PARIS 1919 (61 page)

Shantung did not come up in Paris until the end of January. Wilson had still not decided what he should do. He explored possible alternatives. Perhaps, as he suggested to Koo, Britain might be persuaded to help China, in spite of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Perhaps the Japanese would voluntarily give up their claims to Shantung. After all, various officials had suggested that Japan was willing to give the German concessions back to China. Perhaps Japan could save face by taking possession formally and then handing over sovereignty to China.
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The Japanese showed little disposition to compromise. On the morning of January 27, when the Supreme Council turned its attention to the fate of Germany's colonies in the Pacific, Makino tried to lump the Shantung concessions in with the various islands that had been seized from Germany. He argued that Shantung was merely a matter involving Japan and Germany and that there was no need for China to be there when it came up. He was clearly hoping that Shantung would be disposed of briskly, along with the Pacific islands, as part of the spoils of war. The other powers decided that Shantung should be discussed separately and that China should be invited to the discussion later that afternoon.
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In the break between the morning and afternoon sessions the Chinese did what they could to pressure their friends. Lu, their nominal leader, was nowhere to be seen; it was the young Koo who called on Lansing to ask whether China could expect support from the United States. Lansing was reassuring but added that he was worried about the European powers.
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That afternoon the Chinese perched on uncomfortable gilt chairs at the Quai d'Orsay to listen to Makino give a halting and unimpressive summary of Japan's case. (Koo claimed that Wilson told him afterward how disturbed he had been by the speech.) Koo replied for China the following morning. Although his voice shook at first, he tore into the Japanese in a dazzling speech replete with learned references to international law and Latin tags. It was true, he admitted, that China had signed agreements with Japan in 1915 and 1918 which seemed to promise that Japan would get the German rights in Shantung, but China had signed under duress and could not be held to the agreements. In any case, all questions dealing with German possessions had to be dealt with by the Peace Conference.
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China, Koo went on, was grateful to Japan for liberating Shantung from the Germans. “But grateful as they were, the Chinese delegation felt that they would be false to their duty to China and to the world if they did not object to paying their debts of gratitude by selling the birthright of their countrymen and thereby sowing the seeds of discord for the future.” National self-determination and territorial integrity, those Wilsonian principles, obliged the powers to give Shantung back to China.
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Shantung was, said Koo, “the cradle of Chinese civilization, the birthplace of Confucius and Mencius, and a Holy Land for the Chinese.” Moreover, to allow Shantung to fall under foreign control would be to leave a “dagger pointed at the heart of China.” Ironically, that was very much how the Japanese military saw it: the war minister in Tokyo told his government that the railway running inland from the coast in Shantung was the “artery” pumping Japanese power into the Asian mainland. Borden called the Chinese presentation “very able,” and Lansing thought that Koo had simply overwhelmed the Japanese. Clemenceau's warm congratulations, which were supposed to remain private, were common knowledge later the same evening.
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On eloquence alone, the Chinese were the clear winners.

Unfortunately, the issue of Shantung was not decided in January. It had to wait until the frantic race in April, when the final clauses of the treaty with Germany were put together. By that time the peacemakers were juggling hundreds of decisions, giving way on one, insisting on another, trying to satisfy impossible demands so that there would be a treaty for the Germans that all the Allies would sign. The Chinese and their hopes were a small and insignificant part of the calculations. Wilson himself was being forced into the sort of horse-trading he hated, gaining Japan's assent to the League covenant, even without the racial equality clause, at the cost of his own principles. If the League was the best hope of the world, then perhaps the sacrifice of a small piece of China was worth it.

