China And Japan Case Study

Pailey Wang: China, Japan and the Western World during the 19th Century.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, China and Japan faced very similar set of circumstances in relation to their respective relationships with the West. Both nations had isolationist policies, which saw Western trade operate through a one port system. In the face of rapid technological advancement and industrialisation in the West, both nations were forced to open to trade, and sign unequal treaties in the face of a new imperial Western military might. It is thus prevalent to ask why Japan saw a period modernisation and economic growth at the close of the Century, whilst China remained stagnant. Thus, herein this dissertation will seek to explain how China and Japan’s

From the mid-18th Century, China had operated under the so-called “Canton system”, which routed all Western trade through the port of Guangzhou. A small group of traders known as the Cohong were granted a monopoly on trade with Westerners, and acted as intermediaries for the imperial Qing government by collecting tax and duties on trade they undertook. Trade could only occur in the “thirteen factories”, a neighbourhood of warehouses and offices next to the port, that where the Western were confined. Strict restrictions saw Chinese nationals banned from borrowing money from or employing “foreign barbarians”, and further Chinese traders were banned from getting information about the market situation from Western traders. Westerner traders were banned from learning Chinese. From the 17th Century, Japan had operated on a similar and arguably more isolationist policy known as sakoku, meaning “closed country”. Under this policy the only Western trade allowed was with the Dutch, which could only be conducted through the port of Dejima. The trading post at Dejima was operated by the Dutch East Indies Company, under constant supervision and surveillance by the Japanese. Importantly, it is through this system that Dutch traders sold

The First Opium War was fought from 1840 to 1842 in response to the confiscation of illegal British shipments of opium to China, and more generally reflected the Chinese refusal to open to trade on the terms of the British. The war saw China defeated by the technologically superior navy of Britain, and forced to sign the unequal Treaty of Nanjing. Even despite the concessions granted to Britain the Treaty of Nanjing, the British were unsatisfied with Chinas continued restrictions on trade and waged the Second Opium War with the French from 1856 to 1860, with the main aim of legalising opium. The Second Opium War was a success for Western traders, as it would result in the legalisation of the trade of opium, the opening of many more treaty ports and would allow Western traders to travel within China; effectively forcing the complete opening of China. When Japan was faced with the threat of gunboat diplomacy, as China had been a decade earlier, they had a vastly different approach which would see them open to trade on far more favourable terms than China had. In 1853, four United States Navy warships, led by Matthew Perry threatened to use force to open Japan to trade. The