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Japan Diplomacy
Emerging Chinese nationalism, the victory of the
communists in
Russia, and the growing presence of the United States in
East Asia
all worked against Japan's postwar foreign policy
interests. The
four-year Siberian expedition and activities in China,
combined
with big domestic spending programs, had depleted Japan's
wartime
earnings. Only through more competitive business
practices,
supported by further economic development and industrial
modernization, all accommodated by the growth of the
zaibatsu
(wealth groups--see Glossary),
could Japan hope to
become predominant in Asia. The United States, long a
source of
many imported goods and loans needed for development, was
seen as
becoming a major impediment to this goal because of its
policies of
containing Japanese imperialism.
An international turning point in military diplomacy
was the
Washington Conference of 1921-22, which produced a series
of
agreements that effected a new order in the Pacific
region. Japan's
economic problems made a naval buildup nearly impossible
and,
realizing the need to compete with the United States on an
economic
rather than a military basis, rapprochement became
inevitable.
Japan adopted a more neutral attitude toward the civil war
in
China, dropped efforts to expand its hegemony into China
proper,
and joined the United States, Britain, and France in
encouraging
Chinese self-development.
In the Four Power Treaty on Insular Possessions
(December 13,
1921), Japan, the United States, Britain, and France
agreed to
recognize the status quo in the Pacific, and Japan and
Britain
agreed to terminate formally their Treaty of Alliance. The
Five
Power Naval Disarmament Treaty (February 6, 1922)
established an
international capital ship ratio (5, 5, 3, 1.75, and 1.75,
respectively, for the United States, Britain, Japan,
France, and
Italy) and limited the size and armaments of capital ships
already
built or under construction. In a move that gave the
Japanese
Imperial Navy greater freedom in the Pacific, Washington
and London
agreed not to build any new military bases between
Singapore and
Hawaii.
The goal of the Nine Power Treaty (February 6, 1922),
signed by
Belgium, China, the Netherlands, and Portugal, along with
the
original five powers, was the prevention of war in the
Pacific. The
signatories agreed to respect China's independence and
integrity,
not to interfere in Chinese attempts to establish a stable
government, to refrain from seeking special privileges in
China or
threatening the positions of other nations there, to
support a
policy of equal opportunity for commerce and industry of
all
nations in China, and to reexamine extraterritoriality and
tariff
autonomy policies. Japan also agreed to withdraw its
troops from
Shandong, relinquishing all but purely economic rights
there, and
to evacuate its troops from Siberia.
In 1928 Japan joined fourteen other nations in signing
the
Kellogg-Briand Pact, which denounced "recourse to war for
the
solution of international controversies." Thus, when Japan
invaded
Manchuria only three years later, its pretext was the
defense of
its nationals and economic interests there. The London
Naval
Conference in 1930 came at a time of economic recession in
Japan,
and the Japanese government was amenable to further,
cost-saving
naval reductions. Although Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi
had
civilian support, he bypassed the Naval General Staff and
approved
the signing of the London Naval Treaty. Hamaguchi's
success was
pyrrhic: ultranationalists called the treaty a national
surrender,
and navy and army officials girded themselves for defense
of their
budgets. Hamaguchi himself died from wounds suffered in an
assassination attempt in November 1930, and the treaty,
with its
complex formula for ship tonnage and numbers aimed at
restricting
the naval arms race, had loopholes that made it
ineffective by
1938.
Data as of January 1994
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