Foreign relations between Japan and the United Kingdom (日英関係, Nichieikankei) were established on 26 August 1858 and involve diplomatic, economic, and historical ties between the two countries.
Both countries are members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, G7, G20, International Criminal Court, OECD, United Nations, and World Trade Organization. They also share a free trade agreement called the Japan–United Kingdom Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, a tax treaty, and a reciprocal access agreement; the United Kingdom is one of only three countries to share the latter with Japan, and is the only European country to do so.
History The history of the relationship between Japan and England began in 1600 with the arrival of William Adams (Adams the Pilot or Miura Anjin), who became the first of very few non-Japanese samurai after arriving on the shores of Kyushu at Usuki (present-day Ōita Prefecture). There were no formal relations between the two countries during the Sakoku period (1641–1853); as the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade, they acted as intermediaries.
Formal diplomatic ties began with the treaty of 1854, which eventually led to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. This marked the end of the "splendid isolation" philosophy Britain had followed since 1815, while Japan received much-needed British support ahead of the looming Russo-Japanese War. Japan's victory over Russia solidified the alliance, which lasted for two decades, but pressure from the United States and the subsequent Four-Power Treaty of 1921 brought it to an end. Relations deteriorated rapidly during the 1930s due to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the cutoff of oil supplies in 1941 further escalated tensions. Japan declared war in December 1941 and used overwhelming force to seize most British possessions east of the British Raj (present-day India) such as Borneo (with its vital oil reserves), Burma, Hong Kong, Malaya, and Singapore. However, the British began pushing Japanese forces back after they reached the outskirts of India.
Beginning in the 1950s, relations between Japan and the United Kingdom improved notably as memories of the past conflict faded. In the 1970s, Emperor Hirohito and Queen Elizabeth II paid state visits to each other's countries. The United Kingdom and Japan currently have strong economic ties, with both being members of the G7 and CPTPP. The two are also collaborating in the field of defence, most notably through the GCAP Programme alongside Italy.
Timeline of relations 1500s 1577. Richard Wylles writes about the people, customs and manners of Giapan in the History of Travel published in London. 1580. Richard Hakluyt advises the first English merchants to find a new trade route via the Northwest Passage to trade wool for silver with Japan (sending two Barque ships, the George piloted by Arthur Pet and William by Charles Jackman) which returned unsuccessfully by Christmas the same year.Samurai William, Giles Milton, 2003 1587. Two young Japanese men named Christopher and Cosmas sailed on a Spanish galleon to California, where their ship was captured by Thomas Cavendish. Cavendish brought the two Japanese men with him to England where they spent approximately three years before going again with him on his last expedition to the South Atlantic where they were heading to Japan to begin trade relations. They are the first known Japanese men to have set foot in the British Isles.English Dreams and Japanese Realities: Anglo-Japanese Encounters Around the Globe, 1587-1673, Thomas Lockley, 2019, Revista de Cultura, p 126 1593. Richard Hawkins leaves England on board the Dainty in a bid to discover the 'Iſlands of Japan' via the Magellan Strait in 1594, the very route William Adams would take himself in 1599.The observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt in his voyage into the South sea in the year 1593 :reprinted from the edition of 1622, Charles Ramsay Drinkwater Bethune, Richard Hawkins, 1847, p.7 Hawkins however was captured by the Spanish at Peru, only returning in 1603 after a ransom of £12,000 was paid by his mother for his release.
1600s
1600. William Adams, a seaman from Gillingham, Kent, was the first English adventurer to arrive in Japan. Acting as an advisor to the Tokugawa shōgun, he was renamed Miura Anjin, granted a house and land, and spent the rest of his life in his adopted country. He also became one of the first English samurai. 1605. The galleon Tiger commanded by Edward Michelborne on a trade expedition to the East Indies is attacked by Japanese pirates off Singapore. They attack the crew, killing the explorer John Davis, but the English fight back eventually wiping out the crew and capture the pirate ship. Only one Japanese pirate survives.Stephen Turnbull, Fighting ships of the Far East (2), p 12, Osprey Publishing
1613. Following an invitation from William Adams in Japan, the English captain John Saris arrived at Hirado Island in the ship Clove with the intent of establishing a trading factory. Adams and Saris travelled to Suruga Province where they met with Tokugawa Ieyasu at his principal residence in September before moving on to Edo where they met Ieyasu's son Hidetada. During that meeting, Hidetada gave Saris two varnished suits of armour for King James I, today housed in the Tower of London.Notice at the Tower of London On their way back, they visited Tokugawa once more, who conferred trading privileges on the English through a Red Seal permit giving them "free licence to abide, buy, sell and barter" in Japan.The Red Seal permit was re-discovered in 1985 by Professor Hayashi Nozomu, in the Bodleian Library. Massarella, Derek; Tytler Izumi K. (1990) "The Japonian Charters" Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp 189–205. The English party headed back to Hirado Island on 9 October 1613. However, during the ten-year activity of the company between 1613 and 1623, apart from the first ship (Clove in 1613), only three other English ships brought cargoes directly from London to Japan. 1623. The Amboyna massacre was perpetrated by the Dutch East India Company. After the incident England closed its commercial base at Hirado Island, now in Nagasaki Prefecture, without notifying Japan. After this, the relationship ended for more than two centuries. 1625. A number of documents including the Iaponian Charter, are the first published translated Japanese documents into English by Samuel Purchas. 1639. Tokugawa Iemitsu announced his Sakoku policy. Only the Dutch Republic was permitted to retain limited trade rights. 1640. Uriemon Eaton the son of William Eaton (a worker at the EIC post in Japan) and Kamezo (a Japanese woman), becomes the first Japanese to join Academia in England as a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge.
