13/2/1919 Japan’s racial equality proposal causes a sensation

Japan’s role in the war was minimal. The country seized the German naval base of Tsingtao and several Pacific islands in 1914, thereafter playing no significant part in the conflict and declining to send troops to take part in the fighting in Europe. Nevertheless, the country is recognised at the Paris Conference as one of the leading Allied nations. This is something of a coup, given that until the mid-19th century Japan was largely closed off from the world and its new technologies.

Japan is the only major power represented in Paris that is neither European nor led by people of European ancestry. Conscious of this, Baron Makino of the Japanese delegation today reads out a proposed amendment to the founding covenant of the League of Nations. The draft covenant already contains a recognition of the principle of religious freedom; Makino proposes to include in this an affirmation of…