Japan at the Paris Peace Conference: Focusing on the Proposal to Abolish Racial Discrimination

Japan at the Paris Peace Conference:
Focusing on the Proposal to Abolish Racial Discrimination*
Hiroshi Nakanishi**
Abstract
The Japanese proposal to abolish the racial discrimination at the Paris Peace Conference
must be put into wider historical context. As Japan saw itself first becoming the leading
countr y of Asia and matching the worldʼs first-class countries such as Britain and theUnited States, the Hara administrationʼs position at the time was to take this opportunity
to remove one of the thorns, the immigrant issue, to enhance cooperation with Britain
and the United States. For those against the idea of an international order led by Britain
and the United States, on the other hand, the issue of the abolition of racial discrimination
was a sort of litmus test, which would prove if the Anglo-US order embraces Japan as fully
legitimate partner. The proposal surfaced as a point of domestic compromise, which did notmaterialize in the diplomatic negotiations. Taking a broader view, the failure of the proposal
was not solely the matter of Japan. Japanʼs racial equality proposal, like the various conceptsof the world order presented in the Paris Peace Conference, was the extension of WilsonʼsFourteen Points, radical application of the ideology of liberalism. Its failure shows thedivergence of liberal ideal from reality. Despite the failure, however, Japanʼs 1919 proposal
was historically significant. Just as the concept of “cunning of reason” by Kant and Hegelʼsphilosophy on history suggests, an idea is realized after following a twisting and turning
trajectory of history. Racial equality was later realized through the Second World War andthe postwar international relations. In that sense, I believe the Proposal to Abolish Racial
Discrimination at the Paris Peace Conference had permanent mark and significance inworld history.

Thank you for honoring me with the opportunity to give the keynote speech at this
symposium. I intend to introduce one interpretation of the significance of the debate
over Japanʼs diplomacy. In particular, I will focus on the proposal to abolish racial
discrimination―often referred to as the “racial equality proposal”―amidst the changes
taking place in the international world order during the First World War and the Paris Peace
Conference that followed.
There have been only a limited number of individual studies of this theme. As far as I know,
the only single-author work on the subject to date is Shimazu Naokoʼs Japan, Race and Equality:
The racial equality proposal of 1919, published in 1998, based on her doctoral thesis. Centeredprimarily on British documents, this book provides a detailed analysis mainly based on the British
sources and is a valuable work as an academic diplomatic history.
The study by Paul Gordon Lauren, Power And Prejudice: The Politics And Diplomacy Of*

This article is based on the keynote speech made by the author at the symposium “Commemorating theCentennial Anniversary of Japanʼs Racial Equality Proposal―Remaking the International Order after
the WWI―” held by JIIA on November 2, 2019.

** Hiroshi Nakanishi is a professor in the Law Department at Kyoto University.

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Racial Discrimination published in 1988, is well-known, partly through the Japanese translation,
which deals with changes in international political approaches to racial discrimination from theperspective of diplomatic history.
Professor Takahara Shūsuke of Kyoto Sangyo University, in his book on Wilson diplomacy
and Japan published in 2006, examines the influence on Japan in the context of Wilsonian
diplomacy and discuss the raised equality proposal in that context. But otherwise there is actually
very little research into this theme.
Taking those research results into account, my primar y intention today is to present one
approach to viewing the First World War and explore whether we can understand these pieces ofresearch with a certain degree of consistency.

