| This dissertation examines the system of foreign relations and the nature of the polity in late Edo period (1600–1868) Japan from the perspective of two feudal domains: Tsushima, which monopolized trade and diplomacy with Korea, and Satsuma, which controlled Japanese trade and diplomacy with the Ryūkyū kingdom. Using as its primary sources records from the central political authority, the Tokugawa shogunate, and from the two domains, it argues that Satsuma and Tsushima played key roles in the formation and functioning of the system of foreign relations, its redefinition in the late eighteenth century, and the transition to a new system based upon international law and Western-style trade and diplomacy in the late nineteenth century.; Part One illustrates the cooperative nature of diplomacy and foreign trade, demonstrating that the system of foreign relations must be seen as a sum of its parts, Satsuma, Tsushima and the shogunate. Part Two shows how changes in trade with East Asia and domestic economic growth in the eighteenth century led the shogunate to assume more direct control of foreign trade and diplomacy, in many respects closing the realm to the outside world. Part Three explains how under intense Western pressure in the mid-nineteenth century local economic, political and defensive issues led the two domains to push for change in the system. Satsuma, which developed domestic and overseas trade links, sought commercial autonomy from the shogunate's restrictive policies. Facing a long downturn in trade with Korea and Western threats to seize the island, Tsushima looked for the shogunate to defend the domain and allow more open contacts with Korea. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the two domains continued to advocate change and embraced a Western-style centralized system developed by the Meiji government. Thus the dissertation shows that Japanese foreign relations began to resemble Western practices of trade and diplomacy as a result of local, domain-level issues, not solely through interaction with the West. |
