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Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance


By Richard Cavendish
Published in History Today Volume 52 Issue 1 January 2002
Japan, Britain
The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance, the first between a European country and an Asiatic
power against a Western rival, was signed on January 30th, 1902.
Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
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
Lansdownes 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.
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