Pre-Sakoku Japan and Catholicism

I'm confused by some of the responses. Why does a Catholic Japan mean an expansionist Japan?

OTL Japan deliberately cut itself off from the rest of the world - barring any foreign visitors and overseas travel by Japanese, and drastically restricting foreign trade.

ATL Japan has instead adopted a new creed which makes Japanese members of an international community.

Thus there will be no barriers preventing Japanese influence from spreading out.

Furthermore, Japanese rulers and merchants will be about as ambitious anyone else, and Japan sits on the edge of a vast power vacuum. In the early 1600s, the Pacific is wide open. Even a modest level of adventuring will spread Japanese control very widely.
 
The trouble there is that the Emperor really helped to bind the country together. No matter what the actual political situation looked like there was always the emperor of Japan whose religious role is often gravely overlooked.

Or grossly exaggerated, IMHO. I've read a fair amount about the Sengoku period, and the Emperor was nothing.

Plus, of course, ITTL, Japanese have mostly become Catholics, for whom the Emperor's "religious role" is nothing.

Japan was traditionally seen as a true empire, a collection of different countries, not a mere kingdom with separate regions. You can see it in the names of several places in Japan, e.g. 四国-Shikoku-4 kingdoms.

One of the major goals of the Meiji Restoration was in destroying the ancient order of Japan as an empire of different lands and creating a single truly united modern nation-state.

I would see Japan fracturing before any single man establishes a new shogunate. The chaos of Catholicism overtaking the country would provoke a lot of fighting in itself.

This raises a possibility - Catholicized Japan may not remain united. This seems unlikely, as there was no history of a separate state in the Home Islands in the previous millenium, but perhaps that was because of Imperial symbolism.

As to the existence of a non-white power- I really wouldn't see this as such an issue. Modern conceptions of race didn't really exist at all at the time.

Let's say non-European. And while "race" in the 19th century sense was not a concept in 1600, I think Europeans made a very sharp distinction between them and everyone else.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Or grossly exaggerated, IMHO. I've read a fair amount about the Sengoku period, and the Emperor was nothing.

Plus, of course, ITTL, Japanese have mostly become Catholics, for whom the Emperor's "religious role" is nothing.

It might mean something if a concept is developed to maintain the position of the Emperor and the imperial family, or alternatively the Emperor could not convert and remain the leader of whatever Shintoists remain.

This raises a possibility - Catholicized Japan may not remain united. This seems unlikely, as there was no history of a separate state in the Home Islands in the previous millenium, but perhaps that was because of Imperial symbolism.

There might also be the possibility the Sengoku Period continuing or restarting, but turning into a religious war between Catholics and Shintoists, and perhaps turning into a three way conflict when the Reformation occurs. Whose to say the number of factions doesn't increase from there?

Let's say non-European. And while "race" in the 19th century sense was not a concept in 1600, I think Europeans made a very sharp distinction between them and everyone else.

The idea of "race" means whatever the person talking about it wants it to.
 
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