During the early months of 1917, Japan turned to diplomacy in order to
be sure that she would be able to keep her territorial gains after the
war. The United States had not yet entered the war, and the military
fortunes of the Allied powers in Europe were at a low ebb. Making good
use of this situation, Japan negotiated secret treaties with Britain,
France, Russia and Italy. Signed in February and March 1917, these
agreements pledged that Japan’s claims to the German islands north
of the equator and to the former German rights in Shantung would be
supported at the peace conference. But the Japanese did not secure
American support of these claims. In the Lansing-Ishii agreement
of November 2, 1917, the United States offered merely a qualified
recognition of Japan’s “special interests in China.”
The secret treaties with the Allied powers were shrewdly drawn and
enabled Japan to come off victorious at the Paris Peace Conference.
Her newly established position in Shantung province, as well as the
extensions of her rights in South Manchuria, were accepted and written
into the Versailles Treaty. The German islands north of the equator
were awarded Japan as a Class C mandate, the kind of mandate which
came closest to annexation. American opposition to these decisions cut
no ice, mainly because of Japan’s secret agreements with the Allies.
On only one big issue was Japan defeated at the conference. Her
statesmen had demanded that a clause on racial equality be inserted in
the peace treaty. This demand was rejected, largely because the Western
powers were afraid that it would let down the bars against Japanese
immigration to their countries.