The Iwakura Mission In America

In the early 1870s, The Japanese Meiji restoration is in full swing. But with the deepening of the reform, the Japanese government found the unequal treaties signed with western powers seriously hindered the path of reform. It’s extremely urgent to modify the unequal treaties, so the Iwakura Mission emerged as the time required. There are two missions:one is the modification of the unequal treaties signed with western powers, the other is the investigation of system of cultural relics. The previous studies focused on the investigation of system of cultural relics, ignoring the primary mission--- modification of the unequal treaties. Besides, because Japan put more emphasis on reference to the political system in the UK and Germany, so the researches on the Iwakura Mission mostly focus on the UK and Germany rather than America and other countries. Under the circumstances, this thesis emphasizes the study of modification of the unequal treaties in America to reveal subsequent visit to other countries and the important influence on the modern foreign diplomacy of Japan. Furthermore, the thesis introduces the investigation of America which changed the remembers’ concepts and had deep influence on Japanese modernization.There are three parts in this thesis:The first part is the introduction of the Iwakura Mission. The thesis in detail describes the process of the Iwakura Mission from proposed to officially found. Then based on the members of the Iwakura Mission, it introduces contradiction and characteristics of the members. Last, on the research of< Matter of the book>, the thesis discusses the primary aim of the Mission is modification of unequal treaties.The second part is the study of amendment of the unequal treaty with America. First, it introduces the preparation of Japan for amendment and expectation of America and Japan. Then by the description of negotiation it introduces the whole process of amendment of the treaty, which shows us the trip is so difficult that the negotiation will fail. Last, the failure of the amendment of the treaty which had deep effect on the Iwakura Mission had changed the focus of the team from altering unequal treaties to investigation. The change is emphasis in this thesis.Besides,the influence of failure of amendment of the treaty to Japanese internal affairs and diplomacy will be discussed.The third part is the investigation of the team in America. The Mission had stayed in America for six months and had studied all the field of America. This part will specifically describe the inspection from politics, legal institution, economy, military, education, society and so on. It tells us that the emphases of the Mission enrich the country and increase its military force as well as the urgent mind to make Japan prosperous and strong.