Philippine E-Journals

The Philippines Before Pearl Harbor

Maximo M. Kalaw

Discipline: History, Philippine History

 

Abstract:

Almost one hundred years ago an American Naval officer, Commodore Perry, knocked at the doors of medieval Japan and had them opened to the commerce and the intercourse of nations of the world. That was the beginning of the modern era in Japan-modern in the sense of the economic and technical development, of the establishment of a strong military organization and the adoption of well-known imperialistic patterns, which made Japan at first a power in Asia and up to recently a power among the powers of the world. Today, nearly one hundred years after that event, it is also America, through the might of her arms, which has stopped Japan's mad ambition to conquer and rule Asia and, ultimately, the entire world.