[Tallguy]

“What is always missed is that America and Japan had very warm relations up until the first world war ended.”

---

Well there were massive government-inspired demonstrations in Tokyo when Teddy Roosevelt brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War. The way the Japanese government saw it, they were entitled to seize Russia’s maritime provinces after sinking 2 Russian Fleets. The cease-fire & subsequent treaty prevented the Japanese from doing just that, greatly simplified Japan’s strategic calculations in the subsequent world wars.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Thing about that was it was a domestic centric issue, between the government and the people, not a bona fide diplomatic incident between governments. The Japanese government had found the treaty acceptable and signed on, though some citizens felt otherwise. The unrest was a symptom of deeper political internecine struggles that continued ebbing and flowing until the military finally seized control once and for all in a later decade.

 

When we publicly snubbed their claims on German territories after the first world war and engaged an official policy against Japanese immigration is when the real stink began and relations went to tangibly going downhill.