Japan Emerges from Isolation.
Japanese-American relations formally began in July 1853, when Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry entered the Bay of Yedo with an American naval squadron to propose a treaty between the Japanese Empire and the United States. At the time, Japan had for more than two hundred years been following a policy of rigid exclusion and inclusion, by which she was completely shut off from the rest of the world, except for a very slight and strictly regulated trade with the Dutch and the Chinese at Nagasaki. When Perry sailed away in 1853, after explaining his mission and announcing that he would return the next year for an answer, neither he nor the world realized what a Pandora's box was about to be opened in the Far East.
The treaty which Perry obtained upon his return in 1854 was hardly more than a 'shipwreck treaty,' but it was the entering wedge which the United States wanted. The two Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate were to be opened to American vessels for supplies of fuel, provisions, and water; limited trade under Japanese regulations was to be permitted; and the survivors and cargoes of shipwrecked vessels were promised decent treatment. Like other commercial treaties negotiated by the United States, it contained the so-called most-favored-nation clause, whereby any additional concessions and privileges granted to other nations were to be automatically enjoyed by the United States.
Townsend Harris, who arrived in Shimoda in 1856 as the first American consul, succeeded in obtaining a second treaty in 1858 which substantially enlarged American rights in Japan. Additional ports were to be opened to general commerce, extraterritoriality in both civil and criminal cases was granted; the tariff on Japanese imports and exports was fixed; and Americans were to enjoy religious freedom in Japan. Similar treaties with Japan, all with the usual most-favored-nation clause, were obtained by Great Britain, Russia, France, and Holland.
The opening of Japan to the outer world provoked violent dissension within the Nipponese kingdom. A succession of violent, anti-foreign outbursts reached a climax in 1862, when the Japanese forts at Shimonoseki, without warning, opened fire on an American trading vessel anchored in the strait there. Later, French and Dutch vessels were also fired on. In 1864, a joint naval expedition of British, Dutch, French, and American ships bombarded the forts at Shimonoseki and silenced their guns. An indemnity of $3,000,000 was imposed on Japan; and, in 1866, additional treaty concessions were wrung from her. The United States' share of the indemnity, amounting to $785,000, was returned to Japan in 1883.
Between 1866 and 1894, Japan abandoned feudalism and embarked on an elaborate program of modernization which was intended to make her the military, political, and economic equal of the great world powers. Particularly galling to Japanese pride, as well as seriously impeding her efforts to become a world power, were the extraterritoriality and the fixed tariff duties in the treaties. The United States was openly sympathetic to Japan's aims to rid herself of the obnoxious treaty restrictions on her sovereignty, but the other powers were not willing to follow the lead of this country in surrendering the treaty privileges which all shared in common under the most-favored-nation clauses. Finally, in 1894, Great Britain was induced to cut the Gordian knot of the treaties which bound Japan, and the other nations fell in line. In the new treaties, the European powers relinquished extraterritoriality in Japan and agreed to an arrangement whereby the latter was ultimately to regain control of her tariff.
The 1894 treaty between the United States and Japan provided for reciprocal rights of travel, residence, commerce, navigation, and religious worship. At the insistence of the United States, domestic laws governing 'the immigration of laborers' were not to be affected by the treaty. This last reservation was not to Japan's liking, since it threatened future humiliating discrimination against Japanese immigrants, but Tokyo accepted the distasteful provision, rather than lose the other benefits of the new treaty.
In 1894, the relations between Japan and the United States were distinctly cordial. Between 1895 and 1905, however, the warm friendship cooled and was succeeded by an atmosphere of ill will and distrust which became practically chronic thereafter in the relations between the two countries. Two widely separated sets of conditions were largely responsible for the change. One had to do with a clash of aims and principles in the Far East; and the other, with the development of an anti-Japanese sentiment in the Pacific states, which Tokyo regarded as insulting to the Japanese as a people.
United States Acquisition of the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands.
The conflict between the two nations in the Far East began with the acquisition, by the United States, of the Hawaiian (1898) and Philippine (1899) Islands. Their possession made the United States an Asiatic as well as a Pacific power. Japan raised no objections to the transfer of the Philippines from Spain to the United States, but the American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands shortly before had been a somewhat different matter.
