The Sino-Japanese Joint Defence Agreement was a series of secret military pacts between the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
and the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
, signed in May 1918. Drawn up following China's entry into the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
on the part of the
Allied Powers, the agreements, which were concluded in secrecy, granted Japan numerous military privileges within Chinese territory along the
Sino-Russian border. The content of agreements were leaked to the press at an early stage, sparking a widespread protest movement by Chinese students in Japan and across China. The agreements were officially terminated in January 1921, their continuance made untenable by Chinese public opinion.
Background
The government of the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
, led by Premier
Duan Qirui
Duan Qirui (; ) (March 6, 1865 – November 2, 1936) was a Chinese warlord and politician, a commander of the Beiyang Army and the acting Chief Executive of the Republic of China (in Beijing) from 1924 to 1926. He was also the Premier of the R ...
,
declared war
A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another. The declaration is a performative speech act (or the signing of a document) by an authorized party of a national government, i ...
on the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
and
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
on 14 August 1917, marking China's entry into the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
on the side of the
Allied Powers, which included the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
. As a result, Germany and Austria-Hungary became China and Japan's common enemy. Furthermore, following the outbreak of the 1917
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
in Russia, the Allies declared the new communist government of
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
a threat.
From this time,
Tanaka Giichi
Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, politician, cabinet minister, and the Prime Minister of Japan from 1927 to 1929.
Early life and military career
Tanaka was born as the third son of a low-ranking ''samurai'' family in the se ...
, then Vice Chief of the
Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office
The , also called the Army General Staff, was one of the two principal agencies charged with overseeing the Imperial Japanese Army.
Role
The was created in April 1872, along with the Navy Ministry, to replace the Ministry of Military Affairs ...
, began planning to conclude a military pact with China, including a potential military alliance. In late January, Tanaka wired instructions to the Japanese
military attaché
A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission, often an embassy. This type of attaché post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer, who retains a commission while serving with an embassy. Opport ...
in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
, ordering him to swiftly move to form a Sino-Japanese agreement, and furthermore, to try and get the Chinese side to suggest the idea first.
Within the Chinese government, there were doubts about the Japanese side's intentions with regard to any agreement, and specifically, they were concerned that such an agreement might lead to the Japanese effecting control over
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
. However, Japanese foreign minister
Motono Ichirō
was a statesman and diplomat, active in Meiji period Japan.
Biography
Motono was born in Saga, Hizen Province, (modern-day Saga Prefecture). His father, an entrepreneur, was one of the founders of the modern Yomiuri Shimbun. Motono studied law ...
offered the example of Allied military co-operation in France, and said that, if the Allies could jointly operate their military forces there, it would be illogical to not do the same in Manchuria. The Japanese side also hinted at the possibility of unilateral deployment in the event China did not acquiesce. With the 3 March 1918 signing of the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
between the nascent
Russian Soviet Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
and Germany, the Chinese side grew increasingly concerned about the presence of 100,000 German prisoners of war in neighbouring
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
. Worried that these German forces would be released and threaten the security of the
Far East
The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.
The ter ...
, they came to feel the necessity of concluding a Sino-Japanese agreement.
The agreement
The
Terauchi Masatake
Gensui Count Terauchi Masatake ( ja, 寺内 正毅), GCB (5 February 1852 – 3 November 1919), was a Japanese military officer, proconsul and politician. He was a '' Gensui'' (or Marshal) in the Imperial Japanese Army and the Prime Minister o ...
government decided on 8 March to begin drawing up plans for the proposed Sino-Japanese agreement, and informed Chinese
Minister in Tokyo
Zhang Zongxiang Zhang may refer to:
Chinese culture, etc.
* Zhang (surname) (張/张), common Chinese surname
** Zhang (surname 章), a rarer Chinese surname
* Zhang County (漳县), of Dingxi, Gansu
* Zhang River (漳河), a river flowing mainly in Henan
* ''Z ...
as such. A team led by Major General
Saitō Suejirō was despatched to China to negotiate the terms of the agreement. On 25 March, Zhang and foreign minister Motono exchanged correspondence wherein they agreed that enemy forces were spreading rampantly along the Russian border, threatening the Far East's security, and agreed to consider the conclusion of a joint defence agreement.
