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RE: Start with Japan’s involvement in Korea and the murder of Queen Min.

That aside, In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the relationship between the United States and Japan was marked by increasing tension and corresponding attempts to use diplomacy to reduce the threat of conflict.

Each side had territory and interests in Asia that they were concerned the other might threaten.

U.S. treatment of Japanese immigrants, and competition for economic and commercial opportunities in China also heightened tensions. At the same time, each country’s territorial claims in the Pacific formed the basis for several agreements between the two nations, as each government sought to protect its own strategic and economic interests.

Tensions rose over Japanese actions in northeast China and immigration to the United States.

In 1905, the Japanese started to establish more formal control over South Manchuria by forcing China to give Japan ownership rights to the South Manchurian Railway. The Japanese used this opening to make further inroads into northeast China, causing the Teddy Roosevelt Administration concern that this violated the ideals of free enterprise and the preservation of China’s territorial integrity.

Simultaneously, leading Japanese officials expressed frustration with the treatment of Japanese immigrants in the United States. A U.S.-Japanese treaty signed in 1894 had guaranteed the Japanese the right to immigrate to the United States, and to enjoy the same rights in the country as U.S. citizens.

In 1906, however, the San Francisco Board of Education enacted a measure to send Japanese and Chinese children to segregated schools.

The Government of Japan was outraged by this policy, claiming that it violated the 1894 treaty. In a series of notes exchanged between late 1907 and early 1908, known collectively as the Gentlemen’s Agreement, the U.S. Government agreed to pressure the San Francisco authorities to withdraw the measure, and the Japanese Government promised to restrict the immigration of laborers to the United States.

Japan and the United States clashed again during the League of Nations negotiations in 1919.

The United States refused to accept the Japanese request for a racial equality clause or an admission of the equality of the nations.

In addition, the Versailles Treaty granted Japan control over valuable German concessions in Shandong, which led to an outcry in China.

This coupled with the growing fear of a militant Japan, contributed to the defeat of the League Covenant in the U.S. Senate. The persistent issues preventing accommodation continued to be racial equality (especially with regard to the treatment of Japanese immigrants in the United States) and differences in how to address expansion in Asia.

In spite of the many efforts to reach agreements on these points, by the early 1920s Japan and the United States were again at odds.

It went downhill from there when Japan invaded China and took over the Eastern Seaboard culminating in the notorious Rape of Nanjing where over 300,000 Chinese were massacred and thousands of women raped and forced into being comfort women.

The USA and Britain then joined to prevent oil from getting to Japan. That was the last straw... Next stop — Pearl Harbor.