Ansei Treaties
The Ansei Treaties or the Ansei Five-Power Treaties are a series of treaties signed in 1858, during the Japanese Ansei era, between Japan on the one side, and the United States, Great Britain, Russia, Netherlands and France on the other. The first treaty, also called the Harris Treaty, was signed by the United States in July 1858, with France, Russia, Britain and the Netherlands quickly followed within the year: Japan applied to the other nations the conditions granted to the United States under the "most favoured nation" provision.
Content
The most important points of these unequal treaties are:- Exchange of diplomatic agents.
- Edo, Kobe, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Yokohama’s opening to foreign trade as ports.
- Ability of foreign citizens to live and trade at will in those ports.
- A system of extraterritoriality that provided for the subjugation of foreign residents to the laws of their own consular courts instead of the Japanese legal system.
- Fixed low import-export duties, subject to international control, thus preventing the Japanese government from asserting control over foreign trade and protection of national industries
Components
The five treaties known collectively as the Ansei Treaties were:- The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Japan on July 29, 1858.
- The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the Netherlands and Japan on August 18, 1858.
- The on August 19, 1858.
- The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce on August 26, 1858.
- The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and Japan on October 9, 1858.