While these negotiations were conducted in secret, newspapers quickly caught wind of them, and reported on them from early April. Opposition to the agreement spread quickly throughout China. The Japanese side's intent is made clear by a Foreign Ministry record written around this time, which states that the establishment of a Sino-Japanese alliance would allow for the free movement of Japanese troops within Chinese territory, the commandeering of any resources that were militarily required, active interference in China's domestic politics, and the "planting" of pro-Japanese forces across China.
On 3 May, Tanaka Giichi visited Zhang at the Chinese Legation in Tokyo, and demanded an apology from the Chinese side for doubting Japan's intentions and failing to participate in further deliberations. He stated that, until an agreement was signed, Japan would have no choice but to suspend the financial and military aid it had been providing to China through the
Nishihara Loans
The were a series of loans made by the Japanese government under the administration of Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake to the Anhui clique warlord Duan Qirui from January 1917 to September 1918 to persuade him to favor Japanese interests in China ...
. Accordingly, negotiations were reopened the following day, and by 16 May, the army agreement was signed. A naval agreement, largely mirroring the army agreement, was signed on 19 May.
The army agreement consists of twelve articles. While the second article ostensibly establishes the parties of the agreement as equals, the third article specifies that the Chinese authorities must "try their best" to co-operate with the Japanese military in the relevant regions and prevent them from "experiencing any obstacles" in their operations. The fourth article specifies that Japanese troops will be "entirely withdrawn" from Chinese territory at the termination of the war. The seventh article specifies the placement of
liaison officer
A Liaison officer is a person who liaises between two or more organizations to communicate and coordinate their activities on a matter of mutual concern. Generally, liaison officers are used for achieving the best utilization of resources, or empl ...
s in each party's military to facilitate communication between the two parties, and specifies that both parties must provide whatever resources are required to for facilitate their joint defence. The full contents of the pact were not officially disclosed until 14 March 1919.
Because of the start of the
Paris Peace Conference on 18 January 1919, it was necessary to clarify the end date of the agreements, which was done on 5 February for the army agreement and 1 March for the naval agreement. The pact was thus specified to terminate when both the Chinese and Japanese governments approved the peace treaties with Germany and Austria negotiated by the European powers, and when all Chinese and Japanese troops stationed outside of Chinese territory had been withdrawn.
Effect
While the agreement's ostensible goal was to counter German–Austrian forces, the emergent communist threat in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
and Manchuria was of a more immediate concern. The agreement allowed Japan to lay the groundwork for its
intervention in Siberia, and effectively placed the Chinese military in northern Manchuria under Japanese command.
Though the Japanese government had issued orders prohibiting any discussion of the negotiations in the domestic media, Chinese students in Japan were made aware of the impending signing of the agreement through reporting in foreign newspapers, and swiftly moved to organise a protest movement against the agreement from the end of April 1918. Called the "Returning Home Movement", it resulted in one-third of the three thousand students in Japan returning to China. The students returned to Japan in the autumn of 1918, however. Future Chinese premier
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...
, then studying in Japan, observed the movement with interest, but did not return to China. Protests also occurred in China, specifically by students in Beijing and by chambers of commerce across the country. The agreement, which was essentially an alliance, was viewed by the Chinese public as an attempt by Japan to use Duan Qirui to control China, and the anti-agreement movement that it spurred laid the groundwork for the
May Fourth movement
The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chinese ...
.
While Duan desired to retain the agreement in some form after the end of the First World War, public opinion driven by the protest movement made this impossible. Duan was forced to resign in August 1920 following his loss in the
Zhili–Anhui War, and as a result, the basis for the agreement completely collapsed. It was officially terminated on 28 January 1921.
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{authority control
China–Japan treaties
Treaties concluded in 1918
Treaties of the Empire of Japan
Treaties of the Republic of China (1912–1949)