Final answer:
China and Japan both initially resisted interaction with the West but eventually engaged in varying degrees. While China often engaged under duress leading to a disadvantage, Japan controlled its interaction leading to a beneficial adoption of Western technologies and ideas.
Step-by-step explanation:
The interactions of China and Japan with the West can be compared and contrasted in their openness, reactions, and outcomes. Beginning with China, its approach to the West was initially quite close-guarded, limiting foreign trade and interaction through measures such as the Canton system which constrained western trade activities. Both Japan and China saw the West as a threat to traditional ways of life and tried to limit its import of foreign values and ideas. However, Japan was influenced by its contact with China, taking on Chinese-inspired language, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
China did engage in trade with the West, though often under duress, such as the treaties imposed during the aftermath of the Opium Wars and the establishment of spheres of influence by Western powers. Japan, on the other hand, maintained relative isolation until the Meiji Restoration when it undertook a rapid Westernization and modernization process.
Therefore, while many Western nations sought to exploit China economically, resulting in China's reluctant engagement and being often at a disadvantage, in contrast, Japan relatively controlled its engagement with the external powers, thereby adapting Western technologies and ideas to better suit its context, leading to its rapid rise as a world power.
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