1646. Robert Dudley publishes a detailed original map of Japan and Yezo in his Secrets of the Sea treatise, based on the Mercator Projection. 1668. 25 February. Henry Oldenburg addresses the Royal Society on the letters of Richard Cocks, particularly noting English trading privileges from the time of Cocks, striking new interest in trade with Japan in England. Based on this new interest, surviving member of the original factory William Eaton (fl.1613-1668), was contacted in order to reopen trade between England and Japan.See https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/pages_from_connections_3_-_pages_16-23.pdf p.20 1670. John Ogilby publishes the first translation of Atlas Japanensis in London, reprinted in 1671 & 1673.https://www.electricscotland.com/history/nation/ogilby.htm (Accessed 2 March 2021) 1670. The EIC factories are set up at modern day Taiwan (1670–1685) after Koxinqa invites the British to set up a factory.See The English factory in Taiwan, 1670-1685, 1995, Anthony Farrington, Ts'ao Yung-ho, Chang Hsiu-jung, Huang Fu-san, Wu Mi-tsa, pp.1-20, National Taiwan University, Taipei 1672. Tongking EIC factory begins operations (along with 'Tywan') with the intention by the British to be used as bases for further trade with Japan. 1673. An English ship named Returner visited Nagasaki harbour with factors from the first Hirado factory, and asked for a renewal of trading relations. But the Edo shogunate refused after Dutch prompting. The government cited the withdrawal 50 years earlier, and found it unacceptable that the English king had married the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza, claiming the English to favour the Roman Catholic Church. (cf. :ja:リターン号)
1683. Molly Verney begins learning Japanning as a handicraft in London.
1700s 1703. James Cunninghame FRS attempts to initiate trade with Japan from Cochinchina and the chaplain James Pound in his service notes of VOC activity in Japan until they are attacked by locals in 1705. 1713. Daniel Defoe writes of William Adams and his 'famous voyage to Japan' in his satire Memoirs of Count Tariff. 1723-25. Hans Sloane send the English court physician Johann Georg Steigerthal to Lemgo to retrieve Engelbert Kaempfer's East Asian collection for his personal library. 1727. Johann Caspar Scheuchzer translates and publishes the first edition of Engelbert Kaempfers History of Japan in London. 1731. Arthur Dobbs advocates the finding of the North West Passage to 'be able to send a Squadron of ships, Even to force Japan into a Beneficial Treaty of Commerce with Britain.' 1740. Robert Petre, 8th Baron Petre imports the first Camellia japonica into England. 1741. The Middleton Expedition is launched to find the Northwest Passage with orders to not engage 'Japanese ships' until the following year should they come across one, with plans halting to trade or settle Japan owing to the circumstances surrounding the Seven Years' War. 1745. Thomas Astley reprints by popular demand the Logbook of William Adams in his A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels; in Europe, Asia, Africa and America under Nippon.See 1753. 50 Japanese objects from the Sloane collection acquired by Kaempfer during his residence in Japan are bequeathed to the British Museum. 1791. James Colnett sails HMS Argonaut from Canton to Japan becoming the second unsuccessful attempt at trade with Sakoku Japan. 1796. William Robert Broughton surveys the North-western coast of Japan, becoming shipwrecked on the coast of Miyako-jima.
1800s 1808. The Nagasaki Harbour Incident: enters Nagasaki and lays an unsuccessful ambush on Dutch shipping. 1812. The British whaler HMS Saracen (1812) stopped at Uraga, Kanagawa and took on water, food, and firewood. 1813. Thomas Raffles attempts trade with Japan under a British flag to oust Dutch trade monopoly, only for the ooperhoofd to fly the ships under Dutch colours, being rescinded by Governor-General of India on the basis of excessive expense in 1814, also finally being halted in May 1815 by Raffles after the handover of the British colony of Java to the Dutch. 1819. The third British ship 'The Brothers' piloted by Captain Peter Gordon, visited Uraga on 17 June seeking to trade with Japan, unsuccessful at Edo to get any treaty. 1819. 3 August. The first British Whaler HMS Syren begins to exploit the Japan whaling grounds. 1824. 12 English whalers stray ashore looking for food and are apprehended by Aizawa Seishisai leading to new repulsion acts against foreign vessels. 1830. The convict crew of the Cyprus piloted by William Swallow are repelled under the repulsion acts of 1825. 1831. Discussions are held at the British East India Company to hold a base on the Bonin Islands to trade with Japan and the Ryukyuu Archipelago.