黄禍論と日露戦争

日本外交の思想

抄録

Before the outbreak of war with Russia, top-level leaders in the Japanese Government, who well knew the limits of the nation's power and resources, hoped to confine the hostilities to a limited theater and a short time: the Japanese army was to fight in Manchuria no further than Harbin; the war itself was to last about a year. Within these limitations, Japan would have a good chance against Russia; Japanese leaders hoped for a mediator to come forward before the war went any further, to end it and make peace between the belligerents.
For Japan, then, it was crucial to avoid an expanded war at the level of world war, and particularly to avoid being perceived as a common enemy of the Christian countries of the West. In this regard, it was absolutely necessary to prevent a revival of fears of the “Yellow Peril” (primarily raised by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany around the end of the Sino-Japanese War 1894-5) during the war with Russia.
At the outbreak of the war in February 1904, therefore, two special envoys were sent overseas to counter this potential anti-Japanese sentiment: Baron KANEKO Kentaro to the United States, and Baron SUYEMATSU Kencho to Europe. Both were proficient in English, fluent spokesmen for their Government. They spent over a year on their mission with remarkable effectiveness; with the Anglo-French Entente of April 1904, the danger of an expanded war was eliminated; there was no resurgence of anti-Oriental feeling—and of course no new crusade—in either the United States or Europe, despite Japan's successes against Christian Russia.
Japan found its mediator in American President Theodore Roosevelt; the Treaty of Portsmouth in September 1905 ended the Russo-Japanese War as the Japanese leaders had hoped. Japan accomplished her war objective, which was to safeguard her independence from Russian aggression in the Far East. But in the victory of an emerging island empire in the East over an old and powerful European nation, the “Yellow Peril” was felt to have become a reality for the West. Fear of the “Yellow Peril” manifested itself, thereafter, in the immigration policies of the United States and the other “white” countries of the Pacific basin. It became a continuing source of diplomatic friction.