The contact between Japan and Europeans didn't begin with the arrival of Commodore Perry, though. The first Europeans to arrive at Japan were Portuguese sailors who came to Tanegashima and introduced guns to warlords (1543), followed by Jesuit missionaries and traders, in the age of early modern colonialism in world history, and in the age of the late _sengoku_ (civil war) era (1467-1615) in Japanese history. The civil war in Japan (the process that eventually led to national unification of Japan, laying the crucial groundwork for Tokugawa development and Meiji modernization) apparently made it a great market for guns sold by Portuguese and other European merchants, but it is said that Japan was manufacturing its own guns and cannons by the late sixteenth century. As soon as the nation was more or less unified, Japan entered into a period of so-called _sakoku_, prohibiting Christianity (the first prohibition was issued in 1587), strictly regulating foreign trade (so as to prevent _daimyo_ [warlords] in the south of Japan from eroding the centralizing power of Edo by building alliances with Europeans independently of Edo), permitting only approved Dutch, Chinese, and Korean traders access to Japan, forbidding Japanese ships and subjects from leaving Japan and entering foreign nations without license, etc. _Sakoku_ lasted until 1867. Without nearly three centuries of _sakoku_ prior to Meiji, the Japanese power elite would not have been in a position to embark upon a program of self-directed modernization.
At 6:23 AM -0700 6/29/03, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>The Japanese response to imperialism can be contrasted with that of
>China in which a sense of disbelief that barbarians could ever
>breach the Middle Kingdom played a role in preventing elites from
>reacting in a coordinated fashion to the external threat.
China was no slouch in spotting and trying to counter deleterious influences of barbarians, but it was militarily defeated by the British Empire in the Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60). -- Yoshie
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