With a POD in 1800, somehow make the Meiji Reform fail in modernisation due to political secession, peasant uprising, or foreign influence - or something else.
If the pod is in 1800, wouldn't the traditional 'Shogunate survives' scenario do the trick? Foreign intervention only makes the Meiji Reforms more likely unless Japan gets colonized, and is rather unlikely. Peasant and shogun/ traditionalist uprising wise, there're some, but they need to succeed. By 'Meiji Reforms', no Emperor Meiji or himself receiving different education might do the trick if not having himself as the reformer does the trick.With a POD in 1800, somehow make the Meiji Reform fail in modernisation due to political secession, peasant uprising, or foreign influence - or something else.
If the pod is in 1800, wouldn't the traditional 'Shogunate survives' scenario do the trick? Foreign intervention only makes the Meiji Reforms more likely unless Japan gets colonized, and is rather unlikely. Peasant and shogun/ traditionalist uprising wise, there're some, but they need to succeed. By 'Meiji Reforms', no Emperor Meiji or himself receiving different education might do the trick if not having himself as the reformer does the trick.
Would less foreign influence [with stricter trade control] and nobody attempting to open up Japan do the trick?Well, by 1800 having the shogunate survive is quite a tough sell as it is, while it might plausibly be made to survive the uprising that led to Meiji Reformation, at some point the house of cards would collapse, its only a question of time.
And Meiji Reforms wasn't really a brainchild of Meiji, but he was used as a galleon figure, with little to no actual influence. The Japanese Emperor had for a very long time (since ~1200), been glorified prisoners of the current time Shogun only having symbolic authority (the portugese explorers likening him to the Pope, with the Shoguns to Secular Rulers (Holy Roman Emperor to keep the analogy), and the changes didn't really touch this fact, instead making Japan into an Oligracy led by leaders of Satsuma and Chōshū and bigshot samurais that succesfully realigned themselves into being merchants
Would less foreign influence [with stricter trade control] and nobody attempting to open up Japan do the trick?
Can it be said that the OTL People's Rep. of China can be an extended analogy? Stable conservative government through strong leadership in a skewed political system seems to be a parallel characteristic.No ... well, it would probably help slightly, but in and by it self it wouldn't help the Shogunate survive. And thats not even considering the reasoning why there wouldn't be foreign influence, which had been there near constantly (to differing degrees) since 1600s. Trying to shut the Door from the japanese side on the influence was tried (by limiting foreign trade to Nagasaki, and banning missionaries), but by and large it was a failure, as it argubly merely speeded up the pressure from foreign nations to open up the country.
You would need to have the last couple of generations of Shoguns to be hyper-competent politicians both internally and foreign, to dodge the bullet, as there is a number of forces pressuring them on internal or external lines, many of which are mutually hostile to each other.
IMHO you would have to have a very different history between exploring and merchantiling europeans and quite a few of the asian nations (China, Korea and Japan at the very least, probably also have to include southeast asia to deaden the knock-on ripples), probably by making them much more resilient towards european interference. These changes on the other hand can release a whole cloud of butterflies which might do all kinds of funny stuff to the Tokugawa shogunate so it might as well topple them faster than slower.
Its probably possible, but its very tricky and would need at least a handful of PoDs working simultaneously, some of them likely being before 1800