Paper short abstract:

Niigata is the forgotten treaty port of Japan, overshadowed by its contemporaries such as Yokohama, who embodied the foreign interaction of Japan in the 19th century. This presentation will study this smallest treaty port in Japan and put it into context within the larger treaty port network.

Paper long abstract:

In the 19th century, the Treaty Ports were key places of connection serving as primary sites of interaction between foreigners and Japanese. Names like Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki and Hakodate are well known and are synonymous for the Japanese engagement with the outside world. In contrast, Niigata, the fifth treaty port opened in July 1869 is often forgotten. In regard to a foreign presence, it was always the treaty port with the smallest foreign population with barely any foreign residents making their homes in the port and few foreign ships clearing their cargo there. It did not even develop a separate foreign settlement, the hallmark of all treaty ports, to demarcate its foreign presence. As a result, it always was and still remains overshadowed by its larger and more bustling contemporaries. But why Niigata never achieved the same fame and fortune as the other Japanese treaty ports?

In this presentation, a closer look will be taken at the treaty port of Niigata. It will be analyzed how this town on the coast of the Sea of Japan was chosen as a treaty port, how it was opened and how it developed. The primary focus will lie on the 1870s, the crucial decade after its opening during which initial hopes for prosperous trade arose and were disappointed. Research has long been focused on the famous treaty ports, to the detriment of smaller ports. Yet, Niigata too was an integral part of the Imperial Western framework that established the treaty port system across East Asia. It might not have the same impact as its larger contemporaries, but like Yokohama or Nagasaki, Niigata too facilitated and framed the interactions between Japan and the globalizing world of the late 19th century.

Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this research is to analyze as completely as possible the diplomatic relations between Japan and Italy regarding the treaty revision during the management of the Japanese Foreign Ministry by Inoue Kaoru (1879-1887), using in particular the Japanese primary sources.

Paper long abstract:

It is well known that, in the early Meiji Period, one of the main objectives of the Japanese government's foreign policy was the revision of the so-called "Unequal Treaties", i.e. the treaties that the Tokugawa Shogunate had concluded with Foreign Powers at the end of the Edo Period. In particular, in the early 1880s, Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru, unlike his predecessor Terashima Munenori, who had given priority in his revision policy to the acquisition of tariff autonomy, sought to include in the negotiations with Foreign Powers also the abolition of extraterritoriality. In this context, the Kingdom of Italy had a considerable strategic importance in the Inoue foreign policy, since the Italian diplomats in Tokyo had previously shown a strong interest towards the treaty revision, in order to obtain the possibility for the Italian traders to circulate freely in Japan inland areas in exchange for the renunciation of their extraterritorial rights.

Since the Japan-Italy Treaty Revision Relations during the management of the Japanese Foreign Ministry by Inoue Kaoru has not been considered enough by both Italian and Japanese historiographies, I'll try to examine it in detail. In particular, analyzing mainly documents kept at the Diplomatic Record Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, I'll try to bring to light the following unclarified issues:

1- What was Inoue's strategy to convince the Italian government to sign a new commercial treaty with Japan?

2- How did the treaty revision negotiations between the Japanese diplomats and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs proceed?

3- How did Japanese side consider the international role of the Kingdom of Italy and its attitude toward the treaty revision problem?

Answering to the questions mentioned above, my paper aims to clarify the degree of importance that Italy had for the Japan government in the 1880s.

Paper short abstract:

The present paper, based on Belgian and Japanese diplomatic archives, examines the role played by Adhémar Delcoigne, a Belgian advisor to the Korean Court, during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).

Paper long abstract:

Whereas abundant literature has been devoted to the role played by Japan and the Western powers in Korea during the twilight years of the Chosǒn dynasty (mid-19th c. to beginning of the 20th c.), little attention has been paid to the relations between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Empire of Korea, despite Belgium being one of the few countries that had a permanent diplomatic mission in Seoul at that time.

Soon after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1901, the first Belgian consul general, Léon Vincart, tried to convince the Korean Emperor and his entourage to employ Belgians, supposedly neutral, in order to reform the Korean administration. He managed to obtain a contract for the position of private advisor to the Emperor. Adhémar Delcoigne, a promising junior diplomat, was chosen for this position. The present paper, based on Belgian and Japanese diplomatic archives, examines the role played by this diplomat during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).

Delcoigne arrived in Korea in June 1903, but due to the harsh opposition of the Japanese, his appointment to office was delayed, and he was demoted to a less prestigious position in the Ministry of Interior. It appears that Delcoigne in the end never initiated any kind of reforms in the Korean administration. Nevertheless, his personal correspondence reveals that he was secretly commissioned by the Emperor Kojong to provide him with accurate information relating to the ongoing Russo-Japanese War. It is also assumed that he contributed to the writing of Korea's declaration of neutrality, issued in January 1904 just before the outbreak of the war. Accused of fuelling anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea, the Belgian advisor was eventually dismissed and left the country in January 1905.

Paper short abstract:

This paper shows Japanese efforts to revitalize the Japanese-French Entente of 1907 to overcome diplomatic isolation following the Mukden Incident of September 1931. It also examines why France chose to decline Japanese offers until Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in February 1933.

Paper long abstract:

After the Manchurian Incident the Japanese government exerted efforts to revitalize the French-Japanese Agreement of 1907. The agreement of 1907 included clauses recognizing respective spheres of influence between Japan and France; but after the end of the World War I, it was superseded by the Nine Power Treaty of 1922, which supported the Chinese territorial integrity and independence according to the Open Door principle. If Japan could attract France to recognize Manchukuo by revitalizing the agreement of 1907, it could justify and consolidate its territorial gains in the Mukden Incident. Once such an approach was accepted by the French government, Britain might also be induced to join such a new arrangement over China, thus minimizing American pressure. Foreign Minister Uchida Kosai and Ambassador Nagaoka Harukazu promoted such a diplomatic strategy. Japanese military attaches exerted efforts to facilitate French capital investment to Manchukuo as well.

However, French Prime Ministers André Tardieu and Édouard Herriot and its foreign ministry, Quai d'Orsay, declined Japanese suggestions repeatedly throughout 1932. It was because France had to prioritize consolidating collective security, which could indirectly induce the other democracies, Britain and the United States, to support French security in any future crises posed by rearmed Germany. France also had to take caution not to go against American wishes, while trying to reschedule payment of its war debt owed to the United States amid the economic crisis. The liberal and leftist French leaders, including Édouard Herriot and Paul-Boncour, remained keen to preserve the recently established international regime undergirding collective security. Therefore, they remained reluctant to condone Japan's violation of international agreements, though the Japanese government and media claimed that Japanese military actions were taken to uphold its inherent right of 'self-defence' in face of Chinese violation of earlier agreements with Japan. In addition to French and English records, this paper makes full use of available Japanese diplomatic records, which also reveals Japanese initiatives as well as French responses to Japanese demarche, which have not yet been fully disclosed in the available French records.