if one country can ignore another for 10 years
Citing examples like what, exactly?
If one power's not going for it, why exactly should another who's in competition with them follow suit?
if one country can ignore another for 10 years
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?
Not if some of the ship crew get infected...by accident.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.
There is no true epidemic, but they can find the occasional sufferer of something like pneumonia and get him/her to be near one of the ships.since your suggestion is a fake epidemic, how are they going to get infected with a nonexistent disease?
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).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.
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.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.
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.
That is why I say Japan and Korea are going to switch places in that scenario.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.
What if Japan used it's ancient ninja techniques to make the island invisible?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?
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).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.