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

WASHINGTON CONFERENCE • 259
were samurai class, and were political and economic refugees. Led
by John Henry Schnell, a German merchant and adviser to Aizu
daimyō Katamori Matsudaira, the “Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm”
in California seemed to prosper at first, but then water problems developed
and the project collapsed by 1871. Three Japanese remained
in northern California for the rest of their lives; it is unknown what
happened to the others or to Schnell. Although Japanese castaway
sailors, diplomats, and students had already arrived in America, the
Wakamatsu colonists can be considered the first group of Japanese
immigrants in America. See also BOSHIN WAR; IMMIGRATION;
MEIJI RESTORATION.
WASHINGTON CONFERENCE (1921–1922). The Washington
Conference was convened from November 1921 to February 1922.
Its purposes were twofold. First, it sought to resolve a number of controversies
in the Pacific and Far East. Second, it was aimed at halting
a costly and dangerous competition in armaments between the
world’s three leading naval powers. In a word, the Washington Conference
represented an attempt to redefine international relations in
the post–World War I Far East.
The Washington Conference was convened against the backdrop
of growing Japanese–American discord. In the first instance, the two
powers were at odds over their perceived interests in China. At issue
was Japan’s ambivalence toward the American principle of the Open
Door. The two powers were also unable to agree on the disposition
of former German possessions in the Pacific. It had been agreed at the
Paris Peace Conference that these possessions—the Marshall, Caroline,
and Mariana Islands—would be mandated to Japan, but the
United States had not ratified the peace treaty and therefore argued
that it had not assented to Japan’s mandate. The Siberian Intervention
provided another source of friction, particularly as Japanese
troops alone remained in the Soviet Union’s far eastern provinces.
These controversies sparked a Japanese–American naval armaments
race that also involved Great Britain, which had no intention of overseeing
the demise of its traditional mastery of the seas. At the same
time, Washington was leery of the Anglo–Japanese Alliance for the
simple fact that its existence might see Britain siding with Japan if
the latter went to war with the United States.