Examples Of Japanese Isolationism

Japan and the West: Sakoku and Isolationism Japan has been one of the few examples in history of a major world power successfully adopting an ideology of isolationism. There were a number of events that led up to this exclusionary tactic, but the end result came about in a form of foreign policy known as sakoku (literally "closed-country"), which “culminated in the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1639, the eradication of Christianity, and the establishment of the Dutch monopoly” (Toby 323). This enclosure of Japan from the rest of the Western world would stay in place until the 1800’s when Matthew Perry would again open up contact with Japan, but the overall sentiment of sakoku and the restrictions placed on Japanese leaving
Unforeseen by the Dutch, the Portuguese and Spanish—who were extremely vigilant, but also antagonistic, both culturally and religiously—sought to undermine the Dutch by using their preexisting trade alliances with Japan to sully their name. However, the Dutch were able to convince the Shogunate that both Portugal and Spain only had self-serving and colonial interests in Japan. To the Tokugawa Shogunate, the presence and the heavily Christianizing elements of the first two foreign powers represented a threat to the daimyo who saw it as weakening his power and leading to a revolt among other daimyos, and thus Christianity experienced restrictions starting in 1612 (Goodman 12); fed up with the continued attempts by the Portuguese and their missionaries, this eventually led to the total ban of Portuguese and Spanish ships under penalty of death.
The one “exception was the Dutch, restricted to the small artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay” (Stanlaw 47), which became a proverbial portal for the Tokugawa and Japan in general. Even with this provision that Dutch trade was still allowed, the conditions were extremely stringent, with only one ship allowed per year and very limited access by the Dutch into Japanese society at large (Atsumi and Bernhofen
The two-fold “policies [were] designed to exterminate the subversive ideology of Roman Catholicism … and monopolize the profits of foreign trade” (Toby 325) by cutting off travel to and from Japan. What is interesting is that this was not quite as rigid as it appeared, and Japan still had very open lines of trade and communication with some of its other Asian partners, including Korea and China, and these trade routes and travel—albeit heavily restricted—were probably essential to the maintenance of the Bakufu (or new ruling political system) which had cropped up in Japan. Still, for the average citizen, and even those who were of Chinese or Korean descent, the decree would have more or less officially cut them off from their homeland and the rest of the world. All the same, it is fascinating to look at the effects on both Japanese and Dutch culture as a result of this two-way interface. During the entire breadth of the sakoku ban, both Holland and Japan’s other trading partners were not seen so much as competing and as individual nation-states, but as subsidiary provinces of the Japanese empire—a perspective that was most likely allowed to foment within their