Japan and Britain at the League of Nations Opium Advisory Committee, 1920-26

International History in the Interwar Period

Abstract

Research since the 1980s shed new light on the deep involvement of Japan in opium cultivation and narcotic production in China and Taiwan until 1945. These historical facts were somewhat puzzling to the Japanese general public, because it was widely known that mainly Britain gained enormous profits by selling Indian opium into China. When and why did the change occur? In order to answer the question, this paper examines the activities of Japan and Britain at the Opium Advisory Committee of the League of Nations during the period from 1920 to 1926.
The Japanese pharmaceutical industry started to develop during the First World War when the western powers temporarily retreated from East Asia. Morphine production also began around 1917. Section 1 of this article deals with the establishment of the Opium Advisory Committee and issues discussed at its initial meetings. Britain severely criticized Japan for refining morphine in Formosa and smuggling the products into northern China. Some Japanese, however, found Britain's criticism unfair, because India was still continuing the cultivation and export of opium and British colonies in South East Asia gained profits from the government opium monopoly. Especially, the Straits Settlement obtained more than half of its revenue through the opium monopoly.
Section 2 explains the participation of the United States in the Opium Advisory Committee and the invitation of the International Opium Conference at Geneva in 1924-25. Section 3 examines the arguments at the Geneva Conference. The point raised by the Japanese representative, Sugimura Yotaro, was whether the international rules decided by the powers led by Britain were universally fair and just. As the United States also believed that the greatest problem was the production of opium in India and the meetings were held open to the public, the delegates of Britain and the Empire were placed in an awkward position through the Conference. The embarrassing situation made Britain reconsider the opium policies of the Empire in 1925-26.
Section 4 analyzes why Japan, unlike Britain, failed to change her opium policy and came to be entangled in the problem more and more gravely. The objective of Japan in the late 1920s was to develop the Japanese pharmaceutical industry further. As the problem of opium smoking and drug abuse was not recognized in Japan then, most people were not interested in the issue of illicit traffic in narcotics at all. There were no religious or voluntary organizations which grappled with the problem earnestly. The press coverage was far from being thorough. As a result, the debates at the Opium Advisory Committee were hardly known. Only a limited number of people realized that humanitarian records might seriously damage national prestige in the future.