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

260 • WILSON, WOODROW
The tone of the Washington Conference was set from the outset,
when American plenipotentiary Secretary of State Charles Evan
Hughes proposed the reduction of capital ship strength according to the
ratio of 5:5:3 for the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. In the face
of violent opposition from within naval ranks, Japanese plenipotentiary
(and navy minister) Tomosaburō Katō accepted the proposal. Thus,
was born the Five-Power Treaty (which included not only the United
States, Britain, and Japan, but also Italy and France) on naval limitation.
Publicly connected to the Five-Power Treaty was the Four-Power
Treaty (which incorporated the United States, Britain, Japan, and
France), a non-aggression pact that replaced the Anglo–Japanese Alliance.
It had little in the way of concrete commitments.
Having disposed of the naval armaments race and the Anglo–
Japanese Alliance, the conferees were then free to concentrate on the
political problems centering on China and the Pacific. To this end, the
Washington Conference produced the Nine-Power Pact, whose signatories
included the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Italy, China,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal. By the terms of the pact, the
signatories agreed to respect China’s sovereignty, as well as the principle
of “equal opportunity for the commerce and industry of all nations
throughout the territory of China.” In other words, the signatories accepted
in treaty form the traditional American policy of the Open Door.
Japanese delegates also entered delicate discussions with their
Chinese counterparts over the future of the Shantung peninsula. A
Sino–Japanese agreement was reached, which provided for the
restoration of Chinese sovereignty in Shantung, the withdrawal of
Japanese troops, and the purchase by China from Japan of the principal
railroad in the province. For its part, the United States gave its
consent to the exercise by Japan of its mandate over former German
possessions in the Pacific, in return for a Japanese promise to allow
American access to the island of Yap for the purpose of cable and radio
communications. Finally, Japanese delegate Kijūrō Shidehara
assured his fellow conferees that Japan would withdraw its troops
from Soviet territory.
WILSON, WOODROW. Inaugurated as president of the United States
in 1913, Woodrow Wilson championed a moralistic world order free
from the imperialistic rivalries that led inexorably to World War I.