1. The Nature of the First World War
Several years ago, we witnessed a new tide of historical research, including review works,
centered around the centenary of the start of the First World War in 1914. The three-volume
collection of the essays in The Cambridge History of the First World War, published from 2014
to 2016, provides us a convenient overview. Most of the research carried out after the Second
World War and through into the 1950s and 1960s tended to view the First World War from thestandpoint of military history. This was subsequently replaced by a gradual shift in perspective tothe extent that most research today on the First World War takes more of a socioeconomic andcultural history approach. I also believe the focus of research has moved away from a Eurocentric
to a more global approach.
As I read these pieces of research and thought about the theme of today ʼs lecture amidst
these trends, I sensed certain uneasiness about the expression “First World War.” The ordinal
number “First” naturally came after the Second World War happened. The expression “world
war” or “Great War” already existed during the time when the war was ongoing. But I began
to think that the word “war,” implying that there is a neat beginning and end, may cause somemisunderstanding of the situation that arose from 1914 onwards.
Ver y briefly, in August 1914, the main belligerents, Germany, France, Russia, Britain andAustria-Hungar y came to be engaged in a major war in Europe for the first time since the
Napoleonic Wars of around a century earlier. The fiercest battles between these great powers
took place between 1914 and 1916, although the war itself continued for some time thereafter.
This phase of the war in Europe tended to be another round of large-scale wars in the classicalsense. At the same time, they had a global impact through alliances and imperial ties. One typicalcase of this was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japan engaged in military activities against Germanrights and interests in East Asia, specifically in China and at the Pacific Islands.
It is also important to note that Britain was involved in the war as the British Empire from thestart. While countries like Australia, Canada and colonies like India took part as semi-independent
actors, they did so as part of the British Empire. The war therefore had a global impact eventhough most of the fighting took place in Europe.
From around 1916 to 1917, however, the Great Warʼs deeper impact began to spread beyond
Europe to the rest of the world, although it was felt not so much in the form of a military war butof revolutionary changes arising from social and political upheaval.
The revolutions of February and October 1917 ushered in a socialist system in Russia, but thatwas not all. In the United States, the Wilson administration put the country on a wartime footing
the same year, despite its efforts to remain neutral until then. China, then known as the Republicof China, entered the war in August 1917.
At the same time, as Erez Manela ʼ s perceptive work, The Wilsonian Moment of 2007,
demonstrates, nationalist movements that had been quietly growing from before the First World
War evolved into campaigns and struggles with revolutionary, political overtones. These political
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Japan at the Paris Peace Conference: Focusing on the Proposal to Abolish Racial Discrimination

movements gained momentum in places that were caught up in the war, such as India, theOttoman Empire and Egypt.
Naturally, the situations in all these countries varied, and it is impossible to categorize themtidily into their history or period demarcations. However, all these developments from around1917 onwards meant that the First World War did not have the neat ending as a war but it ended
in a messy way, not in the least by the revolutions of the belligerents, especially Germany and its
allies. That is the fundamental difference between the First World War and other wars, notably
the Second World War.
With the armistice and peace between Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk, and therevolutions and systemic changes in Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire a little later,
the First World War basically ended with political changes. While the hostilities ceased in 1918,
especially for Germany, there are various reasons to say that these political changes did notsettle down until sometime later, in the 1920s onwards. In my view, the fact that the Paris Peace
Conference took place in the midst of this process is important when interpreting its history froma contemporary perspective.

