Unequal treaties and Japan's strategic insecurity

The Convention of Kanagawa opened Shimoda and Hakodate after Commodore Perry's intervention, while the later Harris Treaty widened foreign access. Its terms included permanent foreign residence, low externally controlled tariffs, religious privileges, and consular courts that placed foreign nationals outside Japanese law. Similar agreements with several powers turned a single opening into a durable system of unequal relations. That experience helps explain Japanese suspicion of later international arrangements, including naval agreements in the twentieth century. It also explains why the Anglo-Japanese Alliance could be valued as recognition that Japan had finally entered a treaty on more equal terms.