The Oriental Society: Imperial Education and Enterprise, 1907–8

Abstract

Between 1907 and 1908, Katsura worked to move Japan’s informal imperialism away from dependency on military force and improve its economic return. His motive was the strain that a military-centred imperialism was exerting on Japan’s economy, already weakened by war debt, and on its constitutional polity. For Japan to maintain a secure position in northeast Asia, he believed it essential to develop its overseas interests on a variety of levels, improve its colonial and semi-colonial administration, and increase Japanese investment in empire, especially the human capital of agrarian migrants.