Purpose and Results
The purposes of the mission were twofold:
- To renegotiate the unequal treaties with the United States, Great Britain and other European countries that Japan had been forced into during the previous decades.
- To gather information on education, technology, culture, and military, social and economic structures from the countries visited in order to effect the modernization of Japan.
Of these two goals, the first one failed universally, prolonging the mission by almost a year, but also impressing the importance of the second goal on its members. The attempts to negotiate new treaties under better conditions with the foreign governments led them to go beyond the mandates set by the Japanese government, which caused friction between the mission and the government. The failures and their prolonged stay became useless at this point, which put Okubo and Kido on bad terms politically. On the other hand, members were impressed by modernization in America and Europe, which made them take initiatives to modernize Japan later.
Read more about this topic: Iwakura Mission
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