In 1884, when the first Japanese laborers were permitted to emigrate from Japan, it was to Hawaii that they went. For a brief period, it seemed fairly likely that Japanese immigration would make Hawaii a Japanese possession. Indeed, in 1900, there were over 60,000 Japanese in Hawaii, representing not quite 40 per cent of the entire population. American annexation of Hawaii was protested by Japan on the grounds that it would extinguish Japanese rights in the islands and also would jeopardize a Japanese claim against the Hawaiian government. Many Americans regarded this argument as a flimsy pretext to stave off annexation, with the result, that the Japanese protest had the effect of hastening rather than delaying American annexation.
One American argument for keeping the Philippines after the victory over Spain had been that they could be used as a base of an 'illimitable trade' with the Far East, provided of course that American interests were not shut out of China by European powers. In an effort to preserve equality of commercial opportunity in China for the United States, Secretary of State John Hay, in 1899 and 1900, despatched the famous diplomatic notes, which were intended to gain international recognition of the principle of the open door in China and to guarantee the 'territorial and administrative entity' of that country. The appeal was directed to the European powers, but it marked the formulation of a policy, which, if persevered in, was bound to bring the United States into ultimate conflict with Japan, when the latter afterwards became the leading nation in the imperialist exploitation of China.
Strategic, as well as economic, considerations had figured in the decision to annex the Philippines, but within a very few years, the islands, instead of being regarded as a strategic asset, were looked upon as a serious liability. The task of defending them, especially from nearby Japan, was declared by military experts to be well nigh impossible, unless they were strongly fortified and heavily garrisoned. Theodore Roosevelt, in 1907, remarked that the islands were the American 'heel of Achilles.'
Japan's Asiatic Expansion.
In the early years of the twentieth century Japan was successfully laying the foundations for her domination of South Manchuria and Korea. In 1902, the establishment of the Dual Alliance between Japan and Great Britain gave Japan a powerful and much needed ally in the Far East. In 1905, by the Treaty of Portsmouth, which closed the Russo-Japanese War, Russia recognized the predominant interests of Japan in Korea, promised to evacuate South Manchuria, and agreed to transfer to Japan the Russian leasehold of Port Arthur and the Russian railroad and mining concessions in the district. Later the same year, China, by treaty, consented to the transfer of the Russian holdings to Japan. These were the first important steps towards Japanese domination of Manchuria. In 1932, the Lytton Commission said that, as an example of economic and administrative control of one country by another, it had no parallel anywhere else in the world.
Meanwhile, relations between the United States and Japan were going from bad to worse. Talk of war was rife, and the people of both countries gave the impression of practically looking for trouble. The peace conference, for instance, to end the Russo-Japanese War had been held at Portsmouth, N.H., at the invitation of President Roosevelt, and the Japanese people, who were bitterly disappointed by the peace treaty, for some unaccountable reason blamed the United States for its unsatisfactory terms. At the time, however, the Japanese were in a mood to find fault with the United States about anything at all, for they were infuriated by the growing anti-Japanese sentiment in California. In June, 1905, shortly before the Portsmouth Conference met. President Roosevelt expressed his concern over the tendency of the Pacific Coast to insult a sensitive and warlike power, which, according to him, 'if irritated could at once take both the Philippines and Hawaii from us if she obtained the upper hand on the seas.' In 1906, discrimination against the Japanese in the San Francisco schools was formally protested by Japan as a violation of her rights under the treaty of 1894.
Between 1905 and 1908, in the second administration of Theodore Roosevelt, a series of connected measures temporarily ironed out most of the difficulties between the two nations. In 1905, in the secret Taft-Katsura Memorandum, drawn up in Tokyo, the United States recognized Japan's suzerainty over Korea; and Japan, in turn, disavowed any aggressive designs on the Philippines. From 1906 to 1907, the details of the so-called Gentlemen's Agreement were worked out. In return for the promise of the Administration to use its good offices to prevent the passage of a law prohibiting the immigration of Japanese laborers, Japan agreed to stop issuing passports for the United States to Japanese laborers. On Nov. 30, 1908, in the Root-Takahira Agreement, the two countries agreed to respect each others' territorial possessions in the region of the Pacific, disclaimed any intentions of aggression, endorsed the 'existing status quo,' and declared themselves in favor of the open door in China and 'the independence and integrity' of that country.
