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The 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, a high-minded aristocrat of legendary charm, was foreign
secretary in the crucial years after 1900 which saw the British government abandon the policy of
‘splendid isolation’. The first product of this dubious change of direction was the treaty with
Japan, negotiated in leisurely style during 1901 by Lansdowne and the Japanese ambassador in
London, Hayashi Tadasu. Westernisation and industrialisation in Japan after the restoration of
the Meiji emperor in 1868 had made Japan the major native power in the Far East and in Britain
the Japanese were respected as a decent, orderly, efficient, reliable nation – in marked contrast
to the Chinese.
In the background lay burgeoning Japanese imperialism, British commercial interests in China
and the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1900, which threatened both. Joseph Chamberlain
considered that ‘our interests in China are so great, our proportion of the trade is so enormous
and the potentialities of that trade are so gigantic that I feel no more vital question has ever been
presented ...’. The Japanese, meanwhile, were nervous of Russian ambitions in Korea, which
they regarded as their own back yard, and Hayashi told Lord Lansdowne plainly that his country
considered the protection of its interests in Korea ‘its first and last wish’.
The Japanese got what they wanted. It was agreed that if either of the high contracting parties
became involved in war with another country, the other party would remain neutral. If either party
were confronted by two or more opponents, however, the other party would come to its aid.
Japan could now count on the British in a war with Russia if any other power (France and
Germany were the ones in mind) were to ally with Russia. Japanese domination of Korea was
tacitly accepted.
It might have been possible for the Japanese to go the other way and reach an agreement with
Russia, giving the Russians a free hand in Manchuria in return for a free Japanese hand in
Korea. This was the course recommended by the veteran Japanese politician Ito Hirobumi, the
principal architect of the changes under the Meiji regime. Ito was against the alliance with
Britain, whose imperial grasp he saw was weakening, but he was opposed by the army chief, the
formidable Yamagata Aritomo, who argued that the Russians would not stop at Manchuria.
Unless prevented, they would move to dominate the whole region and a struggle with them was
bound to come. Ito went to St Petersburg in the last months of 1901 to sound out the Russians,
but nothing came of it. He was lured to England and blandished at Bowood, Lord Lansdowne’s
stately seat in Wiltshire.
The treaty was duly signed in London and was considered a triumph in Japan, where it had a
powerful influence in boosting national pride. For the first time a European country had allied
with an Asiatic power against a Western rival. In effect, the British sanctioned Japanese
aggression in Korea and strengthened the Japanese to challenge the Russians successfully in
the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which put Japan on course to dominate Manchuria. The
treaty was renewed in 1911 and the Japanese joined the Allied side in the First World War, but
the alliance with Britain lapsed in 1923.
QUESTIONS:
1. What were the reasons why Japan was viewed positively in the west?
2. Why did Japan agree to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902?
3. What did Japan gain from the agreement?
4. What did Britain gain from the agreement?
