Why is Trading with different countries so important and why did the US force japan to trade internationally even if they didn’t want to ?
In: Economics
It’s worth noting that the image of Japan as this totally isolated place is kind of a misnomer.
Japan throughout the Edo period did trade internationally, but trade was strictly regulated by the central government and the ability of foreigners to travel Japan and access its markets was heavily constrained. The Japanese government by the time of Perry had essentially stopped trading with anyone but the Dutch and a lot of that trade happened off Japanese soil.
But so did trade with everyone else. It’s was pretty commonplace in this era for Japanese sailors to leave Japan, trade with European merchants outside of Shogunate authority and then travel back. Unofficial trade was common and prosperous through Korea via Tsushima, and the Okinawan and Ryukyu islands which existed out of direct Shogunate control.
For the US however they wanted more direct and open trade access and they wanted to use Japanese ports to trade further with Asia as well as whale, fish, and sell goods more directly to the Japanese market where they could get a better price than the leap-frog trade that existed under the Shogunate.
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