Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

158 • KONOE, FUMIMARO
Boxer Uprising). He was assertive of Japan’s preeminent rights in Korea,
and would brook no Russian influence on the peninsula. Negotiations
with Russia broke down in December 1903, and Tokyo made the
decision for war in January 1904. Within a month, Komura defined
Japan’s war aims as the extension and solidification of its influence over
Korea and the extension of its interests in Manchuria. Komura represented
his nation at the negotiations ending the Russo–Japanese War,
and in August 1905 signed the Portsmouth Treaty.
He resigned as foreign minister in January 1906, but returned to the
post in August 1908 in the second cabinet of Tarō Katsura. His foreign
policy was predicated on securing Japan’s paramount interests in Korea
and Manchuria, and gaining the great powers’ recognition of Japan’s
position in the Far East. In light of the latter objective, he viewed the
Root–Takahira Agreement of 1908 as a success. This success was
tempered however by President William Howard Taft’s subsequent
adoption of dollar diplomacy, which squared off against Japan’s interests
in southern Manchuria. To counter this unwelcome development,
Komura turned to Russia. The two nations reached an agreement on
their respective spheres of Manchurian influence in 1910. Komura
nonetheless remained convinced of the necessity of close economic ties
with the United States, and presided over efforts toward the U.S.–Japan
Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1911.
KONOE, FUMIMARO (1891–1945). Scion of one of Japan’s most
aristocratic families, Fumimaro Konoe was an influential politician
in the World War II period. However, whether he used his influence
judiciously is open to serious doubt. Educated at Kyoto Imperial University,
he accompanied the genro - Kimmochi Saionji to the Paris
Peace Conference of 1919. At this time, he shot to prominence—and
raised Saionji’s ire—with publication of an essay that attacked the
“Anglo–American peace” as hypocritical and unfair.
While still a student he had been given a seat in the Diet’s House of
Peers and became president of that body in 1933. He cultivated acquaintances
with men of many stripes, although by far the most extensive
were his contacts with right-wing reformers, traditional conservatives,
and Asianists. He was also popular with army officers,
particularly after he came out in ardent support of Japan’s actions in
Manchuria in 1931. In 1936, Konoe gathered around himself a group