Hello everybody, I am just reading about Japan during the Meiji time. For some reason the Japanese have been able to catch up pretty quickly to the West. Something similar had happened earlier when Western flintlock weapons were copied and improved on during the Warring states period.
If I am not mistaken the main technological advantage of the West during the time of Columbus and the East Indian companies as compared to India, the Arabs, China, Japan, and other mighty civilizations in Africa or Asia was navigation and ship design. Because in all other matters non-European nations were a good match as well. Just thinking about the Turks sieging Vienna.
So I am just wondering. Why was there no foreign nation trying and succeeding to kidnap Western navigators and shipbuilders to challenge Western fleets? Or go to Europe to trade goods themselves?
So why was that never tried?
Japan did at least. A few galleon-style ships were built in the early Edo. At the same time many "Red seal" ships were built, though (probably) oriental in style they were comparable in size to normal galleons (though not to the largest of European warships), which were used to trade with South East Asia. These ended in the 1630s with the passing of laws prohibiting Japanese people from heading abroad except for official diplomats.
The thing is that, for Japan at least, there was no political will or any necessity to challenge western fleets. Copying technology is (relatively) easy. But why go through that trouble for no return. The unified Bakufu has no need for a strong navy as the Europeans weren't in a position, both technologically and logistically, to invade Japan. Internal stability, that is demobilisation and settling into ruling the country, was a much high priority for the Edo bakufu than going on naval adventures. It wasn't that Japan didn't copy Western technology, naval included. It was that Japan didn't see a need to keep doing it.
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!