Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

===Japan===
{{Main|Meiji Restoration|Economic history of Japan}}
The Industrial Revolution began about 1870 as [[Meiji period]] leaders decided to catch up with the West. The government built railways, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development. It inaugurated a new Western-based education system for young people, sent thousands of students to the US and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages ([[Foreign government advisors in Meiji Japan]]).

In 1871, a group of Japanese politicians known as the [[Iwakura Mission]] toured Europe and the US to learn Western ways. The result was a deliberate state-led industrialisation policy to enable Japan to quickly catch up. The [[Bank of Japan]], founded in 1882,<ref>{{cite web|title=History|url=https://www.boj.or.jp/en/about/outline/history/index.htm/|website=Bank of Japan|access-date=5 May 2015|archive-date=4 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804130849/https://www.boj.or.jp/en/about/outline/history/index.htm/|url-status=live}}</ref> used taxes to fund model steel and textile factories. Modern industry first appeared in textiles, including cotton and especially silk, which was based in home workshops in rural areas.<ref>G.C. Allen, ''Short Economic History of Modern Japan'' (1972)</ref>