Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914-1938
Thomas W Burkman
Language: English
Pages: 289
ISBN: 0824829824
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Japan joined the League of Nations in 1920 as a charter member and one of four permanent members of the League Council. Until conflict arose between Japan and the organization over the 1931 Manchurian Incident, the League was a centerpiece of Japan's policy to maintain accommodation with the Western powers. The picture of Japan as a positive contributor to international comity, however, is not the conventional view of the country in the early and mid-twentieth century. Rather, this period is usually depicted in Japan and abroad as a history of incremental imperialism and intensifying militarism, culminating in war in China and the Pacific. Even the empire's interface with the League of Nations is typically addressed only at nodes of confrontation: the 1919 debates over racial equality as the Covenant was drafted and the 1931-1933 League challenge to Japan's seizure of northeast China. gives the League relationship the legitimate place it deserves in Japanese international history of the 1920s and 1930s. It also argues that the Japanese cooperative international stance in the decades since the Pacific War bears noteworthy continuity with the mainstream international accommodationism of the League years. in an era typically seen as a showcase for diplomatic autonomy and isolation. Well into the 1930s, the vestiges of international accommodationism among diplomats and intellectuals are clearly evident. The League project ushered those it affected into world citizenship and inspired them to build bridges across boundaries and cultures. Burkman's cogent analysis of Japan's international role is enhanced and enlivened by his descriptions of the personalities and initiatives of Makino Nobuaki, Ishii Kikujiro, Nitobe Inazo, Matsuoka Yosuke, and others in their Geneva roles.
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from the entente, paid lip service abroad to Wilson’s principles. Uchida Yasuya, on his elevation to the office of foreign minister on 1 October 1918, cabled Secretary of State Robert Lansing to assure the United States of Japan’s commitment to “the work of securing an Allied victory which shall finally rid the world of menace and aggression.”31 However, a chary skepticism marked the reactions of Japanese political elites to both Wilsonian liberalism and Leninist anti-imperialism. Two factors
in their mandated islands south of the equator, Japanese immigration was precluded there. Moreover, the absence of the Open Door was an effective bar to Japanese exports and enterprise in the dominions’ mandates. Japan argued in vain at Paris that the Open Door should be applied to C-class mandates.31 Disarmament The Fourteen Points had signaled Wilson’s intention to press the cause of disarmament in the postwar settlement. The First World War was widely regarded as having been precipitated by
League, summed up the debate: “The Japanese argument combined disconcertingly, from the British and American point of view, the qualities of being unanswerable and unacceptable. The only course, therefore, was to abandon both suggestions.” Lord Cecil spoke in pained opposition, and the entire article was dropped from the Covenant.64 The major source of recalcitrance on the equality issue, the mission discovered, was Australian prime minister William Hughes. The very incarnation of dominion
over its six-month sojourn in Paris, the returning delegation could report that it had made diligent attempts to modify the League of Nations Covenant and the International Labor Convention, both of which were components of the Versailles Treaty. Japanese amendment schemes had involved some ten articles encompassing the issues of mandates, disarmament, arbitration, sanctions, racial and national equality, and labor standards. Japan had achieved significant success in diluting disarmament and
leadership pursued national self-interest within the context, and subject to the restraints, of international structures. This post-Versailles epoch was, as Akira Iriye has stated, “a period in which they seriously entertained a cosmopolitan image of the world.”13 As a conscientious member of the global community, Japan treated the League of Nations as an important arena for its cooperation with the powers. Japan in the League Structure Conventional accounts of Japanese international history in