Japan remains virtually closed to international commerce.

Sakoku (Japanese:, literally "country in chains" or "lock up of country"), the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner or Japanese can enter or leave the country on penalty of death, had been enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1635-1641 and remains in effect.

The shogun Ieyoshi opposes mounting Japanese pressure to trade with the West.

U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry, younger brother of War of 1812 naval hero Oliver Perry, had embarked in 1852 from Norfolk, Virginia for Japan, in command of a squadron in search of a Japanese trade treaty.

The Japanese have been forewarned by the Dutch of Perry’s voyage, but are unwilling to change their two hundred and fifty-year-old policy of national seclusion.

There is considerable internal debate in Japan on how best to meet this potential threat to Japan’s economic and political sovereignty.