Iwakura Mission (1871-1873): Japan's Embassy to the West

The Iwakura Mission was a Japanese diplomatic embassy that travelled through the United States and Europe between December 1871 and September 1873. Led by the court noble Iwakura Tomomi and including several of the most powerful men of the new Meiji government, it set out to revise the unequal treaties forced on Japan in the 1850s and to study how Western nations were governed. The treaty talks failed, but what the envoys saw shaped Japan’s modernisation for a generation.

Background

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 had overthrown the Tokugawa shogunate, but the new government inherited treaties signed after the Perry Expedition. These gave Western residents extraterritoriality, meaning they were tried by their own consuls rather than Japanese courts, and fixed Japan’s import tariffs at low rates. Removing these humiliating terms was a central goal of Meiji diplomacy.

Several of the treaties allowed revision talks from July 1872. The government decided to send a high-ranking embassy to open negotiations and, just as importantly, to observe Western institutions first-hand. A caretaker government, including Saigo Takamori, Itagaki Taisuke and Okuma Shigenobu, stayed behind in Tokyo with a promise to avoid major changes.

Members and route

The mission left Yokohama on 23 December 1871 aboard the American steamer America. Iwakura served as ambassador, with four vice-ambassadors: Kido Takayoshi, Okubo Toshimichi, Ito Hirobumi and Yamaguchi Masuka. Around 50 officials travelled with them, together with some 60 students who were to study abroad, among them five girls, the youngest of whom was the six-year-old Tsuda Umeko.

The embassy landed at San Francisco in January 1872, crossed the continent by railway and stayed in the United States for about seven months. It then spent four months in Britain, touring factories, shipyards and mills in cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Newcastle, and being received by Queen Victoria at Windsor in December 1872. The envoys went on to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, and visited the Vienna World’s Fair of 1873.

In Berlin they met Otto von Bismarck, whose account of how a small, late-unifying state had grown strong through power rather than international law left a deep impression on several members. The party returned home through the Suez Canal, Ceylon, Singapore, Saigon, Hong Kong and Shanghai, reaching Yokohama on 13 September 1873.

The failed treaty talks

The diplomatic side of the mission went badly from the start. In Washington the Americans showed some willingness to talk, but the envoys discovered that they did not hold full powers to sign a new treaty. Okubo and Ito travelled back to Japan to obtain the necessary credentials, a round trip that cost months.

When they returned, the Japanese realised that a separate treaty with the United States could give other powers equal benefits through most-favoured-nation clauses without any gain for Japan. The negotiations were dropped. In Europe the governments made clear that they would not abandon extraterritoriality until Japan adopted Western-style law codes and courts. Full treaty revision was achieved only in the 1890s.

What the envoys learned

The mission’s secretary, Kume Kunitake, kept a detailed record that was published in 1878 in five volumes. It describes railways, parliaments, prisons, schools, museums and factories, and compares the wealth of nations. A key lesson the envoys drew was that Western power was relatively recent, built over roughly the previous half-century through industry and trade, and that Japan could catch up.

Members disagreed over models. Kido became more interested in constitutional government, while Okubo was struck by British industry and the Prussian example of a strong state guiding development. Ito would later lead the drafting of the Meiji Constitution, drawing heavily on German advice.

Consequences

The returning envoys found the caretaker government planning to send Saigo Takamori as an envoy to Korea, a move many expected to lead to war. In October 1873 Iwakura, Okubo and their allies blocked the plan, arguing that internal reform must come first. Saigo, Itagaki, Eto Shinpei and others resigned in protest. This split, known as the Seikanron (debate over conquering Korea), led directly to later revolts, above all the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

Okubo emerged as the dominant figure in the government and pushed industrial promotion, while Ito’s career rose steadily. Some of the students made their mark too: Tsuda Umeko returned to found a school for women’s higher education in 1900, now Tsuda University.

Timeline

• 1871, 23 December: The embassy sails from Yokohama.
• 1872, January: Arrival in San Francisco.
• 1872, March: Okubo and Ito return to Japan to obtain full powers for treaty talks.
• 1872, August: The mission arrives in Britain.
• 1872, December: Queen Victoria receives the envoys at Windsor.
• 1873, March: The envoys meet Bismarck in Berlin.
• 1873, 13 September: The mission returns to Yokohama.
• 1873, October: The returned leaders defeat the plan to send Saigo to Korea.

Why it matters

Few governments have sent so many of their top leaders abroad for so long. The Iwakura Mission failed in its formal aim, but it gave Meiji Japan’s leaders a shared picture of the modern world and a programme of reform first and expansion later. That programme guided Japan’s rapid rise in the decades that followed.