why did the us demand trade with japan
Perry Expedition The growing commerce between America and China, the presence of American whalers in waters off Japan, and the increasing monopolization of potential coaling stations by the British and French in Asia were all contributing factors in the decision by President Fillmore to dispatch an expedition to Japan. The Americans were also driven by concepts of Manifest Destiny and the desire to impose the benefits of western civilization and the Christian religion on what they perceived as “backward” Asian nations.[1] By the early nineteenth century, the Japanese policy of isolation was increasingly under challenge. In 1844, King William II of the Netherlands sent a letter urging Japan to end the isolation policy on its own before change would be forced from the outside.[2] Between 1790 and 1853 at least twenty-seven U.S. ships (including three warships) visited Japan, only to be turned away.
Sakoku Japan traded at this time with five entities, through four "gateways". The largest was the private Chinese trade at Nagasaki (who also traded with the Ryūkyū Kingdom), where also the Dutch East India Company was permitted to operate. The Matsumae clan domain in Hokkaidō (then called Ezo) traded with the Ainu people. Through the Sō clan daimyō of Tsushima, there were relations with Joseon-dynasty Korea. Ryūkyū, a semi-independent kingdom for nearly all of the Edo period, was controlled by the Shimazu family daimyō of Satsuma Domain. Tashiro Kazui has shown that trade between Japan and these entities was divided into two kinds: Group A in which he places China and the Dutch, "whose relations fell under the direct jurisdiction of the Bakufu at Nagasaki" and Group B, represented by the Korean Kingdom and the Ryūkyū Kingdom, "who dealt with Tsushima (the Sō clan) and Satsuma (the Shimazu clan) domains respectively".[2]