For several years thereafter relations between the two countries were better. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea outright; and, in 1911, a new treaty between the United States and Japan replaced the old one of 1894. At the urgent request of Japan, the humiliating provision of the 1894 treaty with respect to the immigration of Japanese laborers was omitted. Japan, in return, agreed to restrict the emigration of laborers to this country, as she had been doing. The arrangement promised to be a solution of the difficult problem, but it failed to stem the rising tide of anti-Japanese sentiment on the Pacific Coast.
The World War was a golden opportunity for the vigorous prosecution of Japanese designs on China, for the great powers of Europe were too busy elsewhere to pay much attention to events in the Far East. Japan, choosing to observe her treaty obligations to Great Britain, joined the Allies in the war on Germany, and before the end of 1914, she had seized the German islands north of the equator in the Pacific, and had captured the German leasehold of Kiaochow on the Shantung Peninsula. On Jan. 18, 1915, Japan secretly presented her famous Twenty-One Demands to China. In their original form, they not only would have strengthened Japan's position in Shantung, South Manchuria, and Eastern Mongolia, but they would virtually have made China a vassal state of Japan. China was unable to oppose Japan's demands entirely, but, with the moral support of Great Britain and the United States, she managed to have them substantially modified before their embodiment into two treaties, which were signed May 25, 1915, after an ultimatum from Japan.
The Twenty-One Demands once more brought the United States into the international arena as the champion of China. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, March 13, 1915, informed Japan that this country could not regard with indifference the assumption of political, military, or economic domination over China by a foreign power. The United States recognized, however, Bryan went on, that 'territorial contiguity' created 'special relations' between Japan and the districts of Eastern Inner Mongolia, South Manchuria, and Shantung. A similar statement of the American attitude was contained in the Lansing-Ishii Agreement of 1917, in which the United States again placed itself on record as recognizing that 'territorial propinquity' had given Japan 'special interests' in China, particularly in sections contiguous to Japanese territory, but, the United States added, the territorial sovereignty of China was to remain unimpaired. Also in the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, the two governments reaffirmed their adherence to the principle of the open door, and denied any intention to infringe 'the independence or territorial integrity of China.'
Results of the Washington Conference.
On Nov. 12, 1921, as one of the diplomatic aftermaths of the World War, the Washington Conference assembled at the American capital at the invitation of the United States. Practically all the powers with interests in the Far East were present, with the notable exception of Russia, which was not invited. The American government called the conference for the three-fold purpose of putting a stop to the ruinous armament race between the great naval powers, of working out a comprehensive solution of the international problems of the Pacific and the Far East, and of finding a satisfactory substitute for the expiring Anglo-Japanese Alliance which would not expose Great Britain to the danger of war with the United States.
Three of the treaties which emerged from the Washington Conference (1921-1922) were particularly important to the relations of the United States with Japan. The Four-Power Treaty, between France, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States, pledged the signatory powers to respect one another's insular possessions in the Pacific, to confer jointly over controversial questions which could not be settled by diplomacy, and to consult one another if the rights in the Pacific of one of the signatories were threatened by another power. Closely tied into the Four-Power Treaty, which was intended, in part, to replace the expiring Anglo-Japanese Alliance, was a Five-Power Naval Treaty between the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy. The first three named agreed to accept a ratio of naval strength in capital ships of 5-5-3, which presumably made them equal in the Pacific, since, with that ratio, Japan, in her home waters, would be a match, and possibly more, for the others.
The Five-Power Treaty also stipulated that, aside from certain specified exceptions, there should be no further fortification of insular possessions in the Pacific. This stipulation provided that Hawaii and the islands off the Pacific Coast of the United States, Alaska, and the Panama Canal Zone could be further fortified, and that the Philippines, Samoa, Guam, Midway, and Wake could not be. However, the Aleutian Islands, off Alaska, were specifically excepted from those which could be. The arrangement virtually placed the Philippines, Guam, Wake, and Midway at the mercy of Japan, but, in the Four-Power Treaty, the latter had promised to respect the American title to them. From the Japanese standpoint, the arrangement meant that these last-named islands and the Aleutians were not to be permitted to menace the security of Japan.
The Nine-Power Treaty, the signatories to which included those of the naval treaty, plus China, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal, bound the powers 'to respect the sovereignty, the independence, and the territorial and administrative integrity of China,' as well as to observe the principle of the open door in that country. That this treaty was a triumph of American diplomacy was plain. The principles for which the United States had fought for so long were at last to receive international recognition, for this was not merely a declaration of policy, or an exchange of diplomatic notes, but a formal treaty obligation, binding on all the signatory powers, including Japan.
