Hired Foreigners: A Phantom Cabinet and Advice from Across the Sea: The National Image of the Keio Reforms as Portrayed by the French Minister Roche (Late 1860s, End of the Edo Period, Keio Era)

Hired Foreigners: A Phantom Cabinet and Advice from Across the Sea: The National Image of the Keio Reforms as Portrayed by the French Minister Roche (Late 1860s, End of the Edo Period, Keio Era)

The greatest problem facing Japan at the end of the Edo period was no longer just its lagging military technology. After the opening of Japan to the outside world, the powers confronted Japan with its very ability to govern itself as a nation. Treaty negotiations, financial management, modernization of the military, and development of the industrial base. Unless the entire nation was rebuilt as an institution, Japan would follow the same path as the Qing dynasty. It was French Minister Roche who presented this understanding to the Shogunate in the most systematic manner.

Roche was neither a mere diplomat nor a military advisor. He was able to speak in the language of institutions about what a modern state was, against the backdrop of the centralized state model of the French Second Empire. In the relationship he formed with Shogun Yoshinobu, Roche preached that partial reforms were not enough for the shogunate to survive, but that it needed to redesign its political, financial, military, and industrial systems as a whole. The series of initiatives known as the Keio Reforms were, in effect, a translation of Roche's view of the nation.

The proposal to establish a cabinet of six bureaus is emblematic of this. The transition from governance that depended on the discretion of individual generals to a bureaucratic system in which duties were assigned. This meant a shift from a feudal authority state to a modern administrative state. The idea of abolishing the stipend system and shifting to a salary system was also an attempt to dismantle the privileges of the samurai class and reconfigure the nation's finances according to the logic of money and labor. Furthermore, the introduction of commercial and land taxes, the development of mines, and the promotion of industry were all aimed at transforming the nation from a tributary state to an industrial state, and were strongly influenced by the French model of fiscal statecraft.

What is important is that Roche's founding principles were not imitations but consistent institutional designs. Even if only the military is westernized, the nation will not be able to survive if the finances and administration remain the same as in the past. On the other hand, even if only the institutions are improved, sovereignty cannot be defended without military power. Roche understood this interdependence and urged the Shogunate to comprehensively reform the nation.

However, this vision was never realized. With the restoration of the Grand Council of State, the shogunate ceased to exist as a political entity, and the very foundation of power to implement reforms was lost. The Keio reforms retreated from the stage of history before being implemented and ended up as a phantom modernization plan. Nevertheless, the direction indicated by this plan overlaps remarkably with the centralization of power, the development of the bureaucracy, tax reform, and industrial and commercial development by the later Meiji government.

The French Minister to Japan, Roche, was not the one who determined the future of Japan. He was, however, the clearest blueprint at the moment when Japan first envisioned a Western nation as an institution. Although the Keio reforms ended in failure, his design ideas did not disappear. The framework of the Meiji nation had already been quietly drawn by a foreign diplomat at the end of the Edo period.