From the beginning of the 17th century, the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan imposed a state of isolation, forbidding trade and contact with the outside world, with a narrow exception for the Netherlands, Korea, and China.

From the early 19th century, the western colonial powers especially Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Russia, were expanding politically and economically into new markets, and were seeking to impose hegemony over much of Asia.

The Japanese finally handed over a document stipulating Russia's right to send one Russian vessel of commerce to the harbor of Nagasaki.

The plan was not approved because officials expressed concerns it would disrupt the Kyakhta trade, and many did not believe Russia had great commercial assets to be defended in these cold and desolate places.

[6]) In 1852, on learning of American plans to send Commodore Matthew Perry in an attempt to open Japan for foreign trade, the Russian government revived Putyatin's proposal, which received support from Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia.

(see Treaty of Shimoda)[7] Three changes took place during the second half of the 19th century, which caused a gradual shift to hostility in the relations between the two countries.

This changed from 1860 onwards, as Russia by the Treaty of Peking acquired from China a long strip of Pacific coastline south of the mouth of the Amur River and began to build the naval base of Vladivostok.

In 1861, Russia attempted to seize the island of Tsushima from Japan and to establish an anchorage, but failed largely due to political pressure from Great Britain and other western powers.

Japan very rapidly became an emerging industrial and military power, borrowing and adapting the best technology and organizational ideas of Western Europe.

Witte chose the second policy and in 1894 Russia joined Germany and France in forcing Japan to soften the peace terms it imposed on China.

[10] Japan Was forced to cede the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur (both territories were located in south-eastern Manchuria, a Chinese province) back to China.

This new Russian role angered Tokyo, which decided Russia was the main enemy in its quest to control Manchuria, Korea and China.

Russia concluded an alliance with China (in 1896 by the Li–Lobanov Treaty), which led in 1898 to an occupation and administration (by Russian personnel and police) of the entire Liaodong Peninsula and to a fortification of the ice-free Port Arthur.

Russia also established a bank and built the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was to cross northern Manchuria from west to east, linking Siberia with Vladivostok.

As a consequence, Manchuria became a fully incorporated outpost of the Russian Empire in 1900, and Japan made ready to fight Russia.

[12]] In 1895, Japan felt robbed of the spoils of her decisive victory over China by the Western Powers (including Russia), which revised the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence.

The consequences transformed the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage.

However Japan leased the Liaodong Peninsula (containing Port Arthur and Talien) and the Russian-built South Manchurian Railway in southern Manchuria with access to strategic resources.

Historian George E. Mowry concludes that Roosevelt handled the arbitration well, doing an "excellent job of balancing Russian and Japanese power in the Orient, where the supremacy of either constituted a threat to growing America.

Due to the lack of supplies in the Eastern Front, Russia also ordered rifles, carbines, ammunitions, mountain guns and howitzers from Japan during the war in 1916.