National Isolation

Under Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan closed our port and banned to contact to foreigners. The formal isolation of Japan and the Japanese lasted for 250 years. We came to think that they had little to learn from the rest of the world. Foreigners were known as 'outsiders' or 'barbarians' and were looked down on.

Even within Japan, mobility was not encouraged, so transport did not develop. Bridges were not build as these were seen as a threat to security. Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, Japan was a land of contrasts- culturally advanced but little science and engineering.

The beginning of the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and its isolationist policies came in 1853 when US warships under Admiral Perry arrived in Yokohama Bay and demanded trading and other bilateral relationships with Japan. The British and French subsequently arrived and Japan had to bow to further pressure and start to deal with more foreigners. This abrupt contact with the rest of the world and with the technology that West possessed cane as a profound shock to Japan. The lesson of these encounters for Japan was that it realized that technology was power.

Shogun feudalism was ended by a samurai rebellion in 1868, known as the Meiji restoration. The power was restored to the Emperor and a move towards a more open society developed.

(R Hannam, 1993, Kaizen For Europe, pp12-14)