Twenty one demands 1915 Rating:
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The World War I Document Archive, 1915
Pressure from the United States and Britain was responsible for removing the most odious provision—that of installing Japanese advisory agents. The course of the negotiations in connexion with these amendments will be referred to subsequently. Still, its desire to meet the wishes of the Japanese Government eventually prompted it to offer to open a number of places in the region to foreign trade. Tired of foreign powers holding Chinese territory and often dictating Chinese policy, revolutionaries overthrew the Qing regime and replaced it with a national assembly. Text of Japan's Ultimatum to China The Imperial Japanese Government hereby again offer their advice and hope that the Chinese Government, upon this advice, will give a satisfactory reply by six o'clock p. Furthermore, the Chinese Government contended, in respect to former leasehold and vested interests of Germany in Shantung, that those reverted automatically to China when China declared war against Germany, thereby terminating all treaties between the two nations. And like the Young Turks or the Persian Constitutional revolutionaries, Yuan found himself a leader with few followers.
The date for restoring the South Manchurian Railway to China shall fall due in the 91st year of the Republic or A. This expansion continued after the war, helped by America's massive reserves of raw materials. Although there was no cause for such a demarche the Chinese Government, in deference to the wishes of the Imperial Japanese Government, at once agreed to open negotiations on those articles which it was possible for China to consider, notwithstanding that it was palpable that the whole of the demands were intended to extend the rights and interests of Japan without securing a quid pro quo of any kind for China. Hioki, the Japanese Minister, stated as follows:— As relates to the question of the right of missionary propaganda, the same shall be taken up again for negotiation in future. The implication was clear — U. Moreover, a general apprehension exists amongst the Chinese people that these peculiar conditions, favouring conspiracies for political purposes, might be taken advantage of by some unscrupulous Chinese. Japanese hospitals, churches and schools in the United States shall be granted the right of owning land.
China thus relinquished the right to repurchase the railway at the expiration of another 23 years. In connexion with the Kirin-Changchun Railway the amendment agreed to involves a fundamental revision of the original agreement on the basis of the existing railway loan contracts concluded by China with other foreign capitalists, as well as an engagement on the part of the Chinese Government to extend to this railway any better terms which may hereafter be accorded to other railway concesssionnaires in China. Since Japan could not tolerate such demands the settlement of the other questions, however compromising it may be, would not be to her interest. The author died in 1942, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the is the author's life plus 75 years or less. What places shall be opened are to be jointly decided by Japan and China in a separate agreement.
They were too busy enjoying the prosperity of the 1920s. Inasmuch as the Japanese Government and the Chinese Government have had many cases of dispute between Japanese and Chinese to settle, cases which caused no little misunderstanding, it is for this reason necessary that the police departments of important places in China shall be jointly administered by Japanese and Chinese, or that the police departments of these places shall employ numerous Japanese to that they may at the same time help to plan for the improvement of the Chinese police service. From the commercial and military points of view Kiaochow is an important place, in the acquisition of which the Japanese Empire sacrificed much blood and money, and after the acquisition, the Empire incurs no obligation to restore it to China. Ariga, while later on Dr. One of the outstanding inequities of these demands is the fact that they nowhere mention or allow anything in the way of a quid pro quo, or compensatory equivalent, to China for what she is asked to concede to Japan. At the thirteenth conference, held on 23rd March, China agreed: 1 to the amendment of the Kirin-Changchun Railway loan agreement; 2 to give preference to Japan if the revenue of South Manchuria were offered as security for loans; 3 to give preference to Japanese in the event of the employment of advisors for South Manchuria; 4 to grant to Japanese the right of mining in nine specified areas in South Manchuria. If China accepted the Demands, they would be barred from making any further territorial concessions to a foreign power — unless that power was Japan.
One of the first foreign governments to recognize the Republic of China in 1911, the U. The suggestion relating to participation in the Conference between Japan and Germany was made in view of the fact that Shantung, the object of future negotiation between Japan and Germany, is a Chinese Province, and therefore China is the Power most concerned in the future of that territory. The Chinese skillfully drew out the negotiations, but were eventually forced into agreeing to a revised set of demands in May 1915. After initial rejection, China would accept a reduced set of 13 demands on May 25. No one nation should dominate Peking.
At the eleventh conference, held on 16th March, China agreed: to give Japan preference in regard to loans for railway construction in South Manchuria. In the course of the negotiations the Imperial Government has consistently explained the aims and objects of the proposals in a conciliatory spirit, whilst on the other hand the proposals of the Chinese Government, whether important or unimportant, have been attended to without any reserve. Unexpectedly on 18th January, 1915, His Excellency the Japanese Minister in Peking, in pursuance of instructions from his Government, adopted the unusual procedure of presenting to His Excellency the President of the Republic of China a list hereto appended of twenty-one momentous demands, arranged in five Groups. Sha Sung Kang Ho-lung Coal and Iron Kang Yao Chi-lin Kirin Coal Chia P'i Kou Hua-tien Gold Article 5. In a classic act of opportunism, the Japanese government used the distraction of the World War I in Europe to press China secretly for a series of concessions.
The Chinese Government agrees that in respect of the two cases mentioned herein below the Japanese Government's consent shall be first obtained before action is taken: Article 5. Failing to persuade the Japanese Minister to accept this view, the Chinese Government agreed to this demand in principle, and made certain supplementary proposals. Yangtze River By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin 1858 , foreign vessels including warships had the right to free navigation on the Yangtze River. There was some difficulty in determining a definition of the boundaries of Eastern Inner Mongolia — this being a new expression in Chinese geographical terminology — but the Chinese Government, acting upon a statement made at a previous conference by the Japanese Minister that the Japanese Government meant the region under Chinese administrative jurisdiction, and taking note in the list presented by the Japanese Minister of the names of places in Eastern Inner Mongolia to be opened to trade, inferred that the so-called Eastern Inner Mongolia is that part of Inner Mongolia which is under the jurisdiction of South Manchuria and the Jehol circuit; and refrained from placing any limitations upon the definition of this term. The Japanese Government, however, suspended the negotiations until 26th April when it surprised the Chinese Government by presenting a new list of twenty-four demands which is hereto appended , and requested the Chinese Government to accord its acceptance without delay, adding that this was the final proposal.
Desperate to enhance his floundering reputation, Yuan would declare himself Emperor by the end of the year. In 1914, soon after the Great War began disregarding the efforts of China and neutral nations which would have neutralized the German leased port at Tsingtau, China, without embroiling China in the scope of hostilities and thereby eliminated it as a factor in German operations for the period of the war , Japanese military forces had occupied, against the protest of China, the territory of the German leasehold on Kiaochou Bay, in Shantung Province, and had farther extended Japanese military occupation over almost the whole area of the Province, outside the German leasehold. While the initial demands had been drafted and approved by the Diet and GenrĹŤ a sort of Japanese House of Lords , the concessions and threats made during the negotiations had occurred entirely without their input. Appreciating the earnest desire of Japan to maintain the peace of the Far East and to cement her friendship with China, as evidenced by this friendly offer, the Chinese Government left the entire question of the conditions of restoration to be determined by Japan, and refrained from making any reference thereto in the supplementary proposal. But with the object of increasing the future friendly relations of the two countries, she went to the extent of proposing its restoration; yet to her great regret the Chinese Government did not take into consideration the good intention of Japan and manifest appreciation of her difficulties.
