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 1 The World War I Experience Problems of peace become at times more serious and perplexing than those of war. —Shidehara Kijūrō “Heaven’s help in the new Taishō era for the fulfillment of Japan’s destiny.” With these words the Ōkuma Shigenobu cabinet welcomed the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in August 1914.1 The First World War had profound consequences for Japan. It created the unanticipated opportunity for the Empire to assert its claims to regional leadership and international equality. At the postwar peace conference in 1919, Japan for the first time ventured into the global arena of diplomacy. There the nation was forced to deal with questions of world order. The conference gave birth to an association of nations in which Japan took a seat as one of the major powers. The problem of Japan’s place in that order would vex the island Empire for two decades to come.2 The Global Impact of the War The First World War is widely viewed as a major—if not the foremost—watershed in the diplomatic history of the twentieth century. The epoch that culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles witnessed momentous changes in the way nations related to each other—changes from which Japan could not remain aloof. Unprecedented techniques of mass warfare were implemented, the map of Europe was radically redrawn, major colonial holdings switched hands, and world trade patterns were altered. Long-accepted norms of diplomatic behavior were called into question. New, modern forms of nationalism and revolution rose to challenge the common practices of exploitation by powerful states and rule by privileged classes. Ideals of national self-determination, anticolonialism, collective security, and international socialism came forth to compete for acceptance as formulae for the creation of a new world order of peace and justice. When the fray subsided,  Japan and the League of Nations world leaders forged the institutional framework for a new system that they believed would relieve humanity of the threat of war. For Japan the rapid changes in international affairs produced uncertainty concerning future relationships with its Asian neighbors and the victorious powers. “Heaven’s help” indeed was a mixed blessing. As a nation whose interests could be stymied and whose security could be jeopardized by diplomatic isolation, Japan faced the painful necessity of adjusting to world trends. The Great War permanently laid to rest a Europe-centered power system. Until the turn of the century, a few imperial states had been able to manipulate the balance of power anywhere in the world. Japanese foreign-policy makers were adept at adjusting to the European power system and using it advantageously. Alliance diplomacy, epitomized in the Anglo-Japanese accord of 1901, had provided a tie-in to the system by which Japan was able to prevent the formation of a concert of hostile powers and effectively neutralize any threat by a European imperialist to the expansion of Japanese vital interests in East Asia. But the alliance itself and the concentration of the British Navy in home waters in 1905 that it afforded were symptomatic of the eclipse of British preeminent power and the rise of new competitors in Europe and abroad. Old-style colonialism had passed its apex, and former dependencies were starting to assert their self-interest. During the course of the Great War, the participation of Canadian, South African, Indian, Australian, and Japanese troops as well as Chinese laborers made it inevitable that the demands of non-Europeans would be voiced in the postwar settlement. America’s financial and military bailout of the beleaguered French and British in 1917–1918, coupled with President Woodrow Wilson’s determination to assert American leadership in the peace, brought the full resources of the Western Hemisphere onto the world political stage. Kurt Riezler, an insightful German political philosopher, had pondered these matters upon his return from a visit to China on the eve of Sarajevo: That which differentiates most obviously modern politics from that of every other age is that modern politics is world politics. That means that the world has become a unified political arena, that any political event anywhere in the world affects, or at least can affect, everything else. It means that it is no longer possible to view any territorial area and special question as fully isolated.3 Visionary statesmen came to believe that a permanent structure of peace would have to be global, not regional, in nature. The principles and goals enunciated by Wilson made...

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