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My apologies; I know there's been kind of fad of "What if X pulled a Tanzimat?" threads as of late, but given the unique situation of the island Shogunate relative to more popular potential "Non-Abrahamic" Empires I thought we could cover it. Especially with the latest news about about the latest flare-up of violence on Kyushu between the Kirishitan separatists and local government forces.

As I'm sure you're all aware (But just to give a quick context for the conversation), Nippon had been in a state of self-imposed Anti-Western isolation for centuries following the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate, in an effort to crack down on the Jesuit as a potential dissident/destabilizing element in Nipponese society, protect the domestic merchant class from foreign competition, and insure the continuation of his newly-established caste system without running the risk of introducing new ideas to the Daiymo which could lead to a new Sengoku Jihdi. While it did wonders for the nation's stability; unlike its Korean and Chinese neighbors Japan would "enjoy" nothing that could remotely be called a civil war or an invasion, this self-imposed hermit status ultimately lead to technological and cultural stagnation, especially since paternal inheritance of social position was strictly enforced thus preventing the rise of many talented low-borns to the bureaucracy or crafts. This meant that, by the time the three great naval powers blew open the trade ports of China and Korea in the Opium and Hashish Wars in the early 1800's and turned their attention to the Isles, Nippon remained essentially a pike-and-shot society, who's unpracticed Samurai warriors couldn't stand up to French cannon and who's artisans were quickly driven out of business by British and Ottoman workshops, exploiting the diffused power of the Daiymo to carve the nation into spheres of commerical-political influence by 1900, leaving the shogun as as powerless a figurehead as the Muhgal Emperor in the Red Fort.

The question is though; did Japan have the cultural dynamism and economic factors to effectively "pull a Tanzimat"; industrializing its economy and streamlining its government and military to the point it could join the "Big Six" Great Powers in the Imperial game? Given their lack of domestic raw materials and the inability to get them without having a navy capable of projecting power onto the mainland (Where they'd have to face off against a much more populous China), I hestitate to say its possible even if they continued trading with and adopting the innovations of the Dutch.

(OOC: In case it wasen't obvious, "Pulling a Tanzimat" is TTL's equivilent of "Pulling a Meiji", since of course Emperor Meiji didn't 'pull' anything)
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