2. Japanese Diplomacy and its Domestic Background

In Japan, there were three administrations during the First World War. The first was the Ōkuma
Shigenobu administration and it was an anti–Rikken Seiyūkai (Constitutional Association of
Political Friendship) coalition cabinet. As you probably know, it faced the start of First World War
hostilities and joined the war to play the part of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
The Ōkuma administration remained in office through to October 1916 which, as we havealready seen, was right in the middle of the war of alliances among the countries of Europe.
Japan, alongside Britain, engaged in military diplomacy against Germany.
At the time, Japan focused firmly on establishing its status as a first-class power in East Asia,
issuing the famous Twenty-One Demands to the government of the Republic of China. The
United States and Britain were involved to some extent in the negotiations that ensued, but asthey were in the midst of a war, they applied little pressure on Japan. In the end, China accepted
most of Japanʼs key demands.
However, domestic criticism of the Ōkuma administration, including accusation against its
handling of the Twenty-One Demands, increased and, in October 1916, the new administration
was formed under Terauchi Masatake who had a military background. As I mentioned earlier,this was the time when the First World War mutated dramatically from a great war among
European countries into a period of global revolutionary moments. The Terauchi administration
moved ahead with adjustments to its relationships with its allies, Britain, France and Russia. To
eliminate the mistrust that had arisen to some extent during the Ōkuma administration, the talks
focused on postwar peace terms with Japan, including secret treaties.
At the same time, amidst the revolutionary changes taking place in China around this time,
Japan attempted to revive Japan-China relations by supporting the Duàn Qíruì administration,
which took over in Beijing after the Yuán Shìk ǎ i administration fell. When the Wilson
administration moved to enter the First World War, it was somewhat suspicious towards Japanʼs
policies vis-a-vis China and Asia. Japan sent Ishii Kikujirō as a special envoy to the United Stateswith a view to reaching an understanding with Secretary of State Robert Lansing over JapanChina relations and the China issue. I think we can interpret this as an attempt to restructure
Japanese diplomacy amidst the changing international situation.
The Siberian intervention by Japanese forces was the final act of the Terauchi administration.
Britain and France had demanded Japan intervening in Siberia since the time of the Russian
revolution. Japan was cautious because of the possible damage on relations with the UnitedStates, but when the United States ultimately decided to act along with Japan, Japan dispatched
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troops to Siberia.
Around the same time, the Terauchi administration collapsed in the face of the Rice Riots
which started July of 1918 and other growing socioeconomic problems. In September 1918, thereins were handed over to the Hara Takashi administration, a party government rooted in the
Rikken Seiyūkai. Almost immediately the Hara administration found itself having to deal with theParis Peace Conference starting in January 1919, just after the suspension of First World War
hostilities.
Though the administration had changed, Japan initially appears to have approached theceasefire and peace negotiations as basically an extension of the cumulative efforts of the Ōkuma
and Terauchi administrations. However, the Hara administration decided to take a more proactive
approach. At the Paris Peace Conference, it attached great importance to form the cooperative
relationship with the United States, not only with Britain, actively supporting the attempt toconclude a peace treaty based on the Fourteen Points that President Wilson originally submitted
and tried to make the basis of the peace negotiation at Paris. In my view, this was the primaryreason why Japan put forward the racial equality proposal that serves as the theme of todayʼspresentation.

3. The Paris Peace Conference and the Racial Equality Proposal(1) Background
President Wilson presented the conditions he proposed as a basis for negotiating the settlement
to the war in his Fourteen Points speech to Congress on January 8, 1918. He spoke in terms ofwell-known fundamental liberal rules based on the general principle “that the world be made fit
and safe to live in.” He also talked about freedom of trade and navigation, and while there was
no expression of self-determination for peoples, he said that there should be no disposition ofcolonies without considering the intensions of the populations concerned.
This was basically a unilateral declaration. That said, Point XIV speaks in terms of forming a“general association of nations,” which was tantamount to a proposal that a body like the Leagueof Nations be created.
The implications of fourteen points became important in mid-1918 onwards when the policy
was formulated that Germany accept the ceasefire and later peace based on the fourteen points.
In the end, the armistice agreement with Germany came into force on November 11, 1918 asGermany agreed to accede to a peace based on the fourteen points. The content of the fourteen
points thus became the basis for international treaties and conventions within a very short time.
The newly inaugurated Hara administration was forced to respond very quickly to the likely
creation of international organizations such as the League of Nations. As already mentioned, theHara administrationʼs basic postwar policy was to cooperate with the United States and Britain,
more specifically, with President Wilson and the administration of UK Prime Minister David
Lloyd George.
The China issue was a particularly big problem between Japan and the United States at
the time, but the Ishii-Lansing Agreement and the improvement in Japan-China relations weredeemed to have dealt with it, at least provisionally. There was awareness that the anti–Japaneseimmigrant issue that had arisen since the beginning of the 1900s on the west coast of the United
Sates, especially California was, if anything, an even greater issue. There was much talk about
the possibility that the creation of a League of Nations would provide an opportunity to adopt theresolution of the immigrant issue as a fundamental principle.
The Diplomatic Advisor y Council was established around the time of the Terauchi
administration. In todayʼs parlance, it would be described as being “prime-minister led” ad hocgroup. It created a framework that embraced party representatives as well as people from the7Japan Review Vol.3 No.3-4 Winter / Spring 2020

