The rise of China and India is a frequent topic of discussion in the international community. In pondering the global repercussions of this rise and how the world might cope with it, it is instructive to examine how the international community dealt with Japan, and how Japan adapted to the international community between the mid-19th century and World War II.
From the middle of the 19th century through Meiji Era, "the West" adopted a policy of making Japan adhere to the basic rules of the international community through "gunboat diplomacy," or pressure diplomacy.
One of the reasons why this policy resulted neither in a decisive military confrontation between Japan and the West nor in Japan's colonization by Western powers was that it proceeded concomitantly with Japanese society's own internal reform efforts.