COUNTRY RELATIONSHIPS
When Ieyasu Tokugawa became shogun in 1603, Japan started trading with countries that surrounded Japan. Japan had also made contact with the West, Japan was soon trading with countries as far away as Portugal, the Netherlands, England and Spain. By the early 17th century, Japan had forced all foreigners to leave and banned almost all relations with the outside world. Japan's policy of sakoku also known as isolation, lasted for 200 years, until an American known by the name Commodore Matthew Perry, sailed to Japan and reopened relations to outer countries in 1854.
Within five years of the Convention of Kanagawa, other trade treaties were signed in Japan with the Netherlands, Britain, France and Russia, and foreigners once again established settlements with the people in Japan. In 1858 the Harris Treaty was signed with the United States, securing commercial and diplomatic privileges, allowing safe passages. The treaties signed were soon acused of being unequal on the Japan's side, having the tready been forced on Japan by the threat of the military force. Trade remained at a minimum until 1868, when a group of samurai put an end to the shogunate, then restored the emperor to power in the Meiji Restoration, when they belived that only the emperor could help Japan in this time of change.