Karl von Eisendecher and Japan

Abstract

The tasks required of diplomatic representatives of the Euro-American powers in Japan during the era of imperialism were relatively simple: to uphold the prestige and, if possible, increase the influence of the state they represented. Until the end of the nineteenth century, this also involved dealing with Japanese demands for revision of the so-called Unequal Treaties imposed on Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, which gave the Euro-American powers far-reaching privileges such as extraterritoriality, consular jurisdiction (both abolished at the end of the nineteenth century) and most-favored-nation status.¹ In general, Western diplomats insisted on the preservation of these provisions and justified them in terms of the alleged “inferiority” of Japanese culture and its “uncivilized” legal system, which did not (yet) conform to Western standards. This was common practice in European dealings with non-European powers until the twentieth century. Of all subject nations, Japan most actively demanded the reform of the unequal treatment meted out to it by the Euro-American powers and, in order to achieve “equality” with them, initiated a massive modernization program in the late nineteenth century; this was not limited to technological and legal matters, but also included the large-scale appropriation of European “civilization.”