Additional treaties tied up the loose ends of Pacific disputes. Japan in a separate treaty with the United States agreed to give the latter certain commercial privileges on the island of Yap; and in another treaty, Japan and China arranged for the liquidation of their differences over Shantung, where Japan had been ever since 1915, with the consent of the Versailles Conference. By 1923, Japanese troops were removed from the region, and Chinese political control was once more established.
For nearly a decade after the Washington Conference relations between the United States and Japan were better, although the inevitability of war between them continued to be widely prophesied. In truth, it seemed that there were certain issues between them that simply would not down, of which the American immigration policy was one. The passage by the United States of the Immigration Act of 1924, with its complete and deliberate exclusion of Japanese immigrants, quickly revealed that Japan was as sensitive as ever about policies, either foreign or domestic, which placed her nationals in the humiliating position of being an inferior people. The Japanese, and even many Americans, regarded the legislation as insulting and wholly unnecessary discrimination, since the award of a quota to Japan, as to other nations, would have resulted in a total annual immigration of no more than 250 Japanese.
Japanese Aggression in Manchuria.
In China, during the 1920's, Japan showed every outward sign of faithfully observing the obligations of the Nine-Power Treaty. As the eddies of Chinese nationalism whirled northward, however, in a gradual consolidation of the country, anti-foreign sentiment was strong among the Chinese, and Chinese boycotts of Japanese goods and a succession of 'incidents' repeatedly brought Japan and China to the brink of serious hostilities. Finally, in September, 1931, the Japanese army began operations in Manchuria, which by the end of 1932 had swept all Manchuria under Japanese control. In February, 1932, Japan set up the puppet state of Manchukuo, which, politically and economically, was completely subservient to Japan.
The action of Japan in Manchuria was clearly a violation of the League of Nations Covenant, the Nine-Power Treaty, and the Pact of Paris. The last-named, commonly known as the Kellogg Pact, was a treaty signed in 1928 by pretty nearly all the nations in the world, including Japan and China, whereby they renounced war and pledged themselves to settle international differences by peaceful means. The Assembly of the League of Nations, on the basis of the report of the Lytton Commission, sent to Manchuria by the League, passed resolutions which could only be interpreted as a sweeping condemnation of Japan's policy in the area. In reply, Japan resigned from the League.
The United States was far more aggressive than the League in protesting to Japan against her action in Manchuria. On Jan. 7, 1932, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson despatched identical notes to both Japan and China to the effect that the United States could not accept any situation, treaty, or agreement, which impaired the treaty rights of the United States or its citizens in China. Furthermore, the United States would not recognize any situation or international agreement which was brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of the Pact of Paris. In conformity with this Stimson 'doctrine of non-recognition,' the United States refused to recognize the puppet state of Manchukuo. Stimson wanted to bring more effective pressure on Japan by placing an American embargo on Japanese goods, but because of his inability to obtain the indispensable collaboration of the British, nothing came of his proposal.
United States Champions the Cause of China.
The leadership of the United States in 1932 in trying to rally world opinion against Japan for its policies in China brought the simmering Japanese hatred of the United States to the boiling point. For over a quarter of a century their blood, their treasure, their genius, and their energy had been freely expended in North China, 'benevolent domination' of which, by Japan, was regarded as absolutely essential to the welfare of the Japanese. As Japan viewed the situation, the United States, a power located 6,000 miles from China, with a commercial and investment stake in China trifling in comparison with her Japanese trade and investments, was wilfully and meddlesomely striving to block the extension of Japanese control over China. There is no question, however, that, even before 1932, the American people disapproved generally of Japan's policies in China.
In 1932 and 1933, many experts believed war between the two countries was imminent, but in the United States the domestic crisis took precedence over everything else at the time, and prudence dictated a policy of moderation in foreign relations. Japan, no doubt, recognized this situation and took full advantage of it. Stimson left the office of Secretary of State in March, 1933, to be succeeded by Cordell Hull. The latter was, at first, less aggressive in his dealings with Japan than his predecessor had been, but the new Secretary of State was no less firm in his insistence that there had been no modification of American rights in China. Time after time, he warned Japan that the United States considered the Nine-Power Treaty and the Kellogg Pact as still in full force and effect and did not recognize any act or situation in violation of them.
