To the amazement of the major powers, Japan had soundly defeated the Russian imperial forces

in the Russo-Japanese War (1905) and emerged as the only industrialized society in the Far East.
Despite this enhancement of prestige and prosperity, the Japanese faced several nagging
problems:
Lack of Respect. Japan's victory over Russia had failed to wrest the ardently desired reparations
payments. Theodore Roosevelt, the chief peace negotiator at the end of the war, had opposed the
imposition of a heavy financial burden on reeling Russia. The Japanese were counting on Russian
payments as a means to reduce a huge debt incurred during the conflict.
Further, Japanese sensibilities had been rubbed raw by a series of insults from the United States,
where, among other things, Asians in California were segregated in public schools and prohibited
from owning land.
In the eyes of many Japanese, the war had foisted upon their nation a staggering financial
obligation and little international respect.
Lack of Raw Materials. Japan was an emerging industrial power in the early 20th century, but
lacked sufficient domestic supplies of iron and coal to sustain its desired development.
Lack of Food. As the Japanese population expanded in the early 1900s, it became clear that the
nation's limited supply of arable land was incapable of supplying sufficient food.
Lack of Land. Japan, a nation of islands, believed that it was approaching its maximum density
and continued to cast hungry glances at the Asian mainland as a potential target of expansion.
The major powers of Europe were reluctant to allow Japan to share in their exploitation of China,
but the triumph over Russia brought Japan primacy in Korea and increased influence in southern
Manchuria. In Korea, the Japanese forced the abdication of the king andinstalled their own
governor. The latter's assassination in 1909 led to the formal annexation of Korea the following
year. In China, the Japanese reluctantly paid lip service to the Open Door Policy, but longed to
increase their influence at the expense of the resident European imperial powers or the Chinese
themselves.
When war erupted in Europe in August 1914, Japan promptly sided with the Allies and issued a
declaration of war on Germany. Japanese activity during the conflict wasnoteworthy in three
respects:
5. The Occupation of German Possessions. Japan took advantage of the major belligerents'
preoccupation with the war in Europe to seize German holdings on the Shantung
(Shandong) Peninsula of China. They also took possession of the Kaiser's western Pacific
islands the Marianas, Carolines and Marshalls.
China made a feeble attempt to use wartime confusion as a means to regain control over
some of its occupied lands, but a bellicose Japanese government issued its far-
reaching Twenty-One Demands to squelch any Chinese resurgence.
The Japanese had a strong postwar case justifying their hold on German Pacific
possessions. Foremost, they enjoyed actual physical possession and they also had
concluded a secret agreement with Britain that essentially divided German island holdings
between the two powers at the equator; Britain was to take islands to the south and Japan
those to the north.
In Paris, such agreements ran counter to Woodrow Wilsons principle of national self-
determination. In the end, however, the American president compromised, allowing Japan
to maintain economic rights on the Shantung Peninsula, subject to the later return of the
area to Chinese control. The North Pacific German island holdings were granted to Japan
under the newly created mandate system.
6. Development of Heavy Industry. The insatiable demands of the Allies for war matriel and
other industrial goods created a tremendous industrial boom in Japan. The resulting trade
was extremely valuable to the Allies and highly profitable for Japan.
7. Siberian Intervention. Following the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and the Russian
conclusion of a separate peace with Germany (1918), the Allied powers dispatched an
expeditionary force to Siberia. The primary aims of this venture were to retrieve war matriel
that was now available to both the Bolsheviks and the Germans, and give support to anti-
communist Russian forces fighting for control of the country.
The overwhelming size of the Japanese force and its leaders' reluctance to withdraw from
Russia further alienated the other Allied nations.
Japan's Legacy from World War I
Many Japanese regarded their country's participation in the war as a great success. All sectors of
the economy boomed as Japanese industry responded to the demands of theAllied war machines.
Increasingly, too, Japanese products found their way into other Asian markets left untended by the
warring European powers. This economic euphoria was tempered somewhat at home by
increasing labor-management strife and the emergence of a vocal leftist political movement.
Elsewhere, Japan was viewed with either suspicion or hatred. The Koreans and Chinese deeply
resented Japanese incursions; these resentments would fester through the 1920s.
Other Allied governments protested Japanese opportunism during the war, but to no avail. In spite
of their misgivings, the Allies recognized Japan as a great power and made that nation a full
partner in the negotiations at Paris in 1919. Japan was rewarded with mandates over the islands
seized during the war, but it failed to gain a highly desired statement on racial equality in the
Covenant of the League of Nations. Britain opposed the latter statement, largely because of its fear
that it would incite equality or independence movements within its own vast empire. Wilson was
fairly sympathetic to the Japanese request, but gave in to British pressure; the United
States abstained on the vote on racial equality the equivalent of a vote against. This action was
tucked away by the Japanese in their growing list of real or imagined slights.
Japan joined the League of Nations in 1920 and served as a permanent member of the Council. In
1922, the Japanese participated in the Washington Conference, an international effort to slow the
naval arms
World War I Time TableWilson's Search for Peace
http://www.historynet.com/ah/blagainstallodds
World War I and
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