试论“黑船来航”事件与日本开国的必然性

1853年，美国海军司令佩里率舰队扣关日本，迫使日本仓皇开国并签订条约，结束了长达200年的“闭关锁国”政策。通 过对“黑船来航”事件始末、幕府朝廷和有志大名对来航预告情报的动向进行梳理，分析发现日本开国看似偶然实则有其必然 性。其主要原因在于19世纪中期资本主义国家在全球范围内进行外扩张，日本被卷入正在形成的资本主义世界市场不可避 免；日本幕藩体制的松散性和国内阶级矛盾的升级影响了德川幕府统治的权威性和稳定性；面对外来势力日本早有危机意识， “黑船来航”之前具有开国倾向性的言论也已萌芽；日本“边缘”性的传统文化利于日本吸收外来文化，尤其对西方文化思想的 吸收使得日本知识分子进行了反思与觉醒，催生了冲破封建牢笼的意识。

The Perry Expedition and the Inevitability of Japan's Opening-up

U.S. admiral Matthew Calbraith Perry''s naval expedition to Japan in 1853 forced the latter to open up and sign a treaty in a flurry and ended the country''s 200-year close-door policy. Through examination of the whole event and the reaction of the Shogun court and motivated daimyos to the warning of the expedition, this paper concludes that Japan''s opening up looked accidental but actually came as inevitable. The reasons lie in the fact that, in the mid-19th century, capitalist countries were expanding globally and Japan''s being involved in the capitalist world market in the making was unavoidable. Japan''s loose vassal system and escalation of class conflict at the time damaged the authority and stability of the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. When confronted with external forces, Japanese already had a sense of crisis, and were talking about opening up before the Perry expedition. The "marginality" of traditional Japanese culture is conducive to its absorption of foreign cultures, which would then wake up Japanese intellectuals and induced their ideas of breaking out of the feudal cage.