Ansei Treaties

1858 series of Japanese treaties

Treaties of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, 1858. The Ryōsen-ji Temple in Shimoda, where the US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce, the first of the Ansei Treaties, was signed in July 1858. Signature of the Franco-Japanese treaty in October 1858 in Edo, the last of the Ansei Treaties to be signed.

The Ansei Treaties (Japanese: 安政条約) or the Ansei Five-Power Treaties (Japanese: 安政五カ国条約) are a series of treaties signed in 1858, during the Japanese Ansei era, between Japan on the one side, and the United States, Great Britain, Russia, Netherlands and France on the other.[1] The first treaty, also called the Harris Treaty, was signed by the United States in July 1858, with France, Russia, Britain and the Netherlands quickly followed within the year: Japan applied to the other nations the conditions granted to the United States under the "most favoured nation" provision.

## Content

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The most important points of these unequal treaties are:

* Exchange of diplomatic agents.
* Edo, Kobe, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Yokohama’s opening to foreign trade as ports.
* Ability of foreign citizens to live and trade at will in those ports (only the opium trade was prohibited).
* A system of extraterritoriality that provided for the subjugation of foreign residents to the laws of their own consular courts instead of the Japanese legal system.
* Fixed low import-export duties, subject to international control, thus preventing the Japanese government from asserting control over foreign trade and protection of national industries (the rate would go as low as 5% in the 1860s.)

## Components

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The five treaties known collectively as the Ansei Treaties were:

* The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Japan (Harris Treaty) on July 29, 1858.
* The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the Netherlands and Japan on August 18, 1858.
* The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Russia and Japan [ja] on August 19, 1858.
* The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce on August 26, 1858.
* The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and Japan on October 9, 1858.

## In popular culture

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The 1976 Broadway musical Pacific Overtures, which focuses on Japan during and after the Perry Expedition, includes a song titled "Please Hello" which satirically depicts the coercive process by which imperial powers forced Japan to agree to the Ansei Treaties.

## See also

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* List of treaties

## Notes

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1. ^ Auslin, p.1

## References

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* Auslin, Michael R. (2004). Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01521-0; OCLC 56493769

## Further reading

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* Omoto Keiko, Marcouin Francis (1990) Quand le Japon s'ouvrit au monde (French) Gallimard, Paris, ISBN 2-07-076084-7
* Polak, Christian. (2001). Soie et lumières: L'âge d'or des échanges franco-japonais (des origines aux années 1950). Tokyo: Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie Française du Japon, Hachette Fujin Gahōsha (アシェット婦人画報社).
* __________. (2002). 絹と光: 知られざる日仏交流100年の歴史 (江戶時代-1950年代) Kinu to hikariō: shirarezaru Nichi-Futsu kōryū 100-nen no rekishi (Edo jidai-1950-nendai). Tokyo: Ashetto Fujin Gahōsha, 2002. ISBN 978-4-573-06210-8; OCLC 50875162

## See also

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* France-Japan relations (19th century)