Toward the end of the Taisho Period, the Imperial Diet finally passed a law which established universal suffrage for men 25 and older regardless of tax assessment. Shortly before, however, they also passed a law which would allow law enforcement entities far greater powers of surveillance, harassment, and repression.
Japan signed a treaty with their fellow Entente Powers which slowed construction on the ever-increasing navies of many nations. In 1923, a terrible earthquake struck the Kanto Region resulting in massive damage and an incredible number of casualties. The atrocity that soon followed, however, only served to increase the tragedy.
Japan emerges as a major player among world powers as their ambassadors helped finalize the postwar treaties and create a new international body meant to stop large-scale wars before they began: The League of Nations. However, trouble continued brewing on the Korean Peninsula as a new mass movement for national liberation took to the streets.
The new international status quo that emerged after the first World War was very different than what came before, and Japan was poised to become a major new power in this new world.
The eastern front of the first world war was much busier than its western counterpart and the stakes for one nation were much higher. When the war finally ended with the Entente triumphant, Japan was poised to enjoy the advantages of supporting the winning side.
The assassination of an Austrian Archduke sparks a chain reaction which would ignite a global conflict on a scale never seen before.
In early 1912, the Qing Dynasty officially transferred its right to rule to the Republic of China, who named Yuan Shikai as their president in exchange for ending the civil war. Shikai, however, would soon prove just as power-hungry and authoritarian as the imperial system he sought to replace.
The first decade of the 1900s witnessed a final attempt by the Qing Dynasty to reform its outmoded systems of governance and forge a new Chinese nation state. Those attempts eventually failed in the wake of a massive revolution against the last dynasty of China, which succeeded in 1912.
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