![]() Negotiating trade treaties with China increased its interest in Japan. The problem was that Japan rebuffed nearly all the attempts made to open its shores.īy the middle of the 1840s, while expanding across the North American continent, the United States began to turn its own attention towards Asia. Although China was often the main focus of their efforts-the British fought the “Opium War” (1839-1842) in order to get more lucrative trading deals and more ports to trade in-Japan was never forgotten. By the beginning of the 19 th Century, however, Europeans were increasingly looking towards Asia for new markets, and new technologies allowed their ships to reach Asian shores faster than ever before. ![]() The advent of the 19 th century Steam Age and the renewed interest of the Western World in Asia meant that no longer would the West mostly ignore Japan-now it was an island, a link, in the middle of that great chain of commerce that stretched from Europe to China to the Americas, and it was therefore crucial to the success of current and future commercial endeavors.įor nearly three centuries, the Japanese had purposefully closed themselves off to the outside world, trading only with the Chinese and the Dutch and even then only in small quantities and infrequently. “It is the President’s opinion that steps should be taken at once to enable our enterprising merchants to supply the last link in that great chain which unites all nations of the world, by the early establishment of a line of steamers from California to China.” So begins a letter of instructions from Secretary of State Daniel Webster to Commodore John Aulick in June of 1851 on the subject of “opening” Japan to the outside world.
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