Hidden Catalyst of the Meiji Reformaiton

Japan opened up to the world in 1854 when the Tokugawa Shogunate signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States. Within five years Japan had signed similar treaties with most Western powers, but most of these treaties were invalidated in 1868 when the Shogunate was overthrown and the Emperor returned to power, begining the Meiji Restoration.

I was just reading about the contribution of British diplomat Ernest Satow to this event. Stationed in Japan in the 1860s, Satow anonymously authored three articles in the spring of 1866 in the English language Japan Times titled ‘British Policy.’ Satow frankly asked why the Shogun made treaties with the British and other nations without recognizing the Emperor’s existence. Was the Emperor not the official head of Japan and the Shogun his domestic administrator? Were such treaties valid? Was the Shogun being straight with its subjects, or the Emperor himself? Satow demanded to know who really ruled Japan, and the articles angered many Japanese leaders when they were translated and distributed under the title 蔹±å”ºÂ½Ã§Â­”“è«”“ (Eikoku Sakuron). Satow’s articles probably hastened the onset of the Meiji Restoration.

Satow later admitted in his memoir A Diplomat in Japan that a diplomat should never interfere in the politics of a country in which he served and his actions were probably rash and inappropriate. But such were the ways of the crafty British as they spread their Empire across the globe in the 19th century, as any scholar of the Great Game is well familiar. And in this case, perhaps they did more good than harm.