-
In july 8, American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world. -
On March 31, 1854, the first treaty between Japan and the United States was signed. The Treaty was the result of an encounter between an elaborately planned mission to open Japan and an unwavering policy by Japan's government of forbidding commerce with foreign nations. -
In 1868 the Tokugawa shôgun ("great general"), who ruled Japan in the feudal period, lost his power and the emperor was restored to the supreme position. The emperor took the name Meiji ("enlightened rule") as his reign name; this event was known as the Meiji Restoration. a powerful army and navy. -
The Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty was the first treaty between Japan and the Qing Dynasty. It was signed on 13 September 1871 in Tientsin by Date Munenari and Plenipotentiary Li Hongzhang.
The treaty guaranteed the judiciary rights of Consuls, and fixed trade tariffs between the two countries. -
The Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Empire of Japan and Qing dynasty China from 1894 to 1895. It was a conflict over control of Korea and Manchuria and resulted in a decisive victory for Japan. -
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902–23) was a bilateral alliance between Britain and Japan. The original alliance, signed in 1902, was limited and regional, and its purpose was to counter Russia's expansion into East Asia. -
The war developed from Russia's and Japan's rivalry for dominance in Korea and Manchuria. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan acquired the Liaodong Peninsula from China, but European powers forced Japan to return it. China subsequently leased it to Russia. The Russo-Japanese War began when Japan attacked Russian warships at Port Arthur, on the peninsula. -
The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The negotiations took place in August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and were brokered in part by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. The final agreement was signed in September of 1905, and it affirmed the Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea and ceded the southern half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan. -
In 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan after years of war, intimidation and political machinations; the country would be considered a part of Japan until 1945. In order to establish control over its new protectorate, the Empire of Japan waged an all-out war on Korean culture. -
With the beginning of World War I, Japan sought revenge against Germany for the Triple Intervention. It seized the Shandong concession in 1914, promising to return it to China after the war.In the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the Allied Powers decided that Germany should first cede Shandong to Japan, which actually occupied Shandong, before Japan handed it over to China. -
Twenty-one Demands, (Jan. 18, 1915), claims made by the Japanese government to special privileges in China during World War I.The secret demands would greatly extend Japanese control of China.