# The Truth about China and Japan/Document K

(K)
ALLEGED GERMAN-JAPANESE DRAFT TREATY
Explanatory Note.—The annexed documents, copies of which only reached Peking via the Trans-Siberian railway at the beginning of April, throw a new and important light on all the subject-matter in the present volume. They prove conclusively that Japanese policy has consistently followed certain lines during the whole course of the war and that domination and exploitation of China is but one phase of a tortuous and incredible diplomacy.
That dynastic considerations enter more and more into the problem is also clear. Plainly, the Japanese oligarchy is desperately struggling by every means in its power to postpone the inevitable day of reckoning.
(From official files of Central Soviet papers secured at Perm on 2d February, 1919)
("Isvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committees of the Soviets," Nos. 255 [519] and 256 [520] of November 22 and November 23, 1918)
From a fully reliable source we are informed that:
At the end of October there was received fully reliable and exact information about the arrival in Stockholm of the Japanese Extraordinary Representative Oda, with the aim of carrying on secret conversation with the German Ambassador Lutzius concerning the conclusion of a German-Japanese secret treaty. An agreement in principle was reached, after which Oda went to Berlin for the final working out of the treaty itself. The result of the conversa​tion was the draft of a treaty, which, together with the explanatory note attached, we here publish. We are reliably informed that of the German Government no other than Scheidemann supported the project in question, which was on the other hand opposed by the deputy of the Centre, Secretary of State Erzberger. The revolution which took place in Germany prevented the carrying out of the plan which was the expression of the idea of the treaty and which consisted in the following, namely: that a restoration be carried out in Russia by the forces of Germany and Japan, and a German, Russian, Japanese Alliance be formed in which Russia should be subordinated to the other two partners in the Alliance. After the revolution this treaty became known in the German press and it was published by the Hamburg 'Red Banner'. This disclosure caused animated discussion and bitter polemic, in connection with which the press close to the German Government tried to refute the very fact of the existence of such a draft. Material at our disposal, however, does not leave the slightest doubt of the authenticity of the documents published by us, all the more that in the composition of the present Japanese Cabinet entered one of the most important Japanese statesmen of German orientation. General Tanaka, Minister of War, whose pronouncement on the seventh of May, 1917, in defence of an alliance with Germany provoked at that time the protest of all the Allies. Furthermore from the documents earlier published by the People's Com​missariat of Foreign Affairs it is manifest that efforts towards the conclusion of a separate peace and an alliance between Germany, Russia and Japan were made by the German Government in March, 1916, by the German Ambassador in Stockholm, that same Lutzius, through the Japanese Ambassador Ujida (Uchida).
Draft of the German-Japanese Treaty
Strictly Confidential.
Paragraph 1. Both High Contracting Parties bind themselves, as soon as the world political situation permits, to help the third party, Russia, to obtain under their direction the settlement of her internal affairs and the position of a world power.
Paragraph 2. One of the High Contracting Parties, Japan, binds herself to allow the other High Contracting Party, Germany, the enjoyment of the prerogatives growing out of her treaties with the third party, Russia, as far as they concern Central Asia and Persia and assist in the conclusion of a most favored nation treaty with mutual (reciprocal) guarantees between this third power and the two contracting powers.
Paragraph 3. One of the High Contracting Parties, Japan, binds herself to allow the other High Contracting Party, Germany, the enjoyment of the rights of most favoured nation given to her by the treaties in Southern China and of certain privileges growing ​out of this treaty as yet to be defined in a special treaty and in this connection both contracting parties bind themselves not to allow the passing of further concessions, in regions yet to be definitely defined, into the hands of foreign Powers America and England.
Paragraph 4. One of the High Contracting Parties, Japan, binds herself indirectly to protect the interests of the other High Contracting Party, Germany, in the coming Peace Conference, in a manner agreeable to that party in order that she might suffer as little as possible from the onerous terms of peace in respect to territorial and financial losses.
Paragraph 5. One of the two High Contracting Parties binds herself on the basis of a treaty to be concluded with the third power after her restoration to secure for the other contracting party, Germany, the conclusion of a treaty of mutual (reciprocal) guarantees military, political and economic and to lend her services to the other party, Germany, in this direction.
Paragraph 6. In return for this the other High Contracting Party, Germany, binds herself to conclude a secret military convention on land and sea with the aim of an alliance of mutual (reciprocal) guarantees and mutual protection against the aggressive intentions of America and England, the details to be worked out immediately after the conclusion of peace by specially empowered delegates of both High Contracting Parties.
