Japan from 1900 up to the present

The 1920's were a time of great difficulties for Japan. After the war, Western nations re-established trade with India and the rest of Asia, and the Japanese economy suffered. In 1923, a terrible earthquake struck the Tokyo-Yokohama area and led to the deaths of about 143,000 people. A worldwide depression during the late 1920's further hurt the Japanese economy.

About this time, China began to strengthen its administration in Manchuria. Japan feared it might lose the rights it gained in the Russo-Japanese War.

Since the beginning of the Second World War up to the early 1990s, Japan’s political and economic environment has drastically changed: from an Imperial empire to one of the world’s leading democracies, and also the world’s second most powerful economy.