asia and as an industrialized world power that pursued military conflict to expand its sphere of influence. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Japan gained control of Taiwan, Korea and the southern half of Sakhalin. The Japanese population doubled from 35 million in 1873 to 70 million by 1935, with a significant shift to urbanization.

The early 20th century saw a period of Taishō democracy (1912–1926) overshadowed by increasing expansionism and militarization. World War I allowed Japan, which joined the side of the victorious Allies, to capture German possessions in the Pacific and in China. The 1920s saw a political shift towards statism, a period of lawlessness following the 1923 Great Tokyo Earthquake, the passing of laws against political dissent, and a series of attempted coups. This process accelerated during the 1930s, spawning several radical nationalist groups that shared a hostility to liberal democracy and a dedication to expansion in Asia. In 1931, Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria; following international condemnation of the occupation, it resigned from the League of Nations two years later. In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany; the 1940 Tripartite Pact made it one of the Axis Powers.

The Empire of Japan invaded other parts of China in 1937, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1946). In 1940, the Empire invaded French Indochina, after which the United States placed an oil embargo on Japan. On December 7–8, 1941, Japanese forces carried out surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, as well as on British forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, among others, beginning World War II in the Pacific. Throughout areas occupied by Japan during the war, numerous abuses were committed against local inhabitants, with many forced into sexual slavery. [UNDER PROGRESS]

Also in the late 1940s and early 1950s, resistance movements in the Japanese overseas provinces of Korea and puppet state of Philippines resulted the beginning of downfall of one-party regime in Japan before 1960. The war against the insurgencies in Korea lasted 13 years, mobilized around 3 million men for military and/or civilian support service, and led to big casualties from military to civilians, plus evacuations of thousands from war zones.

Throughout the insurgencies in Japanese colony of Korea, Japan had to deal with increasing dissent, arms embargoes other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community, and the opposition to the one-party regime of Shintaisei (New Order).

However, the totalitarian and fascist Shintaisei (New Order) regime under Taisei Yokusankai, first led and governed by Hideki Tojo and from 1950 onwards led by Nobusuke Kishi, tried to preserve a [UNDER PROGRESS]

Tokyo Spring and modern era (1960-present)[]

Main article: Tokyo Spring

The Japanese government and army resisted the decolonization of its territories and indepedence movements of it's puppets until June 1960, when a student-led protests and riots in Japanese cities, mostly in Tokyo, known as the Tokyo Spring, led the way for the downfall of the Shintaisei regime by the self-coup led by Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni.

With the fall of Hiroya Ino's interim government in 22 June 1960, a period of transition to democracy followed, [UNDER PROGRESS]

In 1960, Japan adopted a new constitution emphasizing liberal democratic practices. The period of transition to democracy ended with the first free elections in September of the same year, which began the 30-years period of LDP's leadership which lasted until 1990, and Japan was granted membership in the United Nations in 1962. A period of record growth propelled Japan to become the second-largest economy in the world by 1972 resulting Japan to becoming second economic power in the early to late 1990s, which later surpassed the USA in 2001. On March 11, 2011, Japan suffered one of the largest earthquakes in its recorded history, triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. On May 1, 2019, after the historic abdication of Emperor Akihito, his son Naruhito became Emperor, beginning the Reiwa era.

Geography[]

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Government and politics[]

Main articles: Government of Japan

Japan is a unitary state and constitutional monarchy in which the power of the Emperor is limited to a ceremonial role. Executive power is instead wielded by the Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet, whose sovereignty is vested in the Japanese people. Naruhito is the Emperor of Japan, having succeeded his father Akihito upon his accession to the Chrysanthemum Throne in 2019.

Japan's legislative organ is the National Diet, a bicameral parliament. It consists of a lower House of Representatives with 465 seats, elected by popular vote every four years or when dissolved, and an upper House of Councillors with 245 seats, whose popularly-elected members serve six-year terms. There is universal suffrage for adults over 18 years of age, with a secret ballot for all elected offices. The prime minister as the head of government has the power to appoint and dismiss Ministers of State, and is appointed by the emperor after being designated from among the members of the Diet. Yukio Edano is Japan's current prime minister; he took office after CDP won the 2017 general election.

Historically influenced by Chinese law, the Japanese legal system developed independently during the Edo period through texts such as Kujikata Osadamegaki. Since the late 19th century, the judicial system has been largely based on the civil law of Europe, notably Germany. In 1896, Japan established a civil code based on the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, which remains in effect with post–1960 modifications. The Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1960, is the oldest unamended constitution in the world. Statutory law originates in the legislature, and the constitution requires that the emperor promulgate legislation passed by the Diet without giving him the power to oppose legislation. The main body of Japanese statutory law is called the Six Codes. Japan's court system is divided into four basic tiers: the Supreme Court and three levels of lower courts.

Economy[]

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