​Paragraph 7. The secret treaty resulting herefrom will define the basic lines of foreign policy of the three High Contracting Parties and may in its full extent and in all its individual paragraphs be worked out immediately after the re-establishing of the third High Contracting Party, Russia.
Paragraph 8. The present treaty is concluded for a period of five years counting from the moment of the restoration of the third party, with the exception of paragraph four, which goes into effect immediately upon receipt of certificates of ratification. In case none of the High Contracting Parties announces six months before the end of the five-year period the intention of discontinuing the action of the treaty, it automatically remains in force for a further five-year period, until one or another of the Contracting Powers signifies its intention of discontinuing it.
Paragraph 9. The present treaty should be ratified as soon as possible and certificates of ratification should be prepared in duplicate in French and German, the German text being the authentic one for Germany and the French text for Japan.
Explanatory Note Attached.
The question whether the Western orientation which German policy followed during the whole course of the war was the right one received such an exhaustive answer from the very course of the war and of events that it is doubtful if a critical ​consideration of it is valuable, the more so that at the present moment it has a merely historical interest and not any real significance. The Western orientation brought with itself also the mistake that they (the Germans) did not wish to conclude peace with Russia because they considered it possible to preserve the continued readiness to carry on the war among the Social Democratic sections of the German people possible only under the motto of the battle against reactionary Czarism.
In direct contrast to this was the policy of Japan, who concluded in the middle of the war an alliance with Russia, the full meaning of which, in view of the disintegration of Russia, lies in the future.
The existence in Germany of the idea that it would be possible to make peace with England at the expense of Russia as circumstances showed was not only unfounded, but entailed serious consequences in internal politics for the German Federation of States and for her Allies.
This was, however, not the only mistake of the political orientation in question. After Germany reached the conclusion that an agreement with England, either directly or through America, was impossible, she let the moment slip by for a timely agreement with Russia, by means of which she could have thrown over the hoped-for bridge to the Near and Far East.
In all probability by means of such an orientation Germany would have prevented the disintegration ​of Russia and would have protected and even strengthened her rear in the East in an economic, political, and military sense.
Further, it is unlikely that Bolshevism would have been able to obtain such a clear-cut mastery in Russia as has been seen in the past twelve months. In all probability, in the event of an Eastern orientation on the part of Germany, its progress or mastery would have been only a momentary phenomenon or episode and at all events would not have brought on such heavy internal and external catastrophes for that state.
An Eastern orientation of Germany would place England face to face with the necessity of withdrawing from a purposeless war and becoming peace loving because as a result of constant loss of tonnage her future economic development would be under direct threat and a Russia supported by Germany would be a military and political danger for the Asiatic vital nerve.
But if, supported by Germany, Russia is already a mighty factor, constituting a serious danger for England to exercise the greatest caution in carrying out her policy, so much the stronger would this factor be if Japan, supported on the Continent by Germany and Russia, should join the Alliance. Such an orientation would constitute a very great danger for America and England.
From the foregoing it follows that the centre of gravity of future world politics lies in the re-estab​lishment of a Russia freed of Bolshevism and supported from outside for a number of years, in which Germany and Japan would be equally interested.
From this Japan would gain the advantage that by virtue of the treaty of mutual support with Germany and Russia she would become a very strong military force with which America would have to reckon, all the more so that the divergence between England and America on the basis of the self-determination of Nations is only a matter of time.
The new political Alliance would mean a double advantage, both a political and an economic one, as she would be economically strengthened by Germany and Japan, and would be politically protected against English and American aggressions while she would again rise to the position of a world power.
For Germany economic advantage would be in the form of considerable concession in Turkestan, thanks to which she could make herself independent of America in cotton and paper. In a political and military sense Germany would receive full cover for her rear on land through Russia and on sea through Japan.
The final end of such an Alliance would be the complete removal of England from Asia, the isolation of England from America, through Canada and India, and the economic expulsion of America from Siberia and England from Russia, on the one hand, and the exploitation of China, Central Asia and Persia on the other, the spheres of influence being ​divided according to the following boundaries: Germany receives freedom of action in South China, Persia and Central Asia, while Japan can declare her pretensions to Northern China, Manchuria, Korea and Eastern Siberia.