the new American consul in Japan negotiated a broader treaty that did address trade, and that was again soon followed by similar treaties with Britain, France, Russia, and the Netherlands. Those treaties became regarded in Japan as humiliating and were termed the “unequal treaties,” because they embodied the Western view that Japan did not deserve to be treated in the way that Western powers treated one another. For instance, the treaties provided for extraterritoriality of Western citizens in Japan, i.e., that they were not subject to Japanese laws. A major goal of Japanese policy for the
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