To what extent was Tokugawa Japan an isolated country?

Political Stability
1. Foreigners were believed to have opened Japan to 'corruption' through Christianity
2. Spread of Christianity associated with social distruption
3. Tokugawa established a monopoly on the conduct of external trade relations as a means to legitimise its new power
4. Social and political structure based on Chinese model
5. 'To enhance it's own authority, the bakufu brought the management of Japan's foreign relations under it's firm control' - Pyle
Extensive Trading Links
1. Commercial ties with east and southeast Asia
2. Non-official trade with China
3. Trade with Okiinawa and Ryuku Islands
4. By 1700 trade with Korea earned Tushima profits equal to the largest rice tax in Japan
Dutch Influence
1. Imported books an important source of western knowledge
2. Military technology particularly important - cannons
3. 'National seclusion...meant that Japan was substantially cut off from what was happening beyond East Asia' - Beasley
4. Politically neutral information i.e medicine
5. Translation bureau established in Edo
6. 'foreign learning is rational and chinese learning is not' -Mizuno Tadakuni
Japan was becoming increasingly less isolated
1. 'Hostility to the west gradually declined as curiosity overcame suspicion' - Beasley
2. Once Christianity had been brought under control, the Japanese relaxed their anti-western policy
3. Japanese attitudes to the west hardened in the early 1800's due to renewed western interest
4. Nativist movement - eastern ethics, western science
5. Ban on foreign books relaxed in 1720

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To what extent was Tokugawa Japan an isolated country?

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	Created by Lizzy Cryar about 10 years ago