JAPAN HAD REMAINED ISOLATIONIST?

While Japan keeps its distance, overall supremacy of the region could be up for grabs

- David J. Williamson

For centuries Japan had looked inward rather than out into the wider world. There had been relative peace, and a way of life that enabled a thriving population to feel comfortable in its culture and beliefs, untainted by Western influence. But in many ways the regime was harsh and unforgiving so, inevitably, things were bound to change. But if that change had not come, or come more slowly, what would the real difference have been to Japan itself, and what impact would its continued isolation have had on the region and the wider world?

What did Japan have that the world wanted?

Not very much, which was why the world's great powers had for the most part left Japan alone up until the 1850s. It wasn't a land of fabled riches, as India was. Nor were there expected to be particularly exciting trading opportunities, as was the case with China. During Japan's period of relative isolation from the West, which began when contact was severed with Spain and Portugal in the early 1600s, the only trade with Western countries was with the Dutch. That trade pootled along nicely for 200 years or so, but didn't generate the kind of green-eyed envy back in Europe that might have led other countries to try to muscle in.

What, then, changed in the 1850s? An important part of the picture was the United States expanding westward to the point where its neighbours across the Pacific started to be of interest - both diplomatically, and in terms of assisting American shipping if it got into trouble in waters around Japan. The Russians, too, had been expanding their empire in Japan's direction, while British and French involvement in China rendered Japan of greater interest than in the past. No great power wanted to be left behind if trading and diplomatic relations with Japan were going to be established by a rival, so once things got going the momentum then became unstoppable.