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 4 Making the Covenant Palatable at Paris Avoid most carefully, on every occasion, decisions arrived at through a conference. —Prince Metternich Four of the five Big Power delegations arrived in Paris in January 1919 with their own draft versions of a League of Nations constitution in hand. The lone exception was Japan. While the establishment of the League of Nations led the peace conference agenda, it was a matter of low policy priority for the Empire. The projections of such internationalist diplomats as Komura and Makino notwithstanding, Japan’s planning for the postwar settlement had designated the displacement of German power in East Asia as the major objective. This aim was to be accomplished through the annexation of former German Pacific islands and the acquisition of Germany’s Qingdao leasehold and economic rights in Shandong Province. Japanese decision makers preferred to put off the League issue until these goals were accomplished to Japan’s satisfaction and until the League proposition took more concrete shape. In response to Japanese public sentiment, an international statement disavowing racial discrimination was later added to Japan’s conference goals. Hence the Empire ’s peace program embodied three objectives—the Pacific islands, Shandong, and race equality. Success would raise Japan’s standing in the world community and strengthen its regional leadership in East Asia. Contrary to the preconference expectations of most Japanese policy makers, each of Japan’s primary goals was to become inextricably intertwined with the issue of the League of Nations during the course of the negotiations. Japan’s Place in the Peace Conference The Japanese entourage took up residence in the Hotel Le Bristol overlooking the Place Vendome, in the shadow of a 144-foot column commemorating Napoleon’s Making the Covenant Palatable  victory at Austerlitz. Three decades later Sawada Renzō, veteran diplomat and Japan’s first official observer to the United Nations, recalled the scene: We rented the whole Hotel Le Bristol, situated on one corner of the Place Vendome . One part of the building was devoted to offices for the delegation; the other served as its living quarters. In the center of the square rose a tall and slender monument to Napoleon, fully ten times higher than the statue of Ninth Rank Ōmura Masajirō. Lined up in its shadow, facing the Japanese headquarters , were nearly thirty cars proudly bearing the insignia of the Rising Sun. Indeed it was a sight to catch the eye of the Parisians.1 Though the Japanese mission appeared on the surface very much like the other Big Power delegations, Japan’s postwar position among the powers was singular. Unlike Britain, France, and Italy, Japan was not indebted to the United States for military assistance in the war. Nevertheless, Japan regarded the goodwill of the United States as essential to its future national welfare and security. Compared with the states of Europe, Japan was a neophyte in the art of multilateral diplomacy. The Paris Peace Conference was the Empire’s first experience of a multilateral international meeting where issues perceived as vital interests were at stake. For the first time, war issues involving Japan and its immediate neighbors were to be brought before a world tribunal for review based on the demands of a global power structure. This situation posed new opportunities to achieve world respectability and, at the same time, threatened to circumscribe Japan’s independent, regional prerogatives and even rob the nation of the fruits of war. Among the Japanese, the peace conference phenomenon evoked the same hopes and fears as the specter of a League of Nations. The Foreign Ministry was rightfully apprehensive over the delegation ’s tactical inexperience and limitations in Western languages. The potential liabilities of the peace process weighed heavily on the cabinet, the ministry, and especially the peace mission.2 While the Japanese delegation at Paris can be faulted for inadequate preparation on global issues and for tactical ineptitude, the American representatives for their part took relatively little interest in the postwar issues of East Asia. One State Department specialist in Asian affairs who was at Paris later recalled the futility of his efforts to direct the attention of President Wilson, Colonel House, and others to the problems of the East. This staff member complained: In terms of “man hours” of thought and consideration, the amount of time given by the American delegation—and the staff thereof as a whole—during the whole period of the Conference to problems of the Far East and the Pacific was, as compared with...

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