Q&A ยท 3:27:30-3:29:53

Didn't the Dutch already trade with Japan before Perry?

Dutch and Portuguese access remained far narrower than the opening demanded by the United States.

Question

Didn't the Dutch already trade with Japan during the isolation period, and wasn't a wider opening inevitable?

Short answer

Dutch and Portuguese trade existed but was tightly limited; broader foreign pressure was likely, yet that did not make the American use of warships a good outcome for Japan.

Notes

Dutch and Portuguese merchants maintained restricted contact during Japan's isolation period. Their trade did not provide the broad access that the United States wanted, so it did not satisfy American commercial aims. Wider foreign pressure was increasingly likely, and Russia might eventually have attempted an opening of its own. That likelihood does not make Perry's coercive method benign from the Japanese perspective.