Abstract
In 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry entered Japan and opened the country to international trade with the Western societies. Japan was then an ill-developed country, living according to its old traditions and religions. In 1868, a new Emperor from the Meiji dynasty, Mutsuhito, who was only 15 year old at the time, decided to implement a great modernization plan in order to bridge the gap between his country and the West . The improvements were fast, every aspect of the society were changed, including the army. The latter was so modernized that something inconceivable happened in 1904: the Japanese navy defeated Russia off the neutral Korean harbor of Tchemulpo. A new era arose then: the Orient was ready to challenge the Occident. The term “Yellow Peril” was invented to describe the widespread fear in the early 20th century of Oriental armies converging in Europe in order to destroy the “civilized society”. As the French economist Edmond Théry said: “Europe compelled Japan to leave immobility, built them battleships and lent them money, but won't Europe regret having helped this audacious country embrace modern life one day?”
Today, 105 years later, one could say that the world is facing a new “Yellow Peril”, but this time, Japan and Russia have been replaced by China and the United States of America (USA). However, those two new protagonists are not at war against each other in the military sense of the word: their battlefields are politics and economy, and the weapons used are no longer battleships and torpedoes but press conferences and money. Indeed, it has become common to read articles in newspapers stating that the USA government is demanding Chinese authorities to raise the value of the Renminbi (RMB, the Chinese currency, counted in Yuan).
