1/24/2015

China, Japan, and the 21 Demands | The Diplomat

China, Japan, and the 21 Demands

An event 100 years ago offers critical insights into how a
rising hegemon should behave.
By Yanzhong Huang
January 24, 2015

Compared with the high-profile national Memorial Day for the Nanjing
Massacre last month, the date January 18 passed uneventfully.
Chinese media appeared to have forgotten that one hundred years ago,
on exactly that day, Japan presented Chinese President Yuan Shikai
(Yuan Shih-Kai) with requests that would have turned China into a de
facto Japanese protectorate.
The Japanese requests included five groups of secret demands that
became known as the Twenty-One Demands. Groups One and Two
were designed to confirm Japans dominant position in Shandong,
southern Manchuria, and eastern Inner Mongolia. Group Three would
acknowledge Japans special interests in an industrial complex in
central China. Group Four forbade China from giving any further
coastal or island concessions to foreign powers except for Japan. The
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
most outrageous was Group Five. Group Five required China to install
Japanese advisors who could take effective control of Chinese
government, economy, and military. These demands would have had a similar impact to that of what the Japan-Korea
Annexation Treaty had on Korea in 1910.
These notorious demands were issued at a time of shifting balance of power in East Asia. With the Qing dynastys humiliating
defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), regional dominance for the first time had moved from China to Japan.
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China, Japan, and the 21 Demands | The Diplomat

Japans ambitions in China were further emboldened by its decisive victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), which
affirmed the Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea. The 1911 Revolution brought an end to the Qing dynasty and
ushered in the Republican era in China, but China remained a pushover in the face of pressure from Western powers.
Furthermore, Yuans ruling status itself was shaky due to threats from competing local warlords. World War I granted Japan a
perfect opportunity to push the envelope even more with China. As the war was underway in Europe, the Japanese hoped that
other major powers would show little interest in countering Japanese expansion in China. For these reasons, Japanese Foreign
Minister Kato Takaaki was convinced that the filing of an ultimatum buttressed by the war threat would cause China to accept
all the demands.
Fully aware of the negative reaction the demands would cause, Japan asked China to keep them confidential and threatened to
take drastic actions if they were leaked. Contrary to the popular Chinese image of Yuan being a traitor, archived
history suggests that Yuan and his top associates worked hard to minimize the harms caused to Chinas sovereignty by the
Twenty-One Demands. Soon after studying the Japanese request, Yuan instructed top Chinese diplomats that by no means
should China submit to the demands of Group Five. Headed by then Foreign Minister Lou Tseng-Tsiang, the Chinese
negotiators sought to stall the negotiation process for as long as possible. Between February 2 and April 17, twenty-five rounds
of negotiations were held. Disregarding the Japanese threat, Yuan had his political advisor leak the full contents of the
Twenty-One Demands to a correspondent for the Times in Beijing, who then reported them on February 12. In seeking
international support, Yuan also relied on the traditional Chinese strategy of playing one power against another (yi yi zhi yi).
He hoped that a perceived threat to European and U.S. political and economic interests in China would lead them to constrain
Japans aggressiveness. Although the United States continued with a low-risk strategy in China, Secretary of State William
Jennings Bryan warned that the United States would not recognize infringements on Chinese sovereignty and the Open Door
policy. As author Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale documented in the book An Indiscreet Chronicle from the Pacific, the
possible intervention of Great Britain and the United States was indeed a concern for Japan in deliberating what final steps to
take on May 6. In addition, Yuan also sought to affect Japanese domestic politics by mobilizing the support of Genro, who were
angered by the governments failure to consult them before drawing up the demands. As the negotiations evolved into an
inevitable crisis at the end of April, the open opposition of elder statesmen like Matsukata played a decisive role in forcing the
Japanese government to drop the demands of Group Five in the ultimatum delivered to China on May 7.
Not surprisingly, Yuan, who had no intention of risking war with Japan, accepted the ultimatum on May 9. The final form of
the treaty was signed on May 25, 1915. With the removal of the most odious provision, however, the new treaty gave Japan
no more than what it already had in China. Yuan, whose credibility and popularity as a leader was further weakened as a
result of his appeasement policy, viewed accepting the treaty as a terrible shame (qichi daru) and made May 9 Chinas
National Humiliation Day. The Twenty-One Demands nurtured a considerable amount of public ill-will towards Japan, and the
upsurge in nationalism is still deeply felt today in Chinas handling of Sino-Japanese relations.
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China, Japan, and the 21 Demands | The Diplomat

To be sure, times have changed. This time, the pendulum of power is swinging in Chinas favor. Given the ongoing territorial
disputes in East Asia, the episode that occurred exactly one century ago can still provide critical insights into how a rising
regional hegemon like China should behave, and how less powerful states could play the power game to better protect their
national interests.

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