WAs the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan cemented their military alliance by mutually declaring war against the United States on December 11, 1941, the Japanese proposed a clear territorial arrangement with the two main European Axis powers concerning the Asian continent. On December 15 they presented the Germans with a drafted military convention that would delimit the continent of Asia into two separate "operational spheres" by a dividing line along the 70th meridian east longitude, going southwards through the Ob River's Arctic estuary, southwards to just east of Khost in Afghanistan and heading into the Indian Ocean just west of Rajkot in India, to split the Lebensraum land holdings of Germany and the similar spazio vitale areas of Italy to the west of it, and the Empire of Japan to the east of it, after a complete defeat of the Soviet Union by the Third Reich.
WThe Bandō POW camp was a prisoner-of-war camp during World War I in what is now Naruto, Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku Island, Japan. From April 1917 to January 1920, just under a thousand of the 3,900 German soldiers captured at Tsingtao, China in November 1914 were imprisoned at the camp. When the camp closed in 1920, sixty-three of the prisoners chose to remain in Japan.
WJapan's Continental Policy refers to a Pan-Asian strategy pursued by Japan, especially the Imperial Japanese Army, between the Meiji Restoration and Japan's expansion during World War II. The policy's major aim was to conquer Japan's neighboring countries such as Korea and China to dominate East Asia.
WRelations between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire were minimal until 1855, mostly friendly from 1855 to the early 1890s, but then turned hostile, largely over the status of Manchuria and of Korea. The two empires established diplomatic and commercial relations from 1855 onwards. The Russian Empire officially ended in 1917, and was succeeded by Communist rule formalized in 1922 with the formation of the Soviet Union.
WThe development of France-Japan relations in the 19th century coincided with Japan's opening to the Western world, following two centuries of seclusion under the "Sakoku" system and France's expansionist policy in Asia. The two countries became very important partners from the second half of the 19th century in the military, economic, legal and artistic fields. The Bakufu modernized its army through the assistance of French military missions, and Japan later relied on France for several aspects of its modernization, particularly the development of a shipbuilding industry during the early years of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the development of a Legal code. France also derived part of its modern artistic inspiration from Japanese art, essentially through Japonism and its influence on Impressionism, and almost completely relied on Japan for its prosperous silk industry
WThe Greater East Asia Conference was an international summit held in Tokyo from 5 to 6 November 1943, in which the Empire of Japan hosted leading politicians of various component members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The event was also referred to as the Tokyo Conference.
WHakkō ichiu or Hakkō iu was a Japanese political slogan meaning the divine right of the Empire of Japan to "unify the eight corners of the world." It was prominent from the Second Sino-Japanese War to World War II, popularized in a speech by Prime Minister of Japan Fumimaro Konoe on January 8, 1940.
WHokushin-ron was a pre-World War II political doctrine of the Empire of Japan which stated that Manchuria and Siberia were Japan's sphere of interest and that the potential value to Japan for economic and territorial expansion in those areas was greater than elsewhere. Its supporters were sometimes called the Strike North Group. It enjoyed wide support within the Imperial Japanese Army during the interwar period, but was abandoned in 1939 after military defeat on the Mongolian front at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol and the signing of Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in 1941. It was superseded by the diametrically-opposite rival policy, Nanshin-ron , which regarded Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands as Japan's political and economic sphere of influence and aimed to acquire the resources of European colonies while neutralising the threat of Western military forces in the Pacific.
WThe Iwakura Mission or Iwakura Embassy was a Japanese diplomatic voyage to the United States and Europe conducted between 1871 and 1873 by leading statesmen and scholars of the Meiji period. It was not the only such mission, it is the most well-known and possibly most significant in terms of its impact on the modernization of Japan after a long period of isolation from the West. The mission was first proposed by the influential Dutch missionary and engineer Guido Verbeck, based to some degree on the model of the Grand Embassy of Peter I.
WThe Japan-British Exhibition of 1910 took place at White City, London in Great Britain from 14 May 1910 to 29 October 1910. It was the largest international exposition that the Empire of Japan had ever participated in and was driven by a desire of Japan to develop a more favorable public image in Britain and Europe following the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. It was also hoped that the display of manufactured products would lead to increased Japanese trade with Britain. Japan made a successful effort to display its new status as a great power by emphasizing its new role as a colonial power in Asia.
