What if Japan remained isolationist until the present day?

What if Japan used trickery to make the West go away? Create an illusion that it has very few things to trade, or that a dangerous epidemic is active?
 
What if Japan used trickery to make the West go away? Create an illusion that it has very few things to trade, or that a dangerous epidemic is active?

The very few things to trade wouldn't help since Perry just wanted a place to refuel coal. Even if Japan had no coal to sell, he wanted to safely stock coal there and allow his ships to use as a base. Everything else was a bonus. And if you are pretending everyone is sick and pull it off, you can't argue with outsiders who come in to try to cure the plague. Using force to keep them away gives up the jig since those soldiers came form somewhere and obviously have a household that isn't affected.
 
What if Japan used trickery to make the West go away? Create an illusion that it has very few things to trade, or that a dangerous epidemic is active?

Then you go in and give it things to trade. If this looks like good farmland, why not give them something to grow and trade? You see that with Hawaii and Sugar Plantations.

A fake epidemic can only last so long. trying to keep up the charade will probably lead to "daring" individuals who are willing to help despite that it might cost them their lives.
 
Then you go in and give it things to trade. If this looks like good farmland, why not give them something to grow and trade? You see that with Hawaii and Sugar Plantations.

A fake epidemic can only last so long. trying to keep up the charade will probably lead to "daring" individuals who are willing to help despite that it might cost them their lives.
Not if some of the ship crew get infected...by accident.
 
Africa actually was a disease-ridden death-trap for Europeans for most of history; that didn't stop Europeans from going there. And creating a nationwide fake epidemic requires massive coordination beyond what Japan (or any other country of the time) is realistically capable of. Especially since the Dutch were already in Nagasaki (and have too much of a domestic constituency to be removed), and will probably have questions about this alleged epidemic.
 
What if we change Japan itself? What I mean is make it (at least partly) christian - shogun included. OTL Ethiopia was ignored much longer than the rest of Africa. And Japan could still shut itself of the world even if its christian.

It also would help if its one remaining trade partner was not the Netherlands but someone more influential. Like the brits.
 
I don't see this happening. The problem with keeping Tokugawa Japan isolationist is if Japan still lags behind in military advancements their going to try to rapidly pick the pace ala the Meiji reforms if the Europeans decide to threaten them. Japan still could try and become an imperial power if means trying to play by European rules. Yet military reforms could trickle down to the anti-Tokugawa lords, then it just becomes an *insert random year here* war, if and when they decided to rebel, the the Tokugawa made several steps in terms of warfare.

If we are taking isolation as in no aggressive Japan at, but still has contact with the outside, well that requires a pre-Tokugawa POD or several to keep Japan divided enough so that there is no central authority, you could have both Imagawa Yoshimoto and Oda Nobunaga die at Okehzama and leave the Imagawa weak, however you still have clans like the Mori, Shimazu, and Chosokabe that can rise and become powers in their own right, and to speculate what Japan might look even just 150 years from that point is hard.
 

trurle

Banned
I don't see this happening. The problem with keeping Tokugawa Japan isolationist is if Japan still lags behind in military advancements their going to try to rapidly pick the pace ala the Meiji reforms if the Europeans decide to threaten them. Japan still could try and become an imperial power if means trying to play by European rules. Yet military reforms could trickle down to the anti-Tokugawa lords, then it just becomes an *insert random year here* war, if and when they decided to rebel, the the Tokugawa made several steps in terms of warfare.

If we are taking isolation as in no aggressive Japan at, but still has contact with the outside, well that requires a pre-Tokugawa POD or several to keep Japan divided enough so that there is no central authority, you could have both Imagawa Yoshimoto and Oda Nobunaga die at Okehzama and leave the Imagawa weak, however you still have clans like the Mori, Shimazu, and Chosokabe that can rise and become powers in their own right, and to speculate what Japan might look even just 150 years from that point is hard.
I would add what support for Sakoku policies even in Bakufu was not absolute. IOTL, since Treaty of Nanking (1842) the end of Sakoku was firmly in the realm of the contingency plans of Bakufu, and preparations were made (most notably with Ranald MacDonald in 1848).
Nonetheless, if the isolation would continue until today..well, the Japan will be just one more poor insignificant country in East Asia (second Laos), most likely closely allied with Indonesia for historical reasons.
 