In the decade beginning with 1932, there are many events which in retrospect are so many milestones along the road to war between the United States and Japan. In December 1934, Japan gave the necessary notice for the termination at the end of 1936 of her obligations under the naval pacts of Washington (1922) and London (1930), an action which removed all restrictions upon Japan's naval building. The Japanese action also released the American government from the restrictions upon fortifying the Philippines, Guam, and other American possessions in the Pacific. The Philippines, however, were already scheduled for independence in 1946, so that American sentiment was against paying the cost of expensive defenses there, and for several years considerations of economy and an unwillingness to offend Japan defeated proposals to fortify Guam.
Sino-Japanese War.
On July 7, 1937, the undeclared war between Japan and China broke out. Japanese bombing of defenseless cities, with the frightful loss of civilian life, provoked intense moral indignation in the United States. On Oct. 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his famous 'Quarantine Speech' in which he denounced the international lawlessness of aggressor nations and said that a way would have to be found to curb them. Japan was not specifically mentioned but the President's speech was obviously aimed squarely at that nation. Apparently, though, public opinion was not prepared to support any concrete action. Even the sinking of the American gunboat, Panay, by Japanese aviators, on Dec. 12, 1937, with a loss of two killed and 30 wounded, did not rouse a war spirit in the United States. Japan promptly apologized and paid an indemnity, and the incident was closed.
Throughout 1938, the American government repeatedly protested to Tokyo against incidents and conditions in China. In one reply, on Nov. 18, 1938, the Japanese government advanced the novel idea that 'the new situation' in East Asia had made the principles of the open door and the Nine-Power Treaty obsolete and no longer applicable to actual conditions. The last day of 1938, the State Department replied that the United States refused to recognize a 'new order,' that the United States insisted upon the continuation of its unimpaired treaty rights, and that Japan was at liberty to negotiate new treaties, if dissatisfied with existing ones.
United States Abrogation of the 1911 Treaty.
The summer of 1939 saw the United States take more drastic action than formal diplomatic protests. On July 26, Secretary of State Hull gave Japan the necessary six months' notice for the termination of the 1911 treaty. The expiration of the treaty, on Jan. 26, 1940, was not followed by any marked changes in the trade between the two countries, which was continued on a day to day basis. On Sept. 26, President Roosevelt ordered a complete embargo, effective Oct. 16, of the export of scrap steel and iron, except to Great Britain and the countries in the Western Hemisphere. This was unquestionably a serious blow to Japan, which in 1939 had obtained approximately 90 per cent of these highly important materials from the United States.
Japan Joins the Tripartite Alliance.
On Sept. 27, 1940, the day after the American embargo on scrap iron was ordered, Japan formed a Triple Alliance with Germany and Italy. Under an agreement, it was announced, Japan recognized 'the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe'; and the latter two countries, in turn, recognized 'the leadership of Japan in the establishment of a new order in Greater East Asia.' The treaty bound all three signatories to take concerted action, 'political, economic and military,' in the event that one of the three powers were attacked 'by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.' Subsequent remarks by Japanese spokesmen made it plain that just what constituted an attack could be variously interpreted.
A week after the signing of the Triple Alliance, Premier Konoye declared that Japan was willing to recognize the leadership of the United States in the Western Hemisphere in return for American recognition of the leadership of Japan in Asia. He warned that war would be the inevitable result of wilful misunderstanding by the United States of the intentions of Japan, Germany, and Italy. One prompt response by the American government to this statement was a recommendation, on Oct. 6, 1940, that all American citizens in Japan and in parts of China controlled by Japan return home at once. Two weeks later a similar recommendation was made by Great Britain to its citizens in the same areas.
United States and Japan at War.
The events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday. Dec. 7, 1941, are a part of the story of the United States in 1941 and are covered in the articles on United States foreign relations for the past year.
History was repeating itself in the surprise attack made by the Japanese on the American Navy and fortifications at Pearl Harbor before a formal declaration of war. In 1904, the Japanese began hostilities against Russia by a surprise attack on the Russian naval vessels and forts at Port Arthur before a declaration of war by either nation. Japanese apologists defended the action at Port Arthur on the ground that the previous severance of diplomatic relations was equivalent to a notification of hostilities. Certainly, no such excuse, poor as it is, can be offered for the attack on Pearl Harbor, for there had been no severance of diplomatic relations. See also JAPAN; UNITED STATES; WORLD WAR II.
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