(Japanese) National isolation.
From 1639 to 1854, Japan was shut under a policy called sakoku, which had left it culturally prosperous though far behind many other countries technologically and militarily. Foreigners were forbidden to enter Japan and trade. Only the Dutch were permitted. Through the small port of Dejima in Nagasaki, the Dutch traders became Japan’s single link to the outside world for more than two centuries. This privilege was only extended to contact with Japanese merchants and prostitutes.
Any Japanese who dared to venture abroad during this period were executed on their return to prevent any form of ‘contamination’.
The Meiji Emperor (1852–1912) introduced Japan to modernization and industrialization. Christianity was legalized in 1877.