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 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