Following a prolonged era of isolationism, the West pressured China, Korea, and Japan in the nineteenth century to create trade and links. A considerable scientific and military disparity between Asian nations and the West has developed between the American and European industrial revolutions, leaving Asian countries behind. No Asian nation was able to challenge the West in that era. They were eventually obliged to accept unfair treaties, forcing them to expose their cities and ports to international trade. However, how this event unfolded and the reaction of each nation to it were distinct and attracted the curiosity of many historians (Murphey & Stapleton 2016).

How can three comparable civilizations react differently to the same historical occurrence? In this essay, Japan has the key differences. In the 19th century, Korea and China’s West reply was that, although China and Korea resisted, Japan succeeded in establishing trade with the West; Japan indeed industrialized while Korea and China refused. It will also explain the disparities between China’s less-developed West understanding and Korea’s historical date of Western invasion in the early response. Japan’s comfort, the emergence, and the political pluralism of its reforming elite.

The government of Korea confronted both home and international rebellion. From 1864 until 1873, an official called Taewongun introduced a series of traditional reforms to restore the golden period of the Yi reign over five centuries before. In addition to China’s “self-reinforcement” campaign in the same years, efforts have been made to minimize corruption, reinforce the central government, construct new fortifications, and introduce sophisticated weapons. Still, the reactionary and exclusionist stance of the government has generally been maintained (Murphey & Stapleton2016). Several French Catholic priests were massacred by the government, causing a French naval invasion in 1866 (Casanova, 2019). The persecution of Christians has intensified dramatically, but the Koreans appeared to have not yet understood the potential or actual strength of the West, insisting that their international affairs should be conducted solely via Beijing, which remained a tributary State. Choson trusted the Qing to safeguard it but could not appreciate China’s developing fragility or the West’s might and resolve, which would shortly be bolstered by a renewed Japan.

China, Korea, and Japan responded exclusively to the West’s increased demand to liberalize trade. Countries have maintained long-term isolationist trends with minimal work with the West. While China and Korea allowed foreign businesses, Western traders were limited to Canton, where only Co-hong, a group of businessmen, could participate (Murphey & Stapleton, 2016). Japan was much narrower, permitting trade solely with the Netherlands, which controlled Dejima, a single port (Rosenberg, 2020). On the other hand, the West would not accept the agreement for long, and Britain, by 1834, had sent Lord Napier to press the Chinese for increased foreign trade. The Chinese government rejected Western plans, fostering enmity between nations and upheavals in China’s business sector (Cassanova, 2019). Initially, tensions cooled down, but the situation escalated because of the illegal trade in opium in Britain. In 1839, Lin Tez Hsu, the new imperial commissioner, was sent to Canton, and 20,000 British opium chests were confiscated.

Tensions were heightened in November 1839 when the British administration rebuffed the surrender of a sailor accused of murder to Chinese authorities. It marked the beginning of the first Opium Wars, ending with the downfall of China and the formation of another conventional ruler (Hara, 1998).  Japan was more amenable to the demands of West delegates.  In 1853, Commodore Perry was deployed to Japan from the United States, and the Japanese government agreed to meet with him the following year. This was in direct contrast to the Chinese, who did not discriminate between traders and governments’ “view of the world outside China.” They were all savage “(Hara, 1998) and so rejected the alert from the British commanders. Finally, China and Japan signed agreements with the West that ended their long-standing isolation: Japan’s Kanagawa Treaty and China’s Nanking Treaty.

Historical chronology played a key role in Japan and China’s response to Western pressures. Japan’s isolationism lasted for over a decade in the 1850s following the Chinese First Opium War. Investments in other regions of Asia had established a buffer, reducing the lack of Japanese resources and needs in the West (Windle, 2018). Although isolated, throughout the Opium War, Japan was frequently notified of world events, and “the Netherlands regularly cautioned that Nagasaki should accede to Western requests” (Reischauer, 2020). As a result, China’s rejection of Western demands impacted Japan long before it could take action. China, however, lacked evidence of Western military superiority and emulative models.

The primary reason for China’s modernization gap with Japan was the lack of borrowing practices from the Chinese. China’s status as the region’s biggest and most powerful country fueled the concept that China was the epicentre of civilization. All the non-Chinese were dubbed barbarians, implying that their culture lagged behind the Chinese (Hara, 1998). On the other hand, “the odious apathy for foreigners that sometimes defined China’s foreign policy has never happened” in Japan (Reischauer, 2020). Japan has absorbed a sizable portion of China’s culture and has long been compelled to contend with its neighbour’s superior might. Multiculturalism and the presence of multiple significant kingdoms were not unfamiliar concepts to the Japanese. They previously benefited from the accomplishments of previous civilizations, which they multiplied in the West.

A second issue was the interest of the Chinese authorities, despite the reform-oriented governing elite of Japan, to safeguard old institutions. In 1867, the old Tokugawa shogunate was killed by a civilian war led by a youthful elite in Japan. The Meiji aristocracy, led by brilliant individuals such as Ito and Matsukata, aspired to alter the people’s western lines and worked fervently and bravely to accomplish this aim (Jarisen, 2020). However, the Chinese governing class was essentially conservative, not a champion but an obstacle to growth. At the same time, certain Chinese aristocrats urged modernization, and most of those who felt excessive innovation was damaging hindered their endeavours. The ruling class of China was motivated to preserve the current power order and employ modernization simply for personal and political advantage.

Japan’s diversified government system finally contributed to the country’s success. The clan system balanced it while centralized power was present. It resulted in a far less divisive authority than China, which impaired entrepreneurship and competitiveness through a strict bureaucratic structure. Chinese society had no room to promote industrialization and build a business class. Conversely, Japan’s flexible political institutions fostered commercial rivalry between different groups and encouraged commodities to influence money. Western clans played a crucial role in enabling creative economic competitiveness to explode. In conclusion, we learned that despite their commonality, China, Korea, and Japan reacted to Western pressure quite differently in the nineteenth century. Japan has successfully supported more open trade and efficient modernization, whereas China has failed to transcend isolation and remained historically a prisoner of old institutions. This study showed that Japan meets Western expectations more closely than China does, and Japan’s greater understanding of the West is due to the following requirements of Japan. Although it is frequently assumed that Japan has benefitted more from Western involvement than China, the vertiginous economic development in China has put doubt on this perspective. It is questionable whether it was early in the nineteenth century to determine the extent of the Western impact on Asian states.