Sakoku

Sakoku (Japanese: 鎖国, literally "country in chains" or "lock up of country") was the foreign relations policy of the Tokugawa shogunate, whereby nobody, whether foreign or Japanese, could enter or leave Japan on penalty of death. This lasted from 1641 to 1853 in the History of Japan, though the term was not coined until the 19th century. It was still illegal to leave Japan until the Meiji restoration.

A Chinese junk in Japan, at the beginning of the Sakoku period (1644-1648 Japanese woodblock print).

In theory, the only foreign influence permitted was the Dutch "factory" (trading post) at Dejima in Nagasaki, but trade with China was also handled at Nagasaki; in addition, trade with Korea was conducted via Tsushima Province (today part of Nagasaki prefecture) and with the Kingdom of Ryukyu Islands via Satsuma Province (today's Kagoshima prefecture). Apart from these direct commercial contacts in peripheral provinces, all of these countries sent regular tributary missions to the shogunate's seat in Edo, which traveled long stretches across Japan, thus giving even regular folk a chance at a glimpse at foreign cultures.

Trade under Sakoku

Japan traded at this time for four different entities. These entities were: the Korean Kingdom, the Dutch (through the Dutch East India Company), the Chinese (through private traders), and the Ryukyu Islands. Tashiro Kazui has shown that trade between Japan and these entities was divided into two kinds of trade: Group A in which he places China and the Dutch, "whose relations fell under the direct jurisdiction of the Bakufu at Nagasaki" and Group B, represented by the Korean kingdom and the Ryukyu kingdom, "who dealt with Tsushima (the Sō clan) and Satsuma (the Shimazu clan) domains respectively."

These two different groups of trade basically reflected a pattern of incoming and outgoing trade. The outgoing trade flowing out from Japan to Korea and the Ryukyu kingdom, eventually being brought from those places to China. In the Ryukyu's and Korea, the respective domains put in charge of trade, built trading towns where actually commerce took place, so in that sense trade to these places was an outgoing trade. The trade with Chinese and Dutch traders took place directly at Nagasaki with the traders coming to Japan instead of Japanese traders going to them.

Rationale

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Japan's first treatise on Western anatomy, published in 1774, an example of "Rangaku". Tokyo National Science Museum.

The Sakoku policy was a way of controlling commerce with other nations as well as asserting its new place in the East Asian hierarchy, one that helped push Japan away from tributary relations that had existed between itself and China for multiple centuries before hand. Later on the Sakoku policy was the main safeguard against against the total depletion of Japanese mineral resources, such as silver and copper, to the outside world; although, while silver exportation through Nagasaki was controlled by the Bakufu to the point of stopping all exportation, the exportation of silver through Korea continued in relatively high quantities.

The way Japan kept abreast of Western technology during this period was by studying medical and other texts in the Dutch language obtained through Dejima. This process was called "Rangaku" (Dutch studies). It became obsolete after the country was opened and the sakoku policy collapsed. Thereafter, many Japanese students (e.g. Kikuchi Dairoku) were sent to study in foreign countries, and many foreign employees were employed in Japan (see o-yatoi gaikokujin).

This policy ended with the Convention of Kanagawa in response to demands made by Commodore Perry.

Challenges to seclusion

Many isolated attempts to end Japan's seclusion were made by expanding Western powers during the 18th and 19th century. American, Russian and French ships all attempted to engage in relationship with Japan, but were rejected.

Japanese drawing of the HMS Phaeton in Nagasaki harbour in 1808.

• In 1778, a merchant from Yakutsk by the name of Pavel Lebedev-Lastoschkin arrived in Hokkaido with a small expedition. He offered gifts, and politely asked to trade in vain.
• In 1787, La Perouse (1741–1788) navigates in Japanese waters in 1787. He visit the Ryukyu island, and the strait between Hokkaido and Honshu, giving it his name.
• In 1791, two American ships commanded by the American explorer Kendrick stop for 11 days on Kii Oshima island, south of the Kii Peninsula. He is the first known American to have visited Japan. He apparently planted an American flag and claimed the islands, although accounts of his visit in Japan are inexistant.
• From 1797 to 1809, several American ships traded in Nagasaki under the Dutch flag, upon the request of the Dutch who were not able to send their own ships because of their conflict against Britain during the Napoleonic Wars:

• In 1797 US Captain William Robert Stewart, commissioned by the Dutch from Batavia, takes the ship Eliza of New York to Nagasaki, Japan, with a cargo of Dutch trade goods.
• In 1803 William Robert Stewart returned onboard a ship named "The Emperor of Japan" (the stolen and renamed "Eliza of New York"), entered Nagasaki harbour and tried in vain to trade through the Dutch enclave of Dejima.
• Another American captain John Derby of Salem, tried in vain to open Japan to the opium trade.

