Negotiating With Imperialism: Japan and the Unequal Treaty Regime, 1858--1872
Auslin, Michael Robert
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/84763
Description
Title
Negotiating With Imperialism: Japan and the Unequal Treaty Regime, 1858--1872
Author(s)
Auslin, Michael Robert
Issue Date
2000
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Toby, Ronald P.
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Political Science, International Law and Relations
Language
eng
Abstract
After an historiographical introduction, Chapter 1 traces the background to Japan's treaty relations, particularly in comparison with the Chinese experience, and discusses the making of the 1858 treaty. Chapter 2 treats the first half-decade after the signing of the treaties, 1858 to 1862; this period was the high tide of diplomatic accommodation and witnessed the emergence of a balance of interests between the two sides. Far from adopting a supine posture towards the West, the Tokugawa bakufu triumphed in matters such as the location of treaty ports and the timing of their opening. Chapter 3 explores international culture of the treaty ports, where seemingly concrete cultural boundaries were transgressed, leading to new understandings and deeper interaction between Japanese and Westerners. Chapter 4 turns to the years 1862--67, and traces the bakufu's defense of this balance of interests even in the face of the weakening of accommodation. Chapter 5 examines the Meiji experience of treaty relations 1868--72, and investigates the development, dispatch, and eventual failure of the Iwakura Mission. The conclusion briefly relates Japan's subsequent Asian policy, as it attempted to establish a Western-style international treaty system vis-a-vis China and Korea. This dissertation thus reassesses late-Tokugawa and early Meiji foreign policy, illustrates the malleability of both European and Asian cultural boundaries, and questions the extent of Western power at the zenith of Victorian imperialism.
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