Transition from Edo to Meiji

After the establishment of the Edo government in the early seventeenth century, foreign travel and trade were restricted in steps. From 1639, the Bakufu banned any foreign contact except highly regulated trade at Nagasaki&s;s Dejima under strict official control. After the opening of ports, severe political fights ensued for about fifteen years. To summarize the highly complicated developments, events unfolded over the two key issues of promotion of open door policy versus anti-foreigner nationalism, and upholding the emperor versus supporting the Bakufu. As a result of relatively minor battles between the emperor side and the Bakufu supporters in 1868-69, the Bakufu was defeated and the new Meiji government was established in 1868. Among the members of the Iwakura Mission, Okubo Toshimichi was deeply impressed with Western technology embodied in a large number of British factories he visited. The most important diplomatic goal in the Meiji period was to revise the unequal commercial treaties with the West that lacked tariff rights.