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Sakoku Isolationism

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“Sakoku” is a Japanese word that means exactly “closing country”. In this era, nobody could go outside of the country neither other countries couldn’t come into the country. Sakoku was the best option and the way that Japanese Shogun had because Japan wasn’t trying to make the country of Japan bigger.
Sakoku is well known as isolationism in other countries because of the different government of European countries. When Japan closed the country, European countries were in the “Age of Exploration” which means that every country wanted to have more wealth, territories and slaves. But Japan didn’t want to be a territory of those country so Japan decided to be independent from all other countries. So for the Japanese “sakoku” meant “independence” not “isolationism”. Before the Edo era, Japan never had no …show more content…

This arrival of the ship was shocking for the people in Japan because they realizes how much they were under developed just by looking at the ship. The owner and the man who brought the kurofune was called Matthew Perry who was a commodore of the United States Navy.
He wanted Japan to open the country because American needed a commercial hub to trade with other countries in Asia.
After seeing the power of the western country, Japanese government decided to open the country. So Tokugawa gave all the power back to the Emperor and the lords which were almost 300, gave back their all power. This was called “Meiji-Ishin” which means Meiji Restoration. In this era, Japan tried to get as open as possible to catch up to the western countries. Japan invited a lot of teachers, farmers, doctors, and directors of training soldiers. This changed a lot of Japanese people’s lifestyles.
In Meiji Restoration Japan decided to all the people from all the classes to be equal except the emperor. This meant that shogunates and farmers became into the same

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They established an administrative system that created rules, had officials watch over the villages to enforce rules/laws, things were regulated, etc. They changed tax and forced labor systems. They also redistributed land. This is significant because it shows how the Japanese government was able to benefit and organize their communities and establish laws. In Doc 1 written by the Roman historian, Florus in c.150 says that there should not be a war with slaves and men should not be forced to follow the rules of a cruel ruler.

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Japan didn’t open to foreigners until the mid-19th century. Japan quickly realized the situation and began to modernize and westernize as fast as possible. Japan wanted to be strong enough to resist domination of western imperialists who wanted Japan for their own. Japan also wanted to become the strongest Asian country. Japan’s tactics of rapid modernization succeeded, and kept the country and government independent of foreign control.

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One reason was the fact that the United States began an embargo on Japan, ending the trade of Japanese weapons. This limited Japan from obtaining more resources in their expansion. Another reason was that Japan needed oil to help keep expanding and raise their economy. The U.S. Navy was in their way, by controlling the Philippines, which is why they thought they needed to get rid of them. Lastly, both Japan and the U.S. did not agree on each other’s ways of running government.

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The Meiji period played a important role in Japan. The Meiji period was an important part of Japan’s changing western ways. According to the book The Meiji Restoration was a period of pollical and social revolution in Japan. Japan chose to remake themselves through

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The blockage in trade resulted in heavy sufferings for Japan’s military. Previous Prime Minister Hideki Tojo expected the oil supply to last only two years before navy ships are compelled to stop moving (Doc E). Japan’s displeasure at this affair soon developed into an aspiration for revenge at Pearl

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Before this industrialization in 1968, was the Boshin war, which was directly responsible for the Meiji Restoration, due to the fact that after the war, Japan wanted to have one central power, which resulted in Japan’s government wanting to become like an already successful government with one central power, America, however they did not want America’s culture, but merely the style of government, which resulted in Japan becoming much more western. Then after the war, the Meiji Restoration started, which was the new government taking over Japan, this started a westernization movement in Japan, and during this westernization, industrialization started, and then it settled all throughout Japan, building factories, and machines. Similar to this, Russia experienced the Crimean war, which was essentially a wake-up call for Russia to industrialize after it’s terrible loss to both Britain and France, to add to the losses, after that, Japan and Russia fought, and Russia lost horribly, which shocked the entire

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The question that many have asked is why Japan saw the need to attack the Pearl Harbor naval base. Americans still wonder and search for something that

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At the time, Japan did not have the necessary natural resources an industrial nation required; therefore, the United States and the western parts of Europe were supplying Japan with these resources: coal, iron, steel, copper, rubber, and petroleum (Higgs). Without these resources, Japan would collapse in a matter of months. In order to sustain their military, they would need coal, iron, steel, and petroleum to supply their military. Japan had to act fast, or else their whole economy would crumble. On the islands that American took away from Japan during the imperialist stages in the late 19th century, such as Hawaii and the Philippians, had these resources.

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Japan took over many small islands in the Pacific such as Manchuria, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Tonking, Peking, Shanghai, and Hong Kong (Doc B). Japan established a puppet state in Manchuria in 1932. A puppet state is controlling a state or country by another state or country done in secret. In 1938, Japan declares it’s policy to establish a “new order” in East Asia (Doc C). The “new order” that Japan announced in 1938 was to make East Asia’s power fall so that Japan could take East Asia over (Doc C).

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The leaders hoped that this would be a new mode for Japan, which they called the “Unity of Rites and Rule”. Japan Japan could not maintain its policy of isolation and had to open it’s doors to the rest of the world. This was because: The world economy was more dependant on trading, Japan had already harmed the Ainu people, more European countries wanted to trade with Japan, the European’s were becoming too powerful, the United States were threatening Japan, they were already exposed to new philosophies of the west, many Bakufu already secretly visited the western countries, and lastly the enemies of the shogun and the bakufu used the civil unrest to make treaties to their advantage. Economy

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Secondly, restrictions the United States also had an interest in the natural resources just like Japan. So the United States Congress placed a restriction on Japan to monitor their movements and lastly, expansion

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(Carrol) Japan was very traditional during the Tokugawa Shogunate; there were a number of changes under the shogun rule in Japan which were very similar to those seen in the industrial revolution in England. The shogun also tried to close japan to western influence, by prohibiting things such as Christianity

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“To guard against external influence, they also worked to close off Japanese society from Westernizing influences, particularly Christianity. When the Tokugawa shogunate grew increasingly weak by the mid-19th century, two powerful clans joined forces in early 1868 to seize power as part of an “imperial restoration” named for Emperor Meiji.” This restoration was the beginning of the end of feudalism, or the way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour, in Japan. The Tokugawa regime acted to exclude missionaries because of suspicion of foreign intervention and colonialism. Eventually, they issued a complete ban on Christianity in Japan.

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Baron Kentaro Kaneko, the Japanese minister of commerce and agriculture, stated, “Japan . . . occupies a small amount of land and has a large population, with little material out of which to manufacture, hence has to rely upon the material imported from other countries” (Document 37- DBQ 14). By industrializing, Japan was able to dominate in the sale of manufactured goods like textiles, to those areas abroad that it was closer to than the more powerful Western countries. The success in economics greatly advanced imperialism in nations with more money, trade, and raw

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But also change within the military occurred with the replacement of Samurai authority. Trying to be equal competitors in world power as their Western neighbors. Japan had gotten imperialist ideas from 1853 when the U.S. black ships steamed

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