China and the West

Dewey, John. A few second thoughts on four-power pact [ID D28612].
Second thoughts often change first impressions. In a previous letter to the Sun I expressed the belief that the chief point of the four-power treaty was to allow Great Britain and Japan to make a graceful exit from their alliance. A little more rumination convinced me that even if that were so the fourth clause, to the effect that the alliance would cease when the four-power treaty was ratified, should not have been introduced.
The policy for this country was to keep pointing out to the British and Japanese the ugly influence exerted by the alliance upon our friendly relations with them, while stating that abrogation was their own affair, to be decided in view of their estimate of the importance of our good relations. Then there would have been neither a bargain nor an appearance of a bargain, nor of bringing pressure to bear upon the Senate for ratification.
The inclusion of the clause suggests that our delegation, like President Wilson at Versailles, had something to sell, and in order to sell it was willing to make an offer. The thing to be sold is the 5-5-3 ratio in particular and naval reduction in general. The latter is close to a political necessity for the Administration; the former is important for the prestige of our delegates, a seeming diplomatic victory. But was a bargain necessary?
The cold facts of the case are that Japan was likely to go bankrupt if she continued her naval program. If our delegation had been bold instead of cautious, if it had declared that the United States would reduce anyway, business and popular pressure would have compelled a similar reduction in Japan. And it would appear as if the financial relations of the United States and Great Britain were sufficient to secure a like policy on the part of England, provided Great Britain had assurance that we were going to reduce naval armaments.
Moreover, it is highly probable that the Anglo-Japanese alliance would have had to go anyway or be seriously modified suggestion of surrender to bargaining on our part to secure something we could have got without bargaining is confirmed by a story which comes from highly dependable sources. Admiral Kato was at first willing to accept the 5-5-3 ratio. But the naval experts objected. Then they were told by the British experts that if they held out the United States would yield a larger quota to them. Japanese naval experts, according to reliable information, told others that their proposals had the approval of British experts and used this fact to justify their claim.
At the same time, a propaganda was started by their means at home, so that the delegates became frightened about their reception at home if they consented to Hughes' original proposal. Kato weakened. This state of affairs imperiled the whole limitation issue. Thus the British indirectly created a situation which brought pressure to bear upon the United States to enter the four-power pact as a condition of securing the 5-5-3 ratio. Meantime Japan's propaganda at home got rather out of hand, especially because of reports that we were coercing Japan to accept our proposition, and a feeling of hostility was created which goes far to offset the moral effect of the naval reductions.
Another second thought was caused by an inquiry made of me by a lawyer the day after the pact was announced. He asked if the treaty did not apply to Japan proper. He called attention to the wording by which a 'controversy arising out of any Pacific question' comes within the scope of the treaty. The query put a new face on the matter for me. Leaving China out of account, Japan is due for trouble sooner or later with the Far Eastern Republic, if not with all Russia.
Are we committed to discussion and adjustment of this matter in a conference where Japan is represented and the Russians excluded? If so, this fact alone is sufficient, in my opinion, to justify the Senate in either rejecting the treaty or insisting upon a reservation that, if the controversy involves a nation which is not a party to the treaty, that power shall be entitled to representation in the conference on an equality with other powers.
If the controversy concerned China, this would also protect her and our own good relations with her. No nation could refuse without exposing its own purposes. I still feel that the treaty has the benefit of allaying American suspicion about Japan and the Philippines, Australian fears of Japan and Japan's fears of us about Guam. So far it makes for real peace. But to put over a treaty nominally applying to insular possessions when it actually applies to Japan proper as well, and leaves out the two nations with which Japan may have a serious controversy, namely, Russia and China, is not to give up the Anglo-Japanese alliance. It is to make us a party to it, minus, of course, any explicit provision for armed assistance.
More than one paper this morning asserts positively that the treaty includes Japan; one, close to the State Department in the past, denies it. The matter is too fundamental to be left in the ambiguity of which diplomacy is so fond. If any ambiguity is left, it is likely that some emergency will arise where the United States will not be willing to take part in adjusting matters against China and Russia. Then we shall be exposed to bitter charges of bad faith. In the end more bitterness will be stirred up than is now temporarily calmed down.
It is noteworthy that President Harding is not sending the treaty at once to the Senate. This omission is probably connected with the fact that the nine-power pact which has been talked about, relating to China, is not settled upon.
This means that one cannot be understood without the other. It also indicates that our delegates made a mistake in committing themselves upon one while the other was still uncertain. Final judgment must, therefore, be reserved upon the four-power agreement. If it is too early to condemn unreservedly, it is also too soon for approval. The two treaties must be judged together. If the additional agreement does not remove the uncertainties in the present treaty, and if it adds additional ambiguities on its own account, the American people ought to be getting ready to express a public opinion which will affect our own Senate and also the representatives of other powers.
The intimation which has been put forth that the vague four Principles of Root are to form the core of further treaty is discoursing. China cannot get all she ought to have or all she hopes for. But the United States ought not to become a party to sacrificing her even to the extent of assent to ambiguous generalities. Such generalities, while they remove immediate friction between diplomats, are always in the end a threat to the peace of the world. Each power interprets them in its own wav and accuses others of bad faith.
It is also to be hoped that the new treaty, instead of calling for a conference after some controversy has actually arisen, will substitute a series of annual or biennial conferences. Provision ought to be made also for popular or parliamentary representation at these conferences. The world is surely ready for that much concession to open diplomacy.
Provision for a regular series of conferences will give China some security for the future in return for failure to obtain what she now requires. It will put the nations on their good behavior between times. It will avert the necessity of having to try to adjust matters which are always more or less accomplished facts, a necessity which is the bane of diplomatic meetings that occur only after controversy has become acute. It will do away with the objection to the four-power treaty, so ably urged by Senator Borah, that under present conditions the normal commitment to back up an adjustment means practically a promise to use force to carry it out. It will tend to avert future trouble instead of striking bargains and making compromises about troubles that have already got well under way. It represents an intelligent way to cooperate with other nations without getting into entangling alliances.