Japan & Britain as Island Societies

From Geography and Japan's Strategic Choices: From Seclusion to Internationalization, by Peter J. Woolley (Potomac Books, 2005), Kindle pp. 16-17:

The consequences of Japan’s relative position to Asia are at least as important as those that stem from its topography. Though classified as part of Asia, the archipelago stands off the Asian continent anywhere from a hundred to several hundred miles. This physical separation from Asia minimized influences from the continent on the Japanese population and allowed Japanese culture and politics to develop relatively independently. Indeed, this physical separation is the primary reason so many observers have emphasized the unique character of things Japanese.

Even so, Japan is not the only example of an island-nation removed from continental civilization. Great Britain is in a similar position, and it is worth comparing Japan’s placement off the northeast coast of continental Asia to that of Britain off the northwest coast of Europe. Both Britain and Japan had the geographical advantage of being insulated by the sea. For both continental Europeans and continental Asians, the difficulties of navigation made travel to and from the islands hazardous and limited for many centuries. Consequently, both Japan and Britain were at the periphery of continental politics for those centuries. The insulating sea made Britain and Japan naturally defensible. The sea also offered both of them an avenue to the rest of the world and made them both, eventually, trading and maritime nations.

The stark difference in this comparison is how far Japan was from the Asian continent as compared to how far Britain was from its neighbors. Japan and England were both insulated from their continental neighbors but Japan was more than insulated, it was also isolated by the seas that surrounded it. The English had the advantage of a natural defensive moat but could easily traverse the moat to communicate and trade with their cross-channel neighbors and, by the same token, were not immune to the political machinations of those neighbors. The core of the English population was physically oriented toward the continent: the great city of London grew up on the Thames River, which flowed into the Channel between England and France. But on the other side of the globe, travel from Japan to the mainland was a much more difficult affair because the distances were so much greater. Further, the Japanese population did not live facing the continent but on the side opposite, facing away (toward the Americas in fact): Japan’s great fertile plains were on the Pacific Ocean and on the Inland Sea, not the Sea of Japan. Thus, the island-bound English developed into international traders, explorers, and empire builders much sooner than did the island-bound Japanese.

The twin geographical influences of insulation and isolation have been greatly modified by modern modes of transportation and communication, but Japan’s history reflects the way it was both insulated from attack and isolated from cultural, economic, and political transactions.

It is interesting that two of Japan's first three railway lines were built to connect to ports on the Japan Sea, facing Asia. The first railway connected Tokyo to the major port city of Yokohama, but the next two connected Sapporo to Otaru and Osaka to Tsuruga (including one segment by boat across Lake Biwa).