In the long hiatus, the Chinese and Japanese delegations were busy. Both sides showed that they had grasped an important element in the new international relations as they argued their case in public through speeches and interviews. While the Japanese delegation in Paris had a highly effective information section, most bystanders felt that China got the best of it, perhaps because their demands were more in tune with the mood of the times. During the first part of February, there was a very public dispute over the release of the secret agreements that China had signed with Japan. The Japanese delegation was taken aback when Clemenceau and the other leaders suggested that it might be a good idea to lay the documents before the Peace Conference. Koo, seeing a chance to embarrass Japan, agreed with alacrity and wired his government for copies. In Peking, the Japanese ambassador made a heavy-handed attempt to persuade the Chinese government not to release any documents without the consent of the Japanese government. News of this leaked into the press and not only further inflamed Chinese opinion but deepened American mistrust of Japan.
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The Chinese delegates wined and dined the experts and the foreign journalists. Lu arranged for the Chinese government to make donations to the French and Belgian governments to rebuild schools in Verdun and Ypres. But behind the scenes the Japanese did better. In private interviews that spring with Lloyd George and Balfour, with Clemenceau and his foreign minister, Pichon, they got the reassurance they wanted. Although they did not expect much from the American delegation, they had cordial interviews with House. As the Japanese explained it, the Chinese were attempting to renege on solemn promises. What helped Japan's case most of all was their willingness not to push the racial equality clause.
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On April 21, just before the Italians walked out of the Peace Conference, Makino and Chinda called on Wilson and Lansing to tell them that Japan wanted the dispute with China settled before the treaty with Germany was finished. They warned that failure to do so would create great resentment among the Japanese public. Wilson conferred that afternoon with Clemenceau and Lloyd George; the three leaders, who had hoped to postpone a decision on Shantung, recognized that they must give way to the Japanese demand. As Hankey put it, “It would be bad enough before handing over the German Treaty to lose the Italian Delegation, but if the fifth of the inviting Powers [Japan] had also withdrawn its representatives, the three remaining Powers responsible for the Treaty would be in a very awkward fix.” Lansing complained that the mood in Paris was one of “selfish materialism tinctured with a cynical disregard of manifest rights” and asked, “Will American idealism have to succumb to this evil spirit of a past era?”
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On the morning of April 22, Makino addressed the Council of Four to restate Japan's claims. He also thoughtfully produced drafts of clauses for inclusion in the German treaty. Wilson appealed to Japan to consider the long-term interests of Asia and indeed of the world. Nations were going to have to think less of themselves and more of one another. That, after all, was what the League of Nations was all about. If Japan insisted on its rights in China, it would leave China bitter and mistrustful. And that would hurt everyone. “There was a lot of combustible material in China and if flames were put to it, the fire could not be quenched.” The Japanese delegates listened politely but reminded the assembled statesmen that, if they did not get what they wanted, they could not sign the treaty.
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That afternoon was the turn of the Chinese. The Japanese delegates absented themselves, having decided, wisely, that they did not want to debate with the formidable Koo. The Chinese delegation listened to the peacemakers trying to justify what they were about to do. Lloyd George explained why the British had promised to support the Japanese claims. Remember, he urged, the desperate situation in which Britain had found itself in 1917. It had needed Japan's help to survive the German submarine campaign. “We had to ask Japan urgently to send us destroyers, and Japan made as advantageous a bargain as she could.”
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Wilson offered reassurance. The League would ensure that the Chinese need not worry about future aggression from Japan or any other nation. And he, too, made a plea for understanding. The powers were in a very embarrassing position because of all the agreements that had been signed during the war. He was very sympathetic to the Chinese but they must recognize that treaties, including their own with Japan, were sacred. “Since this war began by the protest of the western nations against the violation of a treaty, we must, above all, respect treaties.” Lloyd George agreed: “We cannot consider treaties as scraps of paper which can be torn up when one no longer needs them.” With what one embittered Chinese observer described as “an air of innocence, ignorance and indifference,” Clemenceau noted that whatever Lloyd George said went for him as well.
