While Western powers pursued colonial exploitation, Japan modernized through the Meiji Restoration.
Victories in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars reshaped East Asia and challenged imperial dominance.

At a time when Western powers regarded the world outside Europe as colonies to be exploited solely for their own benefit, Japan alone in Asia achieved the Meiji Restoration in order to avoid becoming a colony and set out on the path of a modern nation-state.
2016-01-03
That was not all.
From July 1894 to March 1895, Japan fought and won the Sino-Japanese War over the Korean Peninsula.
For the first time in history, Japan compelled China to abandon its treatment of Korea as a tributary state.
Japan made China formally recognize Korea as an independent nation.
Japan then went on to win the Russo-Japanese War, fought from February 8, 1904 to September 5, 1905.
This war was waged primarily on the Korean Peninsula, in southern Manchuria under Russian sovereignty, and in the Sea of Japan.
That victory shattered the myth of invincibility surrounding the white imperial powers and marked a decisive turning point in world history.
This manuscript continues.