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Japan–United Kingdom relations

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British–Japanese relations
Map indicating locations of United Kingdom and Japan

United Kingdom
Japan

The history of the relationship between Britain and Japan began in 1600 with the arrival of William Adams (Adams the Pilot, Miura Anjin) on the shores of Kyūshū at Usuki in Ōita Prefecture. During the Sakoku period (1641–1853), there were no relations between the two countries, but the treaty of 1854 saw the resumption of ties which, despite a hiatus during the Second World War, remain very strong up until the present day. On 3 May 2011, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Japan was "unquestionably our closest partner in Asia".

Chronology of Anglo-Japanese relations

  • 1587. Two young Japanese men named Christopher and Cosmas sailed on a Spanish galleon to California, where their ship was seized by Thomas Cavendish. Cavendish brought the two Japanese men with him to England where they spent approximately three years before going again with him on his last expedition to the South Atlantic. They are the first known Japanese men to have set foot in England.
William Adams (1564–1620).
  • 1605. John Davis, the famous English explorer, was killed by Japanese pirates off the coast of Thailand, thus becoming the first known Englishman to be killed by a Japanese.[1]
The 1613 letter of King James I remitted to Tokugawa Ieyasu (Preserved in the Tokyo University archives)
  • 1613. Following an invitation from the William Adams in Japan, the English captain John Saris arrived at Hirado in the ship Clove with the intent of establishing a trading factory. Adams and Saris travelled to Shizuoka where they met with Tokugawa Ieyasu at his principal residence in September before moving on to Edo where they met Ieyasu's son Hidetada. During that meeting, Hidetada gave Saris two varnished suits of armour for King James I, today housed in the Tower of London.[2] On their way back, they visited Tokugawa once more, who conferred trading privileges on the English through a Red Seal permit giving them "free licence to abide, buy, sell and barter" in Japan.[3] The English party headed back to Hirado on 9 October 1613. However, during the ten year activity of the company between 1613 and 1623, apart from the first ship (Clove in 1613), only three other English ships brought cargoes directly from London to Japan.
  • 1623. The Amboyna massacre occurred. After the incident England closed its commercial base at Hirado, now in Nagasaki Prefecture, without notifying Japan. After this, the relationship ended for more than two centuries.
  • 1639. Tokugawa Iemitsu announced his Sakoku policy. Only the Netherlands was permitted to retain limited trade rights.
  • 1808. HMS Phaeton enters Nagasaki to attack Dutch shipping.
  • 1832. Otokichi, Kyukichi and Iwakichi, castaways from Aichi Prefecture, crossed the Pacific and were shipwrecked on the west coast of North America. The three Japanese men became famous in the Pacific Northwest and probably inspired Ranald MacDonald to go to Japan. They joined a trading ship to the UK, and later Macau. One of them, Otokichi, took British citizenship and adopted the name John Matthew Ottoson. He later made two visits to Japan as an interpreter for the Royal Navy.
  • 1861. 5 July. The British legation in Edo was attacked.
The First Japanese Embassy to Europe, in 1862
  • 1867. The Icarus affair, an incident involving the murder of two British sailors in Nagasaki, leading to increased diplomatic tensions between Britain and the Tokugawa shogunate.
  • 1872. The Iwakura mission visited Britain as part of a diplomatic and investigative tour of the United States and Europe.
Photo at Knightsbridge by W. S. Gilbert, c. 1885
  • 1896. The Greek-born Northern Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn (KOIZUMI Yakumo), a British citizen, becomes a Japanese national.
  • 1913. The IJN Kongō, the last of the British-built warships for Japan's navy, enters service.
  • 1914. Japan joined World War I as the United Kingdom's ally under the terms of the alliance and captured German-occupied Tsingtao (Qingdao) in China Mainland.
  • 1921. Crown Prince Hirohito visited the UK and other European countries, via Singapore. It was the first time that a Japanese crown prince had traveled overseas.
  • 1921. Arrival in September of the Sempill Mission in Japan, a British technical mission for the development of Japanese Aero-naval forces.
  • 1923. The Anglo-Japanese alliance was officially discontinued on 17 August after U.S. pressure and other factors brought it to a close.
  • 1939. The Tientsin Incident almost causes an Anglo-Japanese war when the Japanese blockade the British concession in Tientsin, China.
  • 1966. The Beatles played at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo to overwhelming adulation. This performance emphasized growing good will between Britain and Japan in their foreign relations policies.
  • 1971. HIM Emperor Hirohito pays a state visit to the United Kingdom after an interval of 50 years.[6]
  • 1978. Beginning of the BET scheme (British Exchange Teaching Programme) first advocated by Nicholas MacLean.[8]
  • 1990. The Alumni Association for British JET Participants JETAA UK is established
  • 2001. The year-long "Japan 2001" cultural-exchange project saw a major series of Japanese cultural, educational and sporting events held around the UK.
  • 2008. UK-Japan 2008 celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce.[11]
  • 2011. UK sends over rescue men with rescue dogs and supplies to help the Japanese, after the earthquake.
  • 2012. A UK trade delegation to Japan, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, announces an agreement to jointly develop weapons systems.

See also the chronology on the British Embassy website in Tokyo.[12]

Britons in Japan

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

The chronological list of Heads of the United Kingdom Mission in Japan.

Japanese in the United Kingdom

(see article Japanese in the United Kingdom).

The family name is given in italics. Usually the family name comes first, but in modern times not so for the likes of Kazuo Ishiguro and Katsuhiko Oku, both well known in the United Kingdom.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

List of Japanese diplomatic envoys in Great Britain (partial list)

Ministers Plenipotentiaries

Ambassadors

See also

Reference books

Notes

  1. ^ Stephen Turnbull, "Fighting ships of the Far East (2), p 12, Osprey Publishing
  2. ^ Notice at the Tower of London
  3. ^ The Red Seal permit was re-discovered in 1985 by Professor Hayashi Nozomu, in the Bodleian Library. Massarella, Derek; Tytler Izumi K. (1990) "The Japonian Charters" Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp 189–205.
  4. ^ Thierry Mormane : "La prise de possession de l'île d'Urup par la flotte anglo-française en 1855", Revue Cipango, "Cahiers d'études japonaises", No 11 hiver 2004 pp. 209-236.
  5. ^ Information about 1885–87 Japanese exhibition at Knightsbridge
  6. ^ a b "Ceremonies: State visits". Official web site of the British Monarchy. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
  7. ^ "OUTWARD STATE VISITS MADE BY THE QUEEN SINCE 1952". Official web site of the British Monarchy. Retrieved 2008-11-25.
  8. ^ http://linguanews.com/php_en_news_read.php?section=s2&idx=2321
  9. ^ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  10. ^ "UK: Akihito closes state visit". BBC News. 1998-05-29. Retrieved 2008-11-25.
  11. ^ http://www.ukjapan2008.jp/
  12. ^ http://www.uknow.or.jp/be_e/uk_japan/relations/
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