ITO HIROBUMI
(Itō Hirobumi)
“Young Chinese” referred to members of a Chinese political party—Young China—consisting mainly of Western-Educated young Chinese who were a strong force for change, but did not have the experience, money, or power connections to unify the country or operate the government. The Japanese watched Chinese politics very carefully as China was seen as a potential rival or a teritory of conquest.
To this day, Japanese are generally very circumspect about criticizing the emperor and he is rarely the subject of public discussion.
Most European monarchies and strong, powerful states were theocratic empires and had as their foundation a ruling family and a national church. In Japan, the churches were politically weak, and so the designers of the Japanese empire created the concept of a divine emperor where spiritual and temporal power could be the embodiment of the state which in their view had to have both dimensions. See Ito’s statement on the subject: {604492}
‘Amalgamated’ was a euphemism for ‘being taken over by’. Ito was assassinated shortly thereafter by a Korean patriot who objected to Ito’s takeover of his country.
See {43619} for a contradictory view of the Emperor.
Duke Itō Hirobumi was a Japanese politician and the first Prime Minister of Japan. He was also a leading member of the genrō, a group of senior statesmen that dictated Japan's policies during the Meiji Era.
