Japan's Economy by Proxy in the Seventeenth Century: China, the N ...

Ieyasu’s foreign policy aims included the resumption of relations with Ming China, peaceful relations with Korea, relations with the Spanish empire in Asia including the Philippines and Nova España (Mexico), and commercial relations with the European powers, including Portugal, Spain, England, and the Netherlands. In addition, Ieyasu reached out to such Southeast Asian countries as Siam, Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Cochin.⁷ The new shogun was clearly interested in the world outside of Japan; he was interested in learning what the Europeans had to offer, and he was intent on joining the larger world both politically and economically. As Captain John Saris wrote upon receiving a shuinjō for the English factory at Hirado, “I have obtained large privileges of the Emperor for trade…Our usage hath been good, and I hope our trade will be no less.”⁸

It would be a mistake, however, to view Ieyasu as simply a naïve optimist in a “brave new world.” He was rather a consummate politician who had recently gained control of a country, torn by civil strife for over a century, in which there still existed elements that threatened to destabilize the tenuous peace of his infant regime. It is against this background that the increasing restrictions that characterized the next several decades should be seen.

Europeans had already been present in Japan for decades at the time that Ieyasu had vanquished his foes on the field of Sekigahara and consolidated his power. The Portuguese merchants had been importing Chinese silk in exchange for Japanese silver, and Jesuit missionaries had been converting souls to Christ for almost a half century before Ieyasu triumphed over his rivals in 1600. For the Portuguese, at least those not engaged in missionary activity, Japan meant primarily silver, and lots of it. Jan Huygen van Linschotten, a Dutchman in the employ of the Portuguese, wrote of the rich silver mines in the islands and the lucrative trade that the Portuguese drove there.⁹ He also wrote of the Japanese “craze” for Chinese products, especially silk; Japan’s seemingly endless desire for Chinese silk, combined with a maritime ban on trade between China and Japan, ensured that the Portuguese would be most welcome in Japan.¹⁰