Commodore matthew perry visits to japan in 1853 and 1854 resulted in the?

Answer 1

Manifold. Firstly, it was a demonstration of the power of the Westerners. Japan was forced to sign treaties allowing foreign ships to refuel in Japan without the threat of death (which is how they had dealt with lost trading ships before), and they were forced to allow foreign trading interests acces to certain ports. The emperor, at the urging of imperialist clans such as the Satsuma, had forced the Shogun to rescind the trading agreements enacted with foreigners a few years before, in an effort to close Japan to the outside world again. Perry's arrival undid this. It triggered the Bakumatsu, the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate that had ruled since the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Japan became split into those clans loyal to the military dictator of Japan, the Tokugawa Shogun, and those loyal to the emperor. They wished to see the emperor as not only the spiritual leader of Japan, but as the temporal leader as well. Their rallying cry was "Sonno Joi," "Revere the emperor, Expel the Barbarians." This time of upheaval has seen much fictionalization, describing the wars between clans to see who would become dominant, with the Shinsengumi and Ishin Shishi representing the shogunate and Imperial slides. Anyway, the imperialists were eventually successful, and the emperor was suddenly no longer a figurehead, but the holder of incredible powers over his people. Japan was able to modernize at an astonishing speed. To put it in another way, a boy born before the Bakumatsu would have lived in a feudal society, with swords, bows and arrows, castles, lords and ladies, etc., and when he was an old man, he would have seen the construction of industry, railroads, the introduction of electricity, guns, and foreign technologies. The unfortunate part of all this is as follows: the japanese had the opportunity to create a constitutional monarchy, or at least a parliamentary system with limited powers in the hands of the emperor, but instead they chose autocracy. Much of this can be put into the hands of Meiji and Hirohito, who could have given power to the legislature, but repeatedly (especially in the case of Hirohito in WW2 years) fought against democratic forces and reserved supreme power for themselves. As such, Japanese society became reshaped around the reverence of the Emperor. The Emperor was the head of the nation, his will was that of the country Japan itself. The orders of a military officer, or of ones superior became an order from the emperor himself. The emperor was the voice of the Gods and the naton, so that disobeying a temporal law was disobeying a religious law. This was an outlook that would come to color everything the Japanese did. Examine note atrocities committed by the Japanese in WW2. When the emperor gave his "three alls plan" in China, "kill all, burn all, rape all," what was the average soldier supposed to do? These people were inferiors and identified as enemies of the state, therefore enemies of thenemperor, and therefore enemies of the gods. There can be a line drawn, from the moment when those cannons of Perry's fleet roared their displeasure, abruptly waking Japan up from its 2.5 century sleep and demonstrating the power of the imperial West, to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. China, the Middle Kingdom, the Neverending Empire was now the thrall of these Westerners. Japan sought to emulate the power which had brought low the greatest enemy (and at times, ally) Japan had ever known, that of Imperialism. On a rising tide of Japanese nationalism, a nationalism which was justified by the gods themselves, the Yamato people became blinded to their actions. They were betrayed by their leadership, who said that any atrocity they committed could be forgiven, that they were fighting a just cause, that the Chinese, Philipinos, and other peoples of South East Asia deserved whatever happened to them. Like the Europeans they emulated, they pushed aside the opinions of other people's and pushed their hegemony onto their less developed neighbors. Why were we so surprised any Pearl Harbor? We had created this beast. We watched as they struggled in infancy to find a government, and we did nothing to help th, only seeking to protect our own interest. Peril Harbor was our chickens coming back to roost: we created this monster, it was fitting that we must deal with it. So you wanted to know the the result of Commodore Perry's arrival in Japan? Now you know. May we never forget it.

Answer 2

opening of trade and diplomatic relations with Japan