State and diplomacy in early modern Japan : Asia in the development of the Tokugawa Bakufu /
Ronald P. Toby
- Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, c1991.
- xxxviii, 309 pages : illustrations ; 21cm
Post-Hideyoshi Normalization The Lens of Recognition: Diplomacy in the Legitimation of the Bakufu The World Through Binoculars: Bakufu Intelligence and Japanese Security in an Unstable East Asia Through the Looking-Glass World of Protocol: Mirror to an Ideal World
This book seeks to describe how Japan manipulated existing diplomatic channels to ensure national security. Rather, far from aiming at seclusion, Japan's diplomacy in the seventeenth century was orchestrated to achieve certain objectives, both outside the country and inside it. The aim was to build Japan into an autonomous center of its own. Since the country was "closed," elaborate and expensive foreign embassies were obliged to make the journey to Edo. Countries which were perceived as potential threats, such as Portugal and Spain, were excluded from this process. Only those such as the Chinese and the Dutch, with whom trade was recognized as desirable, were allowed a supervised presence in Japan itself. Closing the gates to Japan was not the object. Rather, carefully judging just when they should be open and shut was the aim
9780804719520
East Asia Foreign relations Japan Japan Foreign relations 1600-1868 Diplomatic relations