>>115514532>a Dutch outpost once in 1600-somethingDejima was a pretty big deal. It was a Dutch trading post for over two hundred years, and was the only contact Japan had with the outside world for that whole period of time. It meant the Dutch had a monopoly on trade with Japan, and it meant that all Western influences that came into Japan came from the Dutch.
Japan still has quite a few words that are pretty much just Dutch words (like their words for alcohol, beer, and being drunk) and they learned a lot of modern science and medicine from the Dutch as well. Which is why Japan managed to modernise so quickly after commodore Perry forced Japan to end its isolation; pretty much all of those modernisations (like warships and steam engines) were based on Dutch designs and drawings.