1450-1750 Eastern Asian Relations With Europe

The East Asians, mostly China and Japan, both were trying to become or stay a great power, and did it different ways. Japan tried to isolate themselves by only allowing limited contact and no spreading of Christianity, as was talked about in document sixteen. China tried to keep up with them by using a strong legal system as was mentioned in document six, and government set up like the monarchs of Europe, in that the power is passed from father to son, as seen in document five.
Japan, at first, let the newcomers in and learned about them, and let them learn a little from them. However, they didn't have very good experiences, like as portrayed in document twelve, the Japanese thought of the Europeans as arrogant and full of themselves, and the Europeans, like Will Adams in document fourteen, didn't like what the Japanese did, in holding them there when they wanted to leave, and the way they treated the women as completely there just to serve and help the men, as was mentioned in document eleven. The Japanese, as in document fifteen, said that innovations had to be reported, and listed them right next to factional conspiracies, as if they were both equally bad, showing that the Japanese didn't want to advance technologically, and wanted to stick with tradition. The Europeans as we already know, where rapidly advancing technologically, because of their fierce rivals with each other, making Japan dislike them even more. The Europeans, who were trying to spread Christianity as well as become rich, thought that the Japanese would convert quickly, as Francis Xavier wrote in document thirteen, “They see clearly that their ancestral law is false and the law of God true, but they are deterred by fear of their prince from submitting to the...

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...had gotten a document about China from the Europeans, and that wasn't just about their type of government, but what the government did, and what their economy and social life was like.
In conclusion, Japan tried to isolate themselves, and China tried to compete with them, using their land, and excess of population. Documents one through ten were all about China, and documents eleven through sixteen was about Japan. Documents one, two, three, and seven was talking about if China was prepared for the European countries, and documents five, six, and nine talked about whether or not China compared to the European countries. Documents twelve, fourteen, and sixteen all talked about negative interactions between Japan and the European countries. So, as a total, I think that neither way from both China or Japan will work in the long run, but that they will recover from it.