The
Washington Naval Conference also called the Washington Arms Conference, was a military conference called by the administration of President
Warren G. HardingWarren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death from a heart attack or stroke in 1923. A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate and later as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S...
and held in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. Conducted outside the auspices of the
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
, it was attended by nine nations having interests in the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
and
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
.
Soviet RussiaThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
was not invited to the conference. It was the first international conference held in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the first disarmament conference in history, and is studied by political scientists as a model for a successful disarmament movement.
The
Washington Naval Conference also called the Washington Arms Conference, was a military conference called by the administration of President
Warren G. HardingWarren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death from a heart attack or stroke in 1923. A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate and later as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S...
and held in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. Conducted outside the auspices of the
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
, it was attended by nine nations having interests in the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
and
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
.
Soviet RussiaThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
was not invited to the conference. It was the first international conference held in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the first disarmament conference in history, and is studied by political scientists as a model for a successful disarmament movement. (Kaufman, 1990)
Held at
Memorial Continental HallMemorial Continental Hall is owned & operated by the Daughters of the American Revolution. It also serves as the organization's National Society headquarters. Memorial Continental Hall is located alongside DAR Constitution Hall, connected by a third building that houses the DAR Museum...
in downtown Washington, it resulted in three major treaties:
Four-Power TreatyThe ' was a treaty signed by the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan at the Washington Naval Conference on 13 December 1921. It was partly a follow-on to the Lansing-Ishii Treaty, signed between the US and Japan....
, Five-Power Treaty (more commonly known as the
Washington Naval TreatyThe Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, limited the naval armaments of its five signatories: the United States of America, the British Empire, the Empire of Japan, the French Third Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The treaty was agreed at the Washington Naval...
) and the
Nine-Power TreatyThe ' was a treaty affirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China as per the Open Door Policy, signed by all of the attendees to the Washington Naval Conference on 6 February 1922....
and a number of smaller agreements. These treaties preserved peace during the 1920s but are also credited with enabling the rise of the Japanese Empire as a naval power leading up to
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Event
For the American delegation, led by
Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence. The current Secretary of...
Charles Evans HughesCharles Evans Hughes Sr. was a lawyer and Republican politician from the State of New York. He served as Governor of New York , United States Secretary of State , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Justice of the United States...
, the primary objective of the conference was to restrain Japanese naval expansion in the waters of the west Pacific, especially with regard to fortifications on strategically valuable islands. Their secondary objectives were intended to ultimately limit Japanese expansion, but also to alleviate concerns over possible antagonism with the British. They were: first, to eliminate Anglo-American tension by abrogating the
Anglo-Japanese allianceThe first was signed in London at what is now the , on January 30 1902, by Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi Tadasu . A diplomatic milestone for its ending of Britain's splendid isolation, the alliance was renewed and extended in scope twice, in 1905 and 1911, before its demise in 1921...
; second, to agree upon a favorable naval ratio vis-à-vis Japan; and, third, to have the Japanese officially accept a continuance of the
Open Door PolicyThe Open Door Policy is a concept in foreign affairs. As a theory, the Open Door Policy originates with British commercial practice, as was reflected in treaties concluded with Qing Dynasty China after the First Opium War...
policy in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
.
The British, however, took a more cautious and tempered approach. Indeed, British officials brought certain general desires to the conference—to achieve peace and stability in the western Pacific, avoid a naval arms race with the United States, thwart Japanese encroachment into areas under their influence, and preserve the security of
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
,
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
, and
DominionA dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of semi-autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, from the late 19th century. They included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the...
countries—but they did not enter the conference with a specific laundry list of demands; rather, they brought with them a vague vision of what the western Pacific should look like after an agreement.
Japanese officials were more focused on specifics than the British, and approached the conference with two primary goals: first, to sign a naval treaty with Britain and the United States, and, secondly, to obtain official recognition of Japan’s special interests in
ManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria either falls entirely within China, or is divided between China and Russia...
and
MongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 24 miles from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator,...
. Japanese officials also brought other issues to the conference—a strong demand that they remain in control of
YapYap, also known as Wa'ab for locals, is an island in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean. It is a state of the Federated States of Micronesia. Yap's indigenous cultures and traditions are still strong compared to other neighboring islands. The "island" of Yap actually consists of four...
,
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
, and
Tsingtao' , best known in the West by its postal map spelling Tsingtao, is a major city in eastern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It borders Yantai to the northeast, Weifang to the west and Rizhao to the southwest. Lying across the Shandong Peninsula while looking out to the Yellow Sea,...
, as well as more general concerns about the growing presence of American fleets in the Pacific.
The American hand was strengthened by
the interception and decryption of secret instructions from the Japanese governmentThe Black Chamber, otherwise known as MI-8 or Cipher Bureau, was the United States' first peacetime cryptanalytic organization, and a forerunner of the National Security Agency...
to its delegation. The message revealed the lowest naval ratio that would be acceptable to Tokyo; U.S. negotiators used this knowledge to push the Japanese to it. This success, one of the first in the U.S. government's budding eavesdropping and cryptology efforts, led eventually to the growth of such agencies.
Effects
The Washington Naval Treaty led to an effective end to building new battleship fleets and those few ships that were built were limited in size and armament. Numbers of existing capital ships were scrapped. Some ships under construction were turned into
aircraft carrierAn aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
s instead.