WThe Ministry of Greater East Asia was a cabinet-level ministry in the government of the Empire of Japan from 1942 to 1945, established to administer overseas territories obtained by Japan in the Pacific War and to coordinate the establishment and development of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
WThe Mudan incident of 1871 was the massacre of 54 Ryūkyūan sailors in Qing-era Taiwan who wandered into the central part of Taiwan after their ship was shipwrecked.
WThe Nan'yō Kōhatsu kabushiki gaisha , also known the South Seas Development Company, was a Japanese strategic development company which aimed to promote economic development and Japanese political interests in Micronesia and Southeast Asia.
WNanshin-ron was a political doctrine in the Empire of Japan which stated that Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands were Japan's sphere of interest and that the potential value to the Japanese Empire for economic and territorial expansion in those areas was greater than elsewhere.
WThe Nikolayevsk incident was an international conflict in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East between Japan and the Far Eastern Republic during the Japanese intervention. The culmination was the execution of imprisoned Japanese prisoners of war and survivors of Japanese residents without trial from 23 to 31 May 1920, which followed after the armed conflict between the guerrillas and the Japanese army from 12 to 15 March 1920 in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. A total of 129 Japanese prisoners and a number of local residents and guerrillas were held in the prison at that time. The destruction of the town and the fortress and the execution took place after the evacuation of the entire population due to the offensive of the Japanese army. The Nikolayevsk incident was used by Japan as a pretext to justify the retroactive occupation of Northern Sakhalin, which was occupied by the Japanese on 22 April 1920.
WThe Normanton incident was a set of events surrounding the sinking of a British merchant vessel named Normanton off the coast of what is now Wakayama Prefecture on October 24, 1886. The vessel was registered to the Madamson & Bell Steamship Company when it ran aground and sank, drowning all the Japanese passengers aboard. The event sparked a major uproar in the Japanese population when the subsequent court case in the British Court for Japan highlighted the unjustness of the unequal treaties that were levied on Japan at the time by the leading countries of the West.
WThe Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century that would allow for a system of trade in China open to all countries equally. It was used mainly to mediate the competing interests of different colonial powers in China. Under the policy, none of them would have exclusive trading rights in a specific area. In the late 20th century, the term also describes the economic policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to open up China to foreign businesses that wanted to invest in the country. The latter policy set into motion the economic transformation of modern China.
WThe South Manchuria Railway, officially South Manchuria Railway Company , or 滿鐵 for short, was a large National Policy Company of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operation of railways on the Dalian–Fengtian (Mukden)–Changchun corridor in northeastern China, as well as on several branch lines.
WThe Governor of the South Seas Mandate was an official who ruled the South Seas Mandate, a Class C League of Nations mandate in the Pacific Ocean under the administration of the Empire of Japan, as part of the Japanese colonial empire, between 1922 and 1944. The territory consisted of islands awarded to Japan by the League of Nations after World War I, prior to which they had been part of the German colonial empire. During World War II, the United States captured the islands from Japan. After World War II, the United Nations placed the territory under the United States trusteeship as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The islands are now part of Palau, Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Marshall Islands.
WThe Tripartite Intervention or Triple Intervention was a diplomatic intervention by Russia, Germany, and France on 23 April 1895 over the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed between Japan and Qing dynasty China that ended the First Sino-Japanese War. The goal was to stop Japanese expansion in China. The Japanese reaction against the Triple Intervention was one of the causes of the subsequent Russo-Japanese War.
WGerman submarine U-234 was a Type XB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II, she was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Johann-Heinrich Fehler. Her first and only mission into enemy or contested territory consisted of the attempted delivery of uranium oxide and German advanced weapons technology to the Empire of Japan. After receiving Admiral Dönitz' order to surface and surrender and of Germany's unconditional surrender, the submarine's crew surrendered to the United States on 14 May 1945.
WThe Washington Naval Conference, was a disarmament conference called by the United States and held in Washington, DC from November 12, 1921 to February 6, 1922. It was conducted outside the auspices of the League of Nations. It was attended by nine nations regarding interests in the Pacific Ocean and East Asia. Soviet Russia was not invited to the conference. It was the first arms control conference in history, and Kaufman shows that it is studied by political scientists as a model for a successful disarmament movement.