East Asia–United States relations covers American relations with the region as a whole, as well as summaries of relations with China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and smaller places. It includes diplomatic, military, economic, social and cultural ties. The emphasis is on historical developments.
Main countries
History
Japan
The relationship between the United States and Japan was minimal before 1853 due to Japan's self-imposed isolation from the world, which lasted over two centuries. The Japanese government issued the "Sakoku" policy in 1633, prohibiting foreigners from entering Japan and Japanese from leaving the country under penalty of death. In the 1850s, the US and other Western countries started to demand more access to Japan for trade and diplomacy. This led to Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival with his "Black Ships" in 1853. Japan complied with the Bakumatsu. It opened its ports to foreign vessels and signed treaties with the West, such as the Treaty of Amity and Commerce (United States–Japan), called the Harris Treaty of 1858.
Revolutionary changes inside Japan during the Meiji Restoration that began in 1868 led to very rapid modernization, industrialization and eagerness to learn from and trade with the U.S. and Europe. Trade expanded rapidly. The US played an essential role in this transformation, providing technology, higher education, and political guidance. The U.S. also sent missionaries, but they made few converts.
Better travel opportunities
The opportunities for fast steamship travel from San Francisco improve dramatically in the second half of the 19th century. The first regular steamship route carried passengers, freight and mail to Yokohama in 1867. The transcontinental railroad opened in 1869 and service was expanded to China and the South Pacific. The US Post Office subsidized it to carry the mail. Only one line of steamers connected the U.S. to Japan in 1885, but by 1898 there were six. The trip to Yokohama took 22 days in 1886, and only 12 days in 1898, In the rates for passenger and freight continued to fall.
Southeast Asia
Early American entry into what was then called the East Indies was low key. In 1795, a secret voyage for pepper set sail from Salem, Massachusetts on an 18-month voyage that returned with a bulk cargo of pepper, the first to be so imported into the country, which sold at a profit of seven hundred per cent. In 1831, the merchantman Friendship of Salem returned to report the ship had been plundered, and the first officer and two crewmen murdered in Sumatra. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 obligated the Dutch to ensure the safety of shipping and overland trade in and around Aceh, and they accordingly sent the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army on the punitive expedition of 1831. President Andrew Jackson also ordered America's first Sumatran punitive expedition of 1832, which was followed by a second punitive expedition in 1838. The Friendship incident thus afforded the Dutch a reason to take over Aceh; and Jackson, to dispatch diplomatist Edmund Roberts, who in 1833 secured the Roberts Treaty with Siam. In 1856, negotiations for amendment of this treaty, Townsend Harris stated the position of the United States:The United States does not hold any possessions in the East, nor does it desire any. The form of government forbids the holding of colonies. The United States therefore cannot be an object of jealousy to any Eastern Power. Peaceful commercial relations, which give as well as receive benefits, is what the President wishes to establish with Siam, and such is the object of my mission.