Page:The A B C's of the Twenty-One Demands.djvu/18

 torial integrity of the Republic of China, or the international policy commonly known as the open-door policy.

Dated May 16, 1915.

An identical Note was at the same time handed to the Japanese Government by the American Embassy at Tokio.

The core of issues involved in this conference lies in the situation of China resultant in a large measure from Japan's policy as expressed in the original Twenty-One Demands, and in the agreement wrung from China under ultimatum.

At the Peace Conference at Paris the Chinese Government contended that those agreements with Japan which followed the demands and the ultimatum were invalid, since they were obtained by intimidation. Furthermore, the Chinese Government contended, in respect to former leasehold and vested interests of Germany in Shantung, that those reverted automatically to China when China declared war against Germany, thereby terminating all treaties between the two nations.

Japan's claims were found (a matter disclosed to China, and to the American Government, for the first time after the Paris conference convened) to rest on secret agreements made between Japan and Great Britain, Japan and France, and Japan and Italy, during the war.

When the Council of Four allotted the German so-called rights in Shantung to Japan, the Chinese Government refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and to this date never has acquiesced in its disposition of Kiaochou.

The Senate of the United States adopted a reservation rejecting the Shantung articles of the treaty specifically. The Shantung question remains in this state, with Japan still in occupation of the Province.