Constructed-Response Practice Set 2

Document A: "The Emperor Meiji declared in 1868 that knowledge would be sought from all over the world, and that the laws and customs of the old order would be cast aside. Within a generation Japan built a modern military, established universal education, and emerged as an imperial power capable of defeating Russia in war." Description of the Meiji Restoration

Document B: "In 1898 the young Guangxu Emperor and his advisors attempted to modernize China on the Japanese model. The Empress Dowager Cixi led a palace coup, placed the Emperor under house arrest, and reversed all his reforms. The Hundred Days' Reform collapsed." Description of the Hundred Days' Reform in China

Question 1: Based on Document A, identify two changes that Japan made during the Meiji Restoration.

Strong sample answer: "During the Meiji Restoration, Japan built a modern military and established universal education. The new government also sought knowledge from all parts of the world and discarded the laws and customs of the previous Tokugawa order."

Question 2: Based on Document B, identify why the Hundred Days' Reform failed.

Strong sample answer: "The Hundred Days' Reform failed because the Empress Dowager Cixi led a palace coup, arrested the young Emperor, and reversed his modernization efforts. The reformers lacked the political power to overcome conservative opposition within the Qing court."

Question 3: Using both documents and your knowledge of social studies, explain why Japan and China experienced different outcomes when responding to Western imperial pressure.

Strong sample answer: "Japan and China faced similar pressure from industrial Western powers in the mid-nineteenth century, but their responses differed because their internal politics produced different leadership decisions. Japan, as Document A shows, embraced systematic modernization under the Meiji Restoration, sending students abroad, hiring foreign advisors, and adopting Western technology and institutions while preserving cultural identity through the symbolic figure of the emperor. China, as Document B shows, attempted similar reforms only briefly in 1898 before conservative forces under Empress Dowager Cixi reversed them. The result was that Japan emerged as a modernized imperial power that defeated Russia in 1905, while China remained subject to the unequal treaties and became"

increasingly semi-colonized, ultimately collapsing in the 1911 revolution. The contrast demonstrates that responses to imperial pressure were not predetermined by geography or culture but by the political choices that elites made in each society.