Dr. E. Moresco, Vice President of the Council of the Netherlands East Indies. Dr. J. C. A. Everwijn, Netherlands Minister to the United States. Jonkheer W. H. de Beaufort, Minister Plenipotentiary. FOR PORTUGAL: Viscount d'Alte, Portuguese Minister to the United States. CHAPTER II THE NEED FOR THE DISCUSSION BY THE CONFERENCE OF PACIFIC AND FAR EASTERN QUESTIONS As is well known the Conference in its primary conception was to be one for arriving at a programme whereby the five Powers-America, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan-might obtain relief from the heavy economic burdens imposed upon them by their competitive struggle to create and maintain vast military and naval establishments. That, as auxiliary to this, it was necessary to remove, as far as might be done, possible causes of war was, however, early seen, and, furthermore, it was appreciated that, possibly nowhere more than in the Far East, were there conditions existing and policies in operation which, if uncorrected or unchanged, would be provocative of international controversies and possibly of war. The President of the United States in his letter of invitation to the Powers to participate in the Conference referred in careful language to this fact but did not attempt to specify the conditions that needed to be corrected or the policies that needed to be changed. We may quote again his words upon this point: It is the earnest wish of this Government, that through an interchange of views with the facilities afforded by a conference, it may be possible to find a solution of Pacific and Far Eastern problems of unquestioned importance at this time, that is, such common understandings with respect to matters which have been and are of international concern as may serve to promote enduring friendship among our peoples. The specific matters regarding which common understandings among the Powers concerned needed to be arrived at can best be considered seriatim in the account which will be given of the work of the Conference. It will, however, be appropriate and advisable to give here a general characterization of the situation in the Far East in order to show, in broad outlines, the reasons why it was felt necessary that there should be a joint discussion of it by the nine Powers concerned. Two China's Weakness and Japan's Ambitions. elements united to raise a serious international situation in the Far East. Upon the one hand was China with its vast territory, its millions of population, its considerable natural resources, its potential market for the manufactured goods of the world and for the investment of foreign capital; its special civilization, but, withal, its lack of an effective administrative system and its great military weakness. Upon the other hand there was Japan, with a strong, centralized, bureaucratic, monarchical government, largely under the control of militarists, with undisguised imperialistic policies eager to widen Japanese political and economic influence and control if not Japanese sovereignty, and exhibiting little regard for the legal or ethical rights of other peoples whose interests might stand in the way of the realization of its own ambitions. Thus, by a series of actions dating from the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, but especially from the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, Japan had shown to the world her desire and intention, if not checked, to dominate Eastern Asia and possibly the entire Far East. In 1895 she annexed Pescadores group of islands and the great island of Formosa lying off the southern coast of China and, before that time, belonging to China, and would have annexed the southern portion of the province of Fengtien and appurtenant islands,' had not France, Germany and Russia intervened. In 1905 Japan expelled Russia from South Manchuria and installed herself in Russia's place, and from that time forward showed herself determined to exercise political as well as railway and other forms of economic control in that vast and rich area of China. At this time also she again obtained possession, by way of lease, of the southern portion of the Province of Fengtien --known as the Liaotung Peninsular or Kwantung District. In that same year Japan also brought Korea under her effective administrative control, and, in 1910, despite repeated assurances that the sovereignty and independence of that country would be respected, formally annexed it and made it an integral part of the Japanese Empire. In 1915 came the Twenty-One Demands by Japan upon China, by the presentation of which Japan made it no longer possible for her to deny, without insulting the intelligence of those to whom the denial might be addressed, that it was her desire to dominate China politically 1 See Treaty of Peace of April 17, 1895. MacMurray's Treaties with and Concerning China, p. 18. 'See MacMurray, pp. 50-53. as well as economically. Finally, by her conduct in Eastern Siberia since the Allied intervention in that country, Japan has given clear evidence of her desire to obtain a paramount economic and political position in that portion of Eastern Asia. The significance of these series of acts by Japan was such that even he who ran could read, and it is therefore but fair to say that the Far Eastern Problem has been due to two factors, the one passive and the other active. The political and military weakness of China, and, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, of Eastern Siberia as well, has furnished the opportunity; the natural resources and agricultural products of China and Russia have furnished the temptation; and her own increasing population and lack of mineral resources have furnished Japan with the incentive for her aggressive imperialistic policies. Interests of Western Powers. It may, however, be asked: What have been, or are, the direct interests of the Western Powers which have caused them to view with concern these developments in the Far East, and which have been deemed sufficient to make it desirable that the general situation should be discussed in a Conference in which they should all participate? The answer to this question is as follows: In the first place, the Western Powers participating in the Conference, with the exception of Italy and Belgium have important territorial possessions in the Pacific and Far East which need to be protected, and Belgium has in China extensive financial investments. All of the Powers have in China commercial interests already considerable in amount but |