Treáting the personality of the three diplomats Shigemitsu Mamoru, Sugimura Yôtaro and Shidehara Kijurô this article focuses on the mental structure of Shidehara diplomacy and the general diplomats' understanding of China before the Manchurian Incident at September 18, 1931.
Among these three diplomats, Sugihara, who acted as a permanent chief secretary at the secretariat of the League of Nations and as a chief of the department of political affairs, is considered to be internationally orientated. On the other hand, in connection with the Japanese-Chinese economic negotiations, Shigemitsu was mainly in charge of China affairs and a supporter of Foreign Minister Shidehara. For Sugimura, China was an important export market for Japanese products. That is the reason, why he understood the whole of China to be one territory and did not separate the centralvegions from Manchuria. He also kept cooperation with the Nationalist Government in mind and recognized China as a proper state.
In opposition to this opinion, Foreign Minister Shidehara distinguished between China proper as an export market for Japanese products and Manchuria as a sphere of influence. The unification of China by the Nationalist Government brought the differences between these three views of China into the open.
As a result of the unification of China by the Nationalist Government, the two diplomatic channels used by the Japanese-negotiations with the central government and negotiations with the local governments-lost their function. Therefore, Shidehara could not turn his diplomatic visions into a strategy. Further, Sugimura was isolated by the strategical turn of the League of Nations.
Against this bachground, the Manchurian Incident, treated as a plot by the Kantô-Army, changed the destiny of Shidehara, Shigemitsu and Sugimura. Shidehara lost his political power. Sugimura left Geneva as Japan seceded from the League of Nations. After that, his opinions underwent a change as he argued that China should create a bloc. Shigemitsu was wounded in the Shanghai Incident, which followed the Manchurian Incident, and went back to Japan, where he acted 1933 again as a diplomat. He did not alter his understanding of China and tried to carry on the economic relationship between Japan and China. But the political climate had changed and the former partners were not representatives of China any more. That is why Shigemitsu lost sight of China as a state and ended by confronting Britain.

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Throughout the 1920s mention of Australian security was normally linked to the state of the naval base under construction at Singapore. The strategy devised at the Washington Conference was generally accepted in Australia as sufficient, although delays at Singapore were inclined to arouse references to a possibly hostile Japan. In 1931 there was considerable support for the Japanese action in Manchuria, although once again the reaction was frequently one of relief that Japan had moved westward rather than southward.
Once the Manchurian crisis had proved that the League of Nations was a limited force in world affairs and circumstances in Europe began to worsen, Australia had to re-examine her security arrangements, especially as a simultaneous conflict in Europe and the Far East became a distinct possibility. In effect, the Australian reappraisal of her position was slow in coming and by 1937 the old reliance on United Kingdom initiative and leadership began to appear a serious misjudgment.
At the Imperial Conference in 1937 the Australian Prime Minister promoted unsuccessfully the formation of a Pacific Pact of non-aggression, in line with the emphasis then being placed on regional pacts in Europe. Then suggestion had been tried in several quarters since 1933 by Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. The Australian proposal was thus an attempt to achieve something that had been tried and failed. In the circumstances it did provide the Australian electorate with the impression that security planning was a distinct priority.

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