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Koo used all his eloquence and cleverness to reverse the tide. Again he denied that China's agreements with Japan had any validity. And in words that were prophetic, he warned his audience that China was at a parting of the ways. The majority of Chinese wished to cooperate with the West, but if the peacemakers failed to treat them justly they might turn away, perhaps toward Japan. “There is a party in China which favors Asia for the Asians.” (In the 1930s, when Japan started to take over large parts of China, it did indeed find willing collaborators.) He finished with a warning. “It is a question of whether we can guarantee a peace of half a century to the Far East, or if a situation will be created which can lead to war within ten years.” Koo achieved nothing except admiration for his effort and a decision to refer the Shantung question to a committee of experts. These were to report back by April 24 to the Council of Four on the relatively unimportant question of whether China would be better off if Japan got the German concessions as they had existed in 1914 or the concessions it had extracted in the wartime agreements. The committee produced a report in the record time of two days, opting for the former.
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The next few days were among the most tense at the Peace Conference. Italy had finally walked out. A worried Wilson reread his Fourteen Points for guidance. The principle of self-determination was clear: Italy should not have Fiume and Japan should not get Shantung. The crisis over Italy intensified the maneuverings over Shantung. The Chinese sent a memorandum and letters to Wilson; the Japanese delegates came to call. Makino and Chinda also visited Bonsal, House's assistant, to complain about the unkind things the Chinese press was saying about Japan and to threaten again that Japan would not sign the treaty. Makino, Bonsal noted, was in a fury. Saionji wrote a polite note to his old acquaintance Clemenceau, saying that Japan wanted the Shantung question settled as soon as possible.
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On April 25 the Council of Four (now reduced to three by Italy's defection) sent Balfour to talk to the Japanese about a possible compromise. Would they perhaps promise to hand back the German rights to China one day? On his own initiative, Wilson sent Lansing off on a similar mission. Neither Balfour nor Lansing got very far; the Japanese insisted on their rights. To Balfour, they suggested a bargain. If the powers accepted their claims on Shantung, Japan would promise not to make a fuss about the omission of racial equality when the League of Nations came up for final approval at the plenary session of the conference. To Lansing, they complained that the United States was always suspicious when Japan was merely acting in good faith.
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On Saturday, April 26, as Balfour was preparing his report on Japan's position, he received another visit from Makino, and a tentative bargain over Shantung was made. If Japan could take over Germany's economic rights in Shantung, the port at Tsingtao, railways (including those that had not yet been built) and the mines, it would be prepared to pull its occupation forces out. Japan, Balfour reported, would generously allow citizens of other nations to use the port and the railways. Moreover, it was prepared to hand back political control over the disputed area to the Chinese government soon. The Chinese understandably remained suspicious when they learned about this promise. By this stage, in any case, Shantung had become such a nationalist issue that it would have been difficult for them to accept any type of Japanese control. For their part, the Japanese felt that they could not make further concessions. Orders were coming from Tokyo to stand firm; Japan would lose prestige throughout the Far East if China were allowed to treat it with contempt.
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As Balfour reported to the Council of Four on Monday morning, Makino “with great delicacy but perfect clearness” pointed out that Japan's claims must be treated as a package. Japan had already lost on the racial equality clause; it would be “very serious” if it were to lose over Shantung as well. There was not much time; the plenary session of the Peace Conference was meeting that afternoon to give final approval to the League of Nations. It would be extremely embarrassing for the powers if Japan were to protest strongly at the omission of racial equality from its covenant. It would be worse if Japan were to vote against the League. With Wilson's reluctant acquiescence, the Council decided that Balfour should write to the Japanese accepting the bargain over Shantung.
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Baker, Wilson's press secretary, warned the president that world opinion supported China over the Shantung issue. “I know that too,” Wilson replied, “but if Italy remains away & Japan goes home, what becomes of the League of Nations?” When Makino made a bland speech at the plenary session on April 28 in which he barely touched on the racial equality clause, Lansing, who had not been told of the final deal, knew immediately what had happened. He whispered to House that it was a betrayal of principle. House replied, “We have had to do it before.” Lansing said angrily, “Yes, it has been done and it is the curse of this Conference.” In the statement that he later drew up for the press, Wilson described the settlement as being “as satisfactory as could be got out of the tangle of treaties in which China herself was involved.”
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