ABSTRACT
From the seventeenth century onwards, the Japanese-Korean relationship was maintained through the So family, the Japanese feudal lord in the island of Tsushima which lies in the middle of the Korean Strait. The contents of treaties that the Qing signed with other Western nations shortly after were almost identical to the Anglo-Chinese treaty, and all of the powers, including Britain, also consented to a most favoured nation clause. But before the British government could decide on what to do, the Imo mutiny broke out in Seoul, thus bringing the problems raised by China's new pretensions to the attention of Britain as well as Japan. The average tariff rate was set at about 10 percent, with some products set at 30 percent; this was much higher than that set by the Anglo-Chinese and Anglo-Japanese treaties, whose average rates were around five percent. Thus, through persuasion and appeasement, the Japanese ministers and diplomats sought to win the goodwill of their Korean counterparts.
