was

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

's national

slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan or a political, commercial, religious, or other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the public or a more defined target group ...

during the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, replacing the slogan ''

sonnō jōi was a '' yojijukugo'' (four-character compound) phrase used as the rallying cry and slogan of a political movement in Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Bakumatsu period. Based on Neo-Confucianism and Japanese nativism, the movement sou ...

'' ("Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians"). It is a ''

yojijukugo A is a Japanese lexeme consisting of four ''kanji'' (Chinese characters). English translations of include "four-character compound", "four-character idiom", "four-character idiomatic phrase", and "four-character idiomatic compound". It is equi ...

'' phrase, originally from the ancient Chinese historical work on the

Warring States period The Warring States period in history of China, Chinese history (221 BC) comprises the final two and a half centuries of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC), which were characterized by frequent warfare, bureaucratic and military reforms, and ...

, ''

Zhan Guo Ce The ''Zhan Guo Ce'' (Wade-Giles, W-G: ''Chan-kuo T'se''), also known in English language, English as the ''Strategies of the Warring States'' or ''Annals of the Warring States'', is an ancient Chinese text that contains anecdotes of political ma ...

''.

Etymology

During the

of China, the Qin—through its legalist policies—placed considerable focus on the enhancement of state wealth and military power, also known by the expression ''Fuguo Qiangbing''. This expression was adopted in Meiji Japan as ''Fukoku kyōhei'' in Japanese.

Significance

The slogan was the central objective of the Meiji leaders. ''Fukoku kyōhei'' entailed the formulation of far-reaching policies to transform Japanese society in an all-out effort to catch up with the West. Although the government played a major role in providing the setting for

industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...

, destroying old institutions that proved obstacles to industrialization, and creating new institutions that would facilitate economic and political modernization, private enterprise also played a critical role in the distinctly Japanese combination of public and private sector effort, later criticized in the 1980s as "Japan Inc." This symbolized an emerging nationalism in Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fukoku kyohei Japanese historical terms Meiji era Japanese nationalism Japanese political phrases 19th-century quotations Legalism (Chinese philosophy)