Japanese-Russian Relations After the Treaty of Portsmouth: Between Friendship and Suspicion

Japanese-Russian Relations after the Treaty of Portsmouth: between Friendship and Suspicion

Kurosawa Fumitaka

The Japanese Imperial Conference of February 4, 1904, resulted in the sever- ance of diplomatic relations with Russia and the declaration of war against it but until this point certain Japanese leaders remained somewhat reluctant to enter into war. Even the genrō (elder statesman) Yamagata Aritomo, who since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868–1912) had consistently viewed Russia as a potential threat to Japan, argued on December 12, 1903, that he had never approved war against Russia when asked by Prime Minister Katsura Tarō about how to proceed if Japan’s demands regarding Korea were not met. The Russians, for their part, were also unwilling to wage war against Japan. Emperor Nicholas II did not want war—he even accepted the Japanese oc- cupation of the Korean Peninsula—and his cabinet ministers sought ways to avert a conflict. But Japan and Russia did go to war in February 1904. Alekseĭ S. Suvorin, publisher and editor-in-chief of the influential Russian newspaper Novoe vremya, reported the following on January 23 (February 5), 1904, following the outbreak of hostilities:

Whether Russia wants it or not, in war, you must fight and hate the enemy country even if you hate to hate it. You cannot spare your own life. You cannot spare your opponents’ lives. You must just fight. This is a tragedy, one full of horror and bloodshed, full of whipped-up war spirit and force, full of the frantic fervor for war.

He also remarked:

In the Far East, where we are going to fight, what are we looking for? What are our purposes? Are they vitally important? These are the ques- tions that we must ask and find genuine answers to. We must not be guided by the boom for useless things that will soon disappear, such as one’s love of honor, national pride, and insults hurled at us as a group, re- gardless of how sage or inane they are. We must retain calmness in order to decide about war and peace. We must retain the power of reason and keep things in perspective. We must be sure of what we want to achieve. wada 2009–2010, vol. 2, 295–96

Historians frequently maintain that Japan and Russia were drawn over their interests in the Korean Peninsula following the first Sino-Japanese War (1894– 1895). The bitterness over this issue reached a new level when the Russians occupied Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901), and this eventually led to the Russo-Japanese War. The question remains, however, about how “vitally important” such issues (and the justification for war) actually were. What was the “vitally important” reason that drove Russia and Japan to resort to the most extreme act of war? It is clear that a dispute between the two nations over the control of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria did in fact exist but as Suvorin ponders in the above passage were they truly significant in the face of “calmness” and “reason”? Were both countries not “guided” by “the boom for useless things that would soon disappear, such as one’s love of honor, national pride …”? And was the war not the outcome of various “misunderstandings” and “erroneous assumptions”? For the leaders of Russia and Japan the dispute over the control of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria provided grounds for war, even if there were certain psychological factors, such as honor or national pride, that were deeply embedded in the decisions made in the run-up to the conflict. “The integrity of Korea is a matter of constant concern to our empire,” announced Emperor Meiji in the imperial edict of February 10, 1904, on the declaration of war against Russia. Japanese leaders, in other words, believed that Russia en- dangered the “territorial integrity” of Korea, thereby validating the resolution to enter into war. This viewpoint of the Japanese side demonstrates that the Russo-Japanese War was indeed an imperialistic war: both Japan and Russia harbored strong suspicions that the other would invade them or their interests and saw each other as potential threats. During this period, war was believed to be warranted when one country felt that its territories, as well as those of countries deemed within their sphere of influence or with interests of “vital importance” to their national security, were under threat, or that there was a diplomatic or ideo- logical conflict over a particular region. Imperialism, being a system that pro- motes the expansion of politic, diplomatic, economic, and military aspiration, in turn, resulted in deeply rooted misgivings between Russia and Japan. Although the Russo-Japanese War concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5 (August 23), 1905, imperialism did not; it remained the foremost political instrument in the workings of international relations. Imperialism during this era was double sided. On the one hand, a country developed an exclusionary sphere of influence and on the other it maintained an open door policy, with equal opportunities in commerce and industry, and guarantees of territorial integrity. A delicate balance of strength