Hara Takashi
The Japanese were initially asked by the French in 1917 to intervene in Russia but declined. However, in February 1918, a "Siberia Planning Committee" was formed by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff and the Army Ministry with the aim of exploring the possibility that the Tsarist collapse was an opportunity to free Japan from any future threat from Russia by detaching Siberia and forming an independent buffer state. The Army proposed attacking on two fronts, from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk along the Amur River and also via the Chinese Eastern Railway to cut off the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway at Lake Baikal. The Japanese government, then under the civilian leadership of Prime Minister Hara Takashi rejected the plan.