Japan at the Paris Peace Conference: Focusing on the Proposal to Abolish Racial Discrimination

Ministry of Foreign Affairs to debate foreign policy. The Hara administration thus needed to ram
through this Council with the above-mentioned policy of cooperating with the Britain and theUnited States.
Conservative politicians and others argued that, though a pro-British or pro-American stance
was not a bad thing, it raised concerns that the creation of something like the League would
impede Japanʼs diplomacy towards Asia. Talk of abolishing racial discrimination was picked up asa response to the immigrant issue with the US and the British Empire. The Hara administration
put forward its proposals to the Council as a compromise that would give Japan an advantage in
its relationships with Britain and the United States. Foreign Minister Uchida Kōsai and Makino
Nobuaki, one of the plenipotentiaries to the Conference, made comments to this effect.
On the other hand, the politicians who expressed skepticism about the League wereencouraged by public opinion within Japan. While there was generally plenty of positive
discussion about Wilsonianism and liberalism at the time, there was also a great deal of
skepticism about the sudden emergence of the idea of the League. As the discussion on the
League became increasingly linked with the issue of racial discrimination, especially the anti–
Japanese immigration issue, there was quite a strong sentiment that support to the League
depends on whether it would incorporate measures to prevent racial discrimination.
Once the Paris Peace Conference got underway in 1919, media reports from Paris became
frequent, amplifying the racial discrimination issue as a matter of domestic politics in Japan. The
League to Abolish Racial Discrimination held several mass public meetings from January 1919
onwards, exposing the Hara administration to pressure from public opinion, especially opinions
centered on racial discrimination.
The unspoken background to the escalation in the racial discrimination issue lay to someextent in the changes affecting relations between the British Empire and Japan during the FirstWorld War. The independence movement in India grew in strength from the 1910s onwards.
Japan was also affected by the struggle between those seeking autonomy and those more radical
ultimately aiming at independence.
Rash Behari Bose was a well-known Indian activist who fled to Japan during the war. The
British, who were cracking down on such people, pressed Japan for his extradition. There wasconsiderable opposition to this from traditional Pan-Asianists, typified by Tōyama Mitsuru, who
supported the Indian independence movement from the perspectives of anti-colonialism andanti–racial discrimination. Bose sought shelter among various groups in Japan and was helpedby Tōyama and others. He eventually married the daughter of the owners of Nakamuraya, thebakery that still exists in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and became a Japanese citizen and lived for the rest of
his life in Japan.
Until that time, the Asianistsʼ interests were basically concentrated to the places close to
Japan, such as China and the Korean Peninsula. However, as a result of the First World War, theirview was enlarged by “Greater Asianism” or “Pan-Asianism,” which includes colonial Southeast
Asia and India, among other things, and adopted a more critical attitude towards Britain as acolonial empire. Together with a certain wariness caused by anti-immigration sentiments in
the United States and Britain, the Pan-Asianists used strong demands for the abolition of racial
discrimination as a means of putting pressure on the Hara administration.
One reflection of this was the famous article entitled Reject the Anglo-American-Centered Peace
written by Konoe Fumimaro, who was still a young aristocrat at the time but later became Japanʼs
prime minister. Given the domestic changes taking place in Japan, especially at a time of dramatic
global transformation, we can assume that he was critical of the idea that Japan should simply
accept a world order based on cooperation with the United States and Britain.

