I Looked Into Why Japan Never Became a Spanish Colony

Recently, I researched the history of Spain’s colonization of the Philippines for a blog post.

One thing made me curious: Japan lies just north of the Philippines, so why did Spain never go after it?

Why not?

Japan was in the middle of the Warring States period. Its warlords were continually killing one another in conflicts across the country.

Ordinarily, a country in the middle of a civil war would seem easy to invade.

In reality, however, the opposite was true.

The Japanese had become far too accustomed to war.

What the Spanish Saw Was a Country Full of Armed Samurai

At the time, Spain was a great power whose influence extended from the Americas to Asia.

In the Philippines, it expanded its rule by forming alliances with powerful local leaders and, at times, exploiting conflicts between rival groups.

The Philippines had influential port cities and Muslim political powers, and resistance continued. However, there was no single state capable of unifying the entire archipelago.

What, then, was Japan like?

Regional warlords had organized large armies and spent decades fighting real battles.

Japan was similarly divided, but its military strength was on an entirely different scale.

Moreover, the Japanese quickly learned to manufacture the firearms introduced from Europe themselves.

Matchlock guns are said to have arrived on the island of Tanegashima in 1543. They were subsequently manufactured domestically and mass-produced.

By the latter half of the Warring States period, firearms had become one of the main weapons used on the battlefield.

From the Spanish perspective, crossing the sea to invade would mean facing an opponent waiting with large numbers of soldiers and guns.

And those soldiers were not amateurs at war.

For the Spanish forces based in the Philippines, conquering Japan simply was not worth the cost.

Some on the Spanish side did discuss military intervention in Japan, but no large-scale campaign of conquest was ever carried out.

Things might have been different if Spain itself had been where the Philippines was, but sending a massive military force from the other side of the world was simply not practical.

When Could Japan Have Been Conquered?

At this point, it is tempting to consider an alternate version of history.

What if the Spanish had arrived not during the Warring States period, but much earlier in Japan’s history?

For example, what if they had arrived before Japan emerged as a state?

Political powers were scattered across different regions, and no state existed that could mobilize the entire Japanese archipelago.

What if the ships, firearms, and military organization of 16th-century Spain could have been brought directly into that era?

Japan might have been colonized as well.

Of course, this is a rather crude hypothetical that pits forces from completely different periods against one another.

Even so, it is easy to imagine how strongly a state’s organizational capacity affects its ability to resist invasion.

How, then, did Japan develop its structure as a state?

This is where an unexpected name enters the story.

China.

Japan Had China as a Teacher in Building a State

Chinese civilization had an enormous influence on the formation of the ancient Japanese state.

An early Japanese state already existed before China’s Sui and Tang dynasties, but Japan later began actively adopting Chinese institutions and culture.

Chinese characters, a legal and administrative system, a bureaucracy, and Buddhist culture.

Particularly during the Sui and Tang periods, Japan studied China’s system of government and used it to develop its own political structure.

That was also why Japan sent official missions to the Sui and Tang courts.

In short, ancient Japan had an enormous advanced civilization nearby.

Japan adapted the institutions it learned there to local needs and continued developing its system of government.

Of course, the military power Japan possessed in the 16th century was directly created by the many centuries of domestic history that followed.

Nevertheless, the development of state institutions in ancient times laid an important foundation for Japan to build its own political and military systems later.

Seen this way, the story becomes quite interesting.

Tracing the reasons Japan did not become a European colony eventually leads back to its history of learning from ancient China.

History Repeats Itself: Japan Did the Same Thing During Modernization

Come to think of it, Japan did the same thing during the Meiji Restoration.

This time, its teachers were not in China but in the West.

Japan learned about armies from Germany and France, its navy from Britain, and its laws and parliamentary system from Europe as well.

Railways, factories, and the school system—Japan adopted anything that appeared useful.

It then modified those things to suit Japan and made them its own.

In ancient times, Japan learned systems of government from China. During the Warring States period, it imported European firearms and began manufacturing them domestically. In the Meiji era, it absorbed the institutions of a modern state along with science and technology.

What Japan was doing did not change very much from one era to another.

Japan is remarkably good at borrowing what other people have invented and turning it into something of its own.

And it does not stop at simple imitation. Japan improves things, mass-produces them, and sometimes even surpasses the original creators.

The postwar automobile and consumer electronics industries are typical examples.

Japanese people are sometimes criticized for lacking originality, but I think the ability to identify other people’s good ideas and put them into practical use is a genuine talent in itself.

In the end, perhaps Japanese history can be summarized in one sentence.

“If you find something good, bring it home first.”

Some people mock China as a nation of copycats, but Japan is the original master of copying.