Final answer:
Commodore Matthew C. Perry persuaded Japan to open its ports to the United States with a show of military might, initiating negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 and the beginning of Japan's modernization.
Step-by-step explanation:
Who Persuaded Japan to Open Its Ports to the United States?
In July 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy, upon orders from President Millard Fillmore, sailed a fleet of four ships into Edo (Tokyo) Bay. Perry carried a letter from the President requesting that Japan open trade with the U.S. and provide better treatment of shipwrecked American sailors. The Japanese, intimated by Perry’s modern naval force, entered into negotiations which resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. This treaty effectively ended Japan's policy of seclusion by opening up two ports to American ships and establishing a U.S. consulate in Japan.
Subsequently, Townsend Harris negotiated a second treaty that further opened Japanese ports and paved the way for more Western influence, often referred to as an "unequal treaty." These treaties played a major role in the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji Restoration, which would later see Japan modernize and industrialize rapidly to join the ranks of global powers and protect itself from foreign domination.