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Hiroshi Nakanishi(2) Sequence of Events

Japanʼs delegation of plenipotentiaries was headed by Saionji Kinmochi, an elder statesman andmajor political figure who also had studied in France in his young days. Several others handledactual conference matters, led by Makino Nobuaki, with the assistance of Chinda Sutemi and
Ijūin Hikokichi, both from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When they first contacted with theAmerican delegates in Paris, the American response to the idea of inserting racial equality clauseinto the treaty of the League did not seem too negative. The Japanese side did not feel that the
Wilson administration was against Japanese ideas on abolishing racial discrimination from theoutset. Wilsonʼs special advisor Colonel House especially seemed to take a favorable position.
It may be that the Japanese side was misled by this initial American attitude, but they wereencouraged by it and initially proposed ideas that, with the immigrant issue basically in mind,
called for an end to discrimination against Japanese immigrants, immigrants from other countries,
and minority immigrants.
The situation subsequently changed, however. Because Britain fought under the banner ofthe British Empire, as mentioned earlier, it could not make decisions on its own as it had to besensitive to the views of dominions such as Australia and South Africa. One member of the British
delegation, Australian Prime Minister William Morris Hughes, was vehemently opposed to theidea.
Australiaʼs well-known “White Australia” policy came into existence only around the beginningof the twentieth century. Basically, it was a Labour Party idea, and was more of a welfare policy
than a racist policy with the idea that immigrants should not be let into the country to work forlower wages. Hughes, as a Labour Prime Minister, opposed accepting immigrants for domestic
reasons, but he was also wary of Japan. With the combination of those factors resulted in hardline
opposition, Britain took the view that it could not compromise on the matter for the sake ofpreserving unity within the Empire.
Meanwhile, President Wilson encountered extremely strong domestic criticism when
he returned temporarily to the United States in Februar y through to March. The Japaneseimmigrant issue was part of the criticism, though it was not the center of the matter. By around
March, both the United States and Britain had adopted an extremely negative stance towards
inserting a racial equality clause to the League Covenant.
The Japanese plenipotentiar y delegation was caught in a dilemma. Initially, they had
thought that the United States and Britain might be open to some sort of compromise, but thatpossibility suddenly disappeared around March. Within Japan, meanwhile, the abolition of racial
discrimination took an extremely symbolic meaning from the perspective of public opinion. In asense, many people believed Japanʼs participation in the League should depend on the adoption of
the proposal.
The delegation tried hard to find a compromise from March through to April. In April, theJapanese delegation decided to request that a general consideration of “equality of peoples” beincluded in the preamble to, not in the main text of, the Covenant of League of Nations. Whenthe League of Nations Commission met on April 11 to determine the content of the Covenant, amajority of 11 members voted in favor of the Japanʼs proposal, but five voted against. Acting aschairman, Wilson rejected the amendment on the grounds that unanimity was necessary for suchan important matter.
This was clearly an extraordinar y maneuver because numerous other issues had been
decided by majority decisions. Wilson had high-handedly brought the decision to a conclusion bybending the rules because he knew that Britain would not accept Japanʼs proposal, and that there
would be strong opposition at home.
I do not go into detail today, but there was considerable wrangling between Japan and China
over how to deal with the Shandong Problem, which was no doubt related to the handling
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Japan at the Paris Peace Conference: Focusing on the Proposal to Abolish Racial Discriminationof the racial non-discrimination issue. Basically, Japanʼs demands on the Shandong Problem
were narrowly accepted in the end, and things moved on towards the signing of the Treaty of
Versailles.
At the plenary session of the Paris Peace Conference, Makino concluded with a speech to theeffect that he would continue working towards the acceptance of racial equality and the abolitionof racial discrimination as international principles.