• In 1804 a Russian envoy named Nikolai Rezanov, sailed into Nagasaki, to request trade exchanges. The bakufu refused the request, and the Russian attacked Sakhalin and the Kuril islands during the following three years, prompting the Bakufu to build up defenses in Ezo.
• In 1808, the English warship HMS Phaeton, raiding on Dutch shipping in the Pacific, sailed into Nagasaki under a Dutch flag, demanding and obtaining supplies by force of arms.
• In 1811, the Russian naval lieutenant Vasily Golovnin landed on Kunashiri Island, and was arrested by the Bakufu and emprisonned for 2 years.

Japanese drawing of the Morrison, anchored in front of Uraga in 1837.

In 1825, following a proposal by Takahashi Kageyasu, the Bakufu issued an "Order to Drive Away Foreign Ships" (Ikokusen uchiharairei, also known as the "Ninen nashi", or "No second thought" law), ordering coastal authorities to arrest or kill foreigners coming ashore.

• In 1837, an American businessman in Canton, named Charles W. King saw an opportunity to open trade by trying to return to Japan three Japanese sailors (among them, Otokichi) who had been shipwrecked a few years before on the coast of Oregon. He went to Uraga Channel with Morrison, an unarmed American merchant ship. The ship was fired upon several times, and finally sailed back unsuccessfully.

In 1842, following the news of the defeat of China in the Opium War and internal criticism following the Morisson incident, the Bakufu responded favorably to foreign demands for the right to refuel in Japan by suspending the order to execute foreigners and adopting the "Order for the Provision of Firewood and Water" (Shinsui kyuyorei).

The USS Columbus and an American crewman in Edo Bay in 1846, from the failed mission of James Biddle, depicted by a Japanese artist.

• In 1844, a French naval expedition under Captain Fornier-Duplan visits Okinawa on April 28, 1844. Trade is denied, but Father Forcade is left behind with a translator.
• In 1846, Commander James Biddle, sent by the United States Government to open trade, anchored in Tokyo Bay with two ships, including one warship armed with 72 cannons, but his demands for a trade agreement remained unsuccessful.
• In 1846, the French Admiral Cecille arrives in Nagasaki, but is denied landing.
• In 1848, Captain James Glynn sailed to Nagasaki, leading at last to the first successful negotiation by an American with "Closed Country" Japan. James Glynn recommended to the United States Congress that negotiations to open Japan should be backed up by a demonstration of force, thus paving the way to Perry's expedition.
• In 1849, the British Navy's HMS Mariner entered Uraga Harbour to conduct a topographical survey. Onboard was the Japanese castaway Otokichi, who acted as a translator. To avoid problems with the Japanese authorities, he disguised himself as Chinese, and said that he had learnt Japanese from his father, allegedly a businessman who had worked in relation with Nagasaki.

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Japanese 1854 print relating Perry's visit.

These largely unsuccesful attempts continued until, on July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy with four warships: Mississippi,Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna steamed into the Bay of Edo (Tokyo) and displayed the threatening power of his ships' Paixhans guns. He demanded that Japan open to trade with the West. These ships became known as the kurofune, the Black Ships.

End of seclusion

The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa (March 31, 1854), Perry returned with seven ships and forced the Shogun to sign the "Treaty of Peace and Amity", establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. Within five years Japan had signed similar treaties with other western countries. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858. These treaties were widely regarded by Japanese intellectuals as unequal, having been forced on Japan through gunboat diplomacy, and as a sign of the West's desire to incorporate Japan into the imperialism that had been taking hold of the continent. Among other measures, they gave the Western nations unequivocal control of tariffs on imports and the right of extraterritoriality to all their visiting nationals. They would remain a sticking point in Japan's relations with the West up to the turn of the century.

See also

• Isolationism