Japan–Netherlands relations ( nl, Japans-Nederlandse betrekkingen, ja, 日蘭関係) describes the foreign relations between

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Relations between Japan and the Netherlands date back to 1609, when the first formal trade relations were established.Mitsubishi Corporation �
''Regional Report on the Kingdom of the Netherlands''
400 jaar handel �
''Four centuries of Japanese–Dutch trade relations: 1609–2009''

History

Curious Japanese watching Dutchmen on Dejima

Early trade

In April of 1600, the ship "de Liefde" arrived on the coast of Bungo (present-day Usuki), with a dwindled, exhausted and sickly crew of survivors, the only ship remaining of the initial five vessels that departed from Rotterdam in 1598. This crew included

Jacob Quaeckernaeck Jacob Jansz. Quaeckernaeck (or ''Quackernaeck'' or ''Kwakernaak'') (ca. 1543 – 21 September 1606) was a native of Rotterdam and one of the first Dutchmen in Japan, and he was a navigator and later the captain (after the death of the previous ...

, Melchior van Santvoort, Jan Joosten and William Adams. The crew and ship's contents were seized under orders from

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

, the ruler at the time, and upon extracting information from some of the members brought to court about foreign affairs and the purpose of their mission, he permitted some to ship out on

Red Seal Ships were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with red-sealed letters patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships went ...

, thus starting the first trading collaborations between the Dutch and the Japanese. When formal trade relations were established in 1609 at the behest of William Adams, the Dutch were granted extensive trading rights, and set up a trading outpost at

Hirado is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The part historically named Hirado is located on Hirado Island. With recent mergers, the city's boundaries have expanded, and Hirado now occupies parts of the main island of Kyushu. The component ...

, operated by the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. They traded exotic Asian goods such as spices, textiles, porcelain, and silk. When the Shimabara uprising of 1637 happened, in which

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

Japanese started a rebellion against the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, it was crushed with the help of the Dutch. As a result, all Christian nations who gave aid to the rebels were expelled, leaving the Dutch the only commercial partner from the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

. Among the expelled nations was

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

who had a trading post in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

harbor on an artificial island called

Dejima , in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, i ...

. In a move of the shogunate to take the Dutch trade away from the Hirado clan, the entire Dutch trading post was moved to Dejima.

Military cooperation

After the forcible opening of Japan by an American fleet commanded by Commodore Perry in 1854, a decision was made to modernize the Japanese fleet. To do this orders were placed for modern steam powered warships. The first of which was the ZM SS ''Soembing'', a gift from

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...

William III of the Netherlands William III ( Dutch: ''Willem Alexander Paul Frederik Lodewijk''; English: ''William Alexander Paul Frederick Louis''; 19 February 1817 – 23 November 1890) was King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1849 until his death in ...

, which was renamed the Kankō Maru. To train Japanese sailors in the use of these new and powerful ships the

Nagasaki Naval Training Center The was a naval training institute, between 1855 when it was established by the government of the Tokugawa shogunate, until 1859, when it was transferred to Tsukiji in Edo. During the Bakumatsu period, the Japanese government faced increasing ...

was established at the entrance of Dejima, to maximize interaction with Dutch naval know-how. Among the students at the Nagasaki Naval Training Center was

Enomoto Takeaki Viscount was a Japanese samurai and admiral of the Tokugawa navy of Bakumatsu period Japan, who remained faithful to the Tokugawa shogunate and fought against the new Meiji government until the end of the Boshin War. He later served in the Me ...

, one of the founders of the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

. Following the opening of Japan to trade, the Dutch special mission in Nagasaki was closed down in 1860 and first Dutch Consulate was opened in Edo.

World War II

De Liefde Windmill, Sakura, Chiba, Japan - 20060417

Post war Japanese–Dutch relations

The relations between Japan and the Netherlands after 1945 have been complicated. The invasion and occupation of the

Netherlands East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised Factory (trading post), trading posts o ...

during World War II, brought about the destruction of the colonial state in Indonesia, as the Japanese removed as much of the Dutch government as they could, weakening the post war grip the Netherlands had over the territory. Under diplomatic pressure from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, the Netherlands recognised Indonesian sovereignty in 1949 (see

United States of Indonesia The United States of Indonesia ( nl, Verenigde Staten van Indonesië, id, Republik Indonesia Serikat, abbreviated as RIS), was a short-lived federal state to which the Netherlands formally transferred sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies (exce ...

). Emperor

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

landed in the Netherlands for a state visit on 8 October 1971. The visit was controversial because of the World War II troubles, and his delegation had to be protected from protesters. Japanese flags were burned by radical far-left activists of the Red Youth in front of the media and a bomb alert was reported when the Japanese embassy was threatened. The Japanese press reacted furiously to the reception. After the visit, the Dutch government repeatedly apologised to Japan, and the mood in Japan turned positive when Hirohito called the visit a "success." Increasingly positive relations were largely felt in the consumer electronics industry, where the Netherlands's

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

and Japan's

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

- both major electronics companies at the time - worked together in making several popular mass market technologies such as the

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in O ...

(CD). On the 24 August 2009, the Netherlands released a commemorative 5 euro coin to celebrate 400 years of relations.''News Video of the 5 euro commemorative coin''
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Education

Amsterdam has one Japanese-medium day school, The Japanese School of Amsterdam. There is also a school in Rotterdam, the Japanese School of Rotterdam. The Saturday Japanese supplementary schools in the Netherlands include Japanese Saturday School Amsterdam, Den Haag-Rotterdam Japanese Saturday School in Rotterdam, Stichting the Japanese School of

Tilburg Tilburg () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern province of North Brabant. With a population of 222,601 (1 July 2021), it is the second-largest city or municipality in North Brabant after Eindhoven and the seventh-larg ...

, and Stichting

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

Japanese Supplementary School.欧州の補習授業校一覧（平成25年4月15日現在）

.

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology The , also known as MEXT or Monka-shō, is one of the eleven Ministries of Japan that composes part of the executive branch of the Government of Japan. Its goal is to improve the development of Japan in relation with the international community ...

(MEXT). Retrieved on May 10, 2014. The Maastricht school was founded in 1992 as an outgrowth of the Joppenhoff International School. It began with 15 students, and grew as large as 30, but declined in concert with the economy, and as of 2004 enrolled just 20 students. The Saturday School of The Hague and Rotterdam was formed in 1996 from a merger of the two separate Saturday Japanese schools of those cities.Introduction

Archive
. The Hague-Rotterdam Japanese Saturday School. Retrieved on April 5, 2015
Dutch versionArchive
.
Japanese versionArchive
.

Diplomacy

Japan has an Embassy in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

. The Netherlands has an Embassy in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

and a Consulate-general in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

References

External links

''The Netherlands–Japan: Collections: the Memory of the Netherlands (het Geheugen van Nederland)''

* ttp://www.nl.emb-japan.go.jp/ ''Embassy of Japan in the Netherlands (在オランダ日本国大使館)''
''Embassy of the Netherlands in Japan''

''Japanese business communities in the European Union (plus Switzerland) - an onomastics view (2013)''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Japan-Netherlands Relations Bilateral relations of the Netherlands

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