4. Assessment(1) The Racial Equality Proposal as a Matter of Domestic Compromise
In summary, my assessment of these events is that we cannot really say the Japanese government
tried to realize abolishment of racial discrimination as the basic principle at the Paris Peace
Conference based on Japanʼs national consensus. It surfaced as a point of political compromise,and did not materialize in the diplomatic negotiations.
If we take a broader view, however, as portrayed in Shiba Ryōtarōʼs novel Clouds above the Hill,
after Japanʼs victory in the Russo-Japanese War and the revision of the so-called unequal treaties,
the issue in the 1910s was to redefine the strategic objectives of Japanese diplomacy. In my view,
Japan saw itself first becoming the leading country of Asia, then ranking itself among the worldʼsfirst-class countries such as Britain and the United States and cooperating with them. I think such
perception had been established during the First World War.
The Hara administrationʼs position of cooperating with Britain and the United States at thetime was to take this opportunity to remove one of the thorns in its side, the immigrant issue.
From the perspective of anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism and “Greater Asianism,” on the other
hand, people who were unhappy with the idea of an international order led by Britain and theUnited States stressed that the issue of the abolition of racial discrimination would be a sortof litmus test of the Anglo-US order, which would prove if that order embraces Japan as fully
legitimate partner. I therefore believe the proposal was submitted to the Paris Peace Conference
as a compromise.
In the end, Japan ʼ s proposal was not at all accepted but ultimately denied. The famous
Immigration Act of 1924, including the Asian Exclusion Act, was established in the US, which
doubled down disillusionment and discontent among Japanese people towards the AngloAmerican order. In that sense, there is dark side of reality in the high-minded proposal.

(2) The Immature Liberal International Order

Taking a more general view of todayʼs theme, however, the instability of international order in
the inter war period was not just Japanʼs problem. It was a problem commonly shared in thevarious concepts of the world order presented in the Paris Peace Conference, including WilsonʼsFourteen Points.
While there is no doubt that the Fourteen Points was a liberal concept of international order,
this ideal was betrayed by reality on several different levels. Whether it was a deficiency ofcollective security, German reparations or the treatment of ethnic self-determination, it triggered
many illusions during or immediately after the Paris Peace Conference.
In one aspect, the Fourteen Points was excessively radical, in another, it was insufficient.
Japanʼs racial equality proposal was the same. As an idea, it embraced the ideology of liberalism,
but it also diverged from reality too much.

(3) Impact on Posterity: The Second World War and Article 1 Paragraph 3 of
the Charter of the United Nations
Despite the various facets, however, we cannot deny that Japanʼs 1919 proposal was historically
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significant. In Kant and Hegelʼs philosophy on history, there is a concept of “cunning of reason.”
There are cases where an ideology is realized after following a twisting and turning trajectory andgoing through various conflicts.
For example, since the Twenty-One Demands, the Paris Peace Conference gave rise to the
May Fourth Movement triggered by the handling of the Shandong Problem at Paris. This led
to the confrontation between Japan and China that, with admittedly long and winding stretch,
resulted in the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. There existed an indirect link, when the Charter of theUnited Nations was prepared in San Francisco in 1945, Wellington Koo and others representing
Republic of China, a member of the United Nations, proposed Article 1 Paragraph 3 against racial
discrimination.
Another twist was that, although the mainstream in the diplomacy of Japanese government
was opposed to Pan-Asianism, the message of the movement, because of the rejection of the racialequality clause at Paris, increased its influence on Japanese policy and later had influence on
the political movement against the colonial system. Thus, one of the intellectual backdrops wasformed at Paris for Japan entering into the rivalry with Britain and the United States in the AsiaPacific.
While Japan waged war against the post–First World War order led by Britain and the UnitedStates, the resulting consequence was transformation of the colonial system and the start of amore liberal order after the Second World War. In that sense, I believe the Proposal to Abolish
Racial Discrimination at the Paris Peace Conference had permanent mark and significance inworld history.

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