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

ANTI-COMINTERN PACT • 41
1858. Provisions of these treaties included opening several Japanese
ports to foreign trade and foreign residents, establishment of diplomatic
legations, tariffs, and extraterritorial rights for foreigners in
Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate reluctantly agreed to these treaties
without imperial approval, provoking a political crisis in Japan that
was not resolved until the overthrow of the Tokugawa government in
1868. As Japan was negotiating from a position of weakness, these
treaties are often called “the unequal treaties.” See also MEIJI
RESTORATION.
ANTI-COMINTERN PACT (1936). Germany and Japan concluded
the Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1936, and Italy joined the
pact some 12 months later. By the terms of the pact, the contracting
parties were obligated to inform each other about the activities of the
Communist International (or Comintern) and to consult with each
other so as to coordinate their preventive policies against it. It also included
an additional secret agreement that provided for a limited alliance
between Germany and Japan against the Soviet Union.
Through an intermediary, German Foreign Minister Joachim von
Ribbentrop in May or June 1935 suggested to the military attaché in
Berlin, Colonel (later General) Hiroshi Ōshima, the possibility of a
defensive alliance between Germany and Japan against the Soviet
Union. He again raised the topic some 12 months later. The Army
General Staff in Tokyo subsequently dispatched Lieutenant-Colonel
Tadaichi Wakamatsu to Berlin, and the Anti-Comintern Pact emerged
from the ensuing negotiations. It is worth noting that neither the
Japanese Foreign Ministry nor the German Foreign Office knew anything
of these negotiations.
Because the Anti-Comintern Pact specifically targeted the Soviet
Union, Japanese diplomats invited other nations—most notably
Great Britain—to adhere to its terms. The American reaction to the
pact, however, was resoundingly negative. Secretary of State Cordell
Hull’s principal Far Eastern adviser, Stanley Hornbeck, suggested
that “if Japan continued to pursue the course and to apply the methods
to which her armed forces were more and more committing her,
there would come sooner or later a collision, ‘war,’ between that
country and the United States.” To be sure, Hornbeck was more forthright
than were most other American policymakers. Nonetheless, the