Answer:
Growing commerce between America and China, the presence of American whalers in waters off Japan, and the increasing monopolization of potential coaling stations by European colonial powers in Asia were all contributing factors in the decision by President Fillmore to dispatch an expedition to Japan. The first U.S. consul assigned to a Japanese port was Townsend Harris. Trade began in the 1860s. The Japanese grudgingly agreed to Perry's demands, and the two sides signed the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. ... As a result, Perry's treaty provided an opening that would allow future American contact and trade with Japan. Townsend Harris. Many Chinese students were trained in Japan and political activists were based there before they overthrew the Chinese empire in 1912. A series of wars and confrontations took place between 1880 and 1945, with Japan seizing Taiwan, Manchuria and most of coastal China.