IMO the only way to make this happen would be to have an active overlord(ie China) that A) renders the idea of contesting Japan lunacy(this means early Chinawank) and B) is 100% on board with the internal autonomy of its tributaries, to a level of ideological zealotry. So in this scenario, Japan's largely able to enforce its isolation so long as they continue to kowtow to China and pay their yearly tribute. Still, internal elements will inevitably destroy this. There's no way in hell that you can enforce that degree of isolationism, and once knowledge of the outside world starts circulating(critically, the improved standard of living of most people) then expect that system to get destroyed, or for the government to start making specific exceptions, and so on, at which point you can start seeing the imminent demise of isolationism.
 
What if we change Japan itself? What I mean is make it (at least partly) christian - shogun included. OTL Ethiopia was ignored much longer than the rest of Africa. And Japan could still shut itself of the world even if its christian.

It also would help if its one remaining trade partner was not the Netherlands but someone more influential. Like the brits.
The British actually invaded Ethiopia in the 1860s (after Ethiopia asked for help and then abducted a British missionary, so not quite isolationist) so it's not like they were ignored. Colonized much later, yes, but that's not the same as being left to be, especially since they gave Yohannes IV weapons that aided in his rise to power.

Also, the Dutch were pretty damn influential during the majority of their contact with Japan while the British were only paramount after the Napoleonic Wars and hadn't established themselves in the Far East as much as the Dutch had. The British would've demanded further market access (the Dutch were limited, after all) to the tens of millions of Japanese they've been unable to sell to at some point and then isolationism is dead.

The issue is that Japan's just too big of a market to be left to its own devices forever, is in a strategic position in East Asia (especially valuable for America for access to China's even vaster markets), and the imperialistic powers of the 19th century are most definitely going to try to knock down the door over and over until they get access. Whether it be missionaries (alive or especially dead for the casus belli), gradual attempts to establish diplomatic and trade relations, or a military mission, the Great Powers are going to be getting involved there (because they got involved everywhere. Diseased tropics, frozen highlands, coastal metropoles or the middle of the desert, the Great Powers stuck their nose in to every corner of globe in this era).
 
What if we change Japan itself? What I mean is make it (at least partly) christian - shogun included. OTL Ethiopia was ignored much longer than the rest of Africa. And Japan could still shut itself of the world even if its christian.

It also would help if its one remaining trade partner was not the Netherlands but someone more influential. Like the brits.

The main difference between Ethiopia and Japan is that the former is a landlocked country, while the latter is an island chain. The main advantage of the European powers was their fleet which was far superior to anything the Japanese or Chinese had. On land the the balance of power was far more equal and China managed to defeat e.g. France on land as late as 1885. But that didn't matter because due to their naval superiority the French could land troops anywhere along the coast.

The only way Japan (or China for that matter) could maintain their isolation is to field a navy capable of resisting their european counterparts. The problem is that if you have a strong navy it is weird to just let it sit around waiting for someone to breach your isolationism. Instead you'd rather use it for your own expansion. Thus, I would say that is highly unlikely for Japan to maintain its isolationism, because the very thing it would need to do so would make isolationism unappealing - which is what happened IOTL.
 
Perry doesn't go to Japan, and they stay relatively isolationist at least until the beginning of the 20th century. I don't think they could stay isolated much longer than that. Or perhaps Marco Polo even goes to Japan and impresses upon them the eventual need for a more unified society and self defense.
 
Perry doesn't go to Japan, and they stay relatively isolationist at least until the beginning of the 20th century. I don't think they could stay isolated much longer than that. Or perhaps Marco Polo even goes to Japan and impresses upon them the eventual need for a more unified society and self defense.
That is why I say Japan and Korea are going to switch places in that scenario.
 
What if Japan used trickery to make the West go away? Create an illusion that it has very few things to trade, or that a dangerous epidemic is active?
What if Japan used it's ancient ninja techniques to make the island invisible? :p

Sorry, I'm not being mean, but I couldn't resist.
 
Perry doesn't go to Japan, and they stay relatively isolationist at least until the beginning of the 20th century. I don't think they could stay isolated much longer than that. Or perhaps Marco Polo even goes to Japan and impresses upon them the eventual need for a more unified society and self defense.
Japan had been open and heavily invested in European technology into the 1600s (it was one of the largest manufacturers of firearms during the 16th century, helped by the fact that it spent almost the entire century in the midst of civil war). Isolationism happened after that, and was an explicit response to the disruption caused by the introduction of European ideas and technology (which meant that any random daimyo could put together a powerful army of firearm-equipped peasants to challenge the central government, while Christianity was used as a motivation for various religious revolts).

Marco Polo was way too early to have an effect either way (and coincided with Mongol invasion attempts on Japan, which led to fairly significant changes anyway). And as others have noted, if Perry doesn't go, someone else goes fairly shortly thereafter (as the British, French and Russians, at least, were all considering it when the US jumped the gun).
 
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