![]() ![]() The government was controlled by the military, and so it fell to them to decide how to respond to President Fillmore’s letter.)Ĭommodore Perry never fired a shot, but President Millard Fillmore knew that only a show of force would convince the Japanese to negotiate. (At this time, however, the emperor was essentially powerless. In 1853, President Millard Fillmore commissioned Commodore Matthew Perry to hand-deliver a letter to the Japanese emperor, strongly suggesting that he open his country up to international trade. ![]() ![]() Just five years after the United States stretched itself to the Pacific Ocean, imperialists and speculators looked to Asia for more opportunities. The 1840s and ‘50s saw Manifest Destiny at its zenith, with the burgeoning American republic aggressively pushing its way West, conquering vast swaths of land from Mexico and native tribes. To a certain extent, Ishiwara was correct. ![]() It was Perry who brought imperialism and commercialism to Japan, compelling the island nation to participate in the corrupt world of international trade, he claimed. In Ishiwara’s mind, Perry was an insidious invader who used the overwhelming power of the United States Navy to bully Japan into allowing foreigners into their country. Why don’t you subpoena Perry from the other world and try him as a war criminal? And so for its own defense it took your own country as its teacher and set about learning how to be aggressive. Then along came Perry from your country in his black ships to open those doors he aimed his big guns at Japan and warned “If you don’t deal with us, look out for these open your doors, and negotiate with other countries too.” And then when Japan did open its doors and tried dealing with other countries, it learned that all those countries were a fearfully aggressive lot. Tokugawa Japan believed in isolation it didn’t want anything to do with other countries, and had its doors locked tightly. It all started in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Edo Bay and demanded that Japan open itself up to the world. During a post-World War II International Military Tribunal, Japanese General Ishiwara Kanji conjured up an interesting apology for his country’s destructive imperialism. ![]()
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