AHC: Japanese racial equality clause passed at the Versailles conference

[prime-minister]

It's fairly well recorded that the Japanese government pushed for a racial equality clause at the Versailles conference and the other Allies blocked it because white supremacism. Is there any way they or the League of Nations might've accepted it, and what impact would it have? (The immediate one is probably the Anglo-Japanese Alliance surviving and potentially Japan not going down the route of fascism and the Axis as a result.)

I would guess it'd only pass in a very watered-down form that allows the imperial powers to keep superiority over their colonies, both because that's the only way the West would accept it and because it's probably what the Japanese would want to justify continuing to occupy Korea and Manchuria. But even then, how would it be defined?

 

[skarosianlifeform]

Couldn't the Entente have simply acknowledged the Japanese alone as a fellow superior race ?

I mean, not even Japan (who was colonizing Korea and low-key preying on China at the time) would have benefited from a clause of racial equality for everyone

 

[Garrison]

If the Entente is willing to accept the Japanese clause then that implies that they care about maintaining cordial relations with Japan, which in turn implies they might be willing to accommodate Japan in other ways, so yes it could have major implications for political developments in Japan in the 1920s.

 

[Typho]

Couldn't the Entente have simply acknowledged the Japanese alone as a fellow superior race ?

I mean, not even Japan (who was colonizing Korea and low-key preying on China at the time) would have benefited from a clause of racial equality for everyone

This was actually the case. I aside from large immigration, Japanese people had a notable status in that world system. They were exempted from segregation in California, to not offend Japan, and because their population size was small.

 

[skarosianlifeform]

This was actually the case. I aside from large immigration, Japanese people had a notable status in that world system. They were exempted from segregation in California, to not offend Japan, and because their population size was small.

Yes but I mean, a ToV clause of racial equality but just for the Japanese

 

[Jellico]

Japan will find something else to complain about. They are an expansionary nation at a time when expansion is out of fashion. For better or worse the Europeans in Asia aren't about to give way and China is on an upward swing.

 

[Falecius]

Japan will find something else to complain about. They are an expansionary nation at a time when expansion is out of fashion. For better or worse the Europeans in Asia aren't about to give way and China is on an upward swing.

Expansion was not out of fashion that much. Ask the Syrians about that.

 

[athgtq16129]

Less than 20 years later, Imperial Japan used the "we are liberating oppressed races from white supremacist colonialism!" excuse to expand its own colonial empire, and commit unspeakable atrocities to people of all races, atrocities that were arguably even worse than what Europeans did to Asians and its other colonial subjects for the past centuries.

I doubt that Imperial Japan was being sincere with this proposal.

 

[Citycat]

The Racial Equality Proposal won a majority of votes at the Paris Peace Conference, so it could have passed.

It was primarily President Woodrow Wilson and his famous racism (even strong by early 20th century standards) that blocked it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Equality_Proposal#Vote

That said, while the Japanese might feel happy if it passed, they will still have the same geopolitical interests, which was basically to rape and pillage China as much as possible.

 

[skarosianlifeform]

That said, while the Japanese might feel happy if it passed, they will still have the same geopolitical interests, which was basically to rape and pillage China as much as possible.

1910s/1920s Japan wasn't yet about "raping and pillaging" China, merely about expanding its colonial/imperial influence over the country (with the Twenty One Demands, support to the Zhili clique, etc).

But the point still stands, that Japan has zero interest in acknowledging racial equality for China (or Korea for that matter).

 

[vetinari]

Australia's contribution in preventing the Racial Equality clause should not be overlooked. Billy Hughes chose to represent the Dominion himself, when his presence was challenged by Wilson he famously replied that he represented the 68,000 dead Australians who gave their lives on the battlefields of the war. That basically shut Wilson up. Before Hughes appearance, it had been assumed that Australia would be represented as part of an Imperial British Bloc. Wilson was not the only leader that disliked Hughes representing Australia at Versailles - the British PM David Lloyd George as well. The rest of Europe and the world were bewildered by this Politiking on the world stage.

 

[Fatt Shea]

Well it is pretty hard to get them all the sign considering that a lot of the countries attending were openly against racial equality. The US had segregation and the president was from the party that defended it the most. Britain, Portugual and Belguim all had colonies. Although many of the countries who signed were racist like Italy and France, so it might be possible to have the other countries sign it while not believing in it

 

[Typho]

Australia's contribution in preventing the Racial Equality clause should not be overlooked. Billy Hughes chose to represent the Dominion himself, when his presence was challenged by Wilson he famously replied that he represented the 68,000 dead Australians who gave their lives on the battlefields of the war. That basically shut Wilson up. Before Hughes appearance, it had been assumed that Australia would be represented as part of an Imperial British Bloc. Wilson was not the only leader that disliked Hughes representing Australia at Versailles - the British PM David Lloyd George as well. The rest of Europe and the world were bewildered by this Politiking on the world stage.

Seems these colonies asking or expecting equality took away potential focus from the racial equality clause.

 

[Jellico]

Well it is pretty hard to get them all the sign considering that a lot of the countries attending were openly against racial equality. The US had segregation and the president was from the party that defended it the most. Britain, Portugual and Belguim all had colonies. Although many of the countries who signed were racist like Italy and France, so it might be possible to have the other countries sign it while not believing in it

The colonies tended to be the ones who pushed back hard on race. They essentially feared mass immigration by the cheap labour of Asia. Outposts far from the metropol like Australia (and when you think about it places like the US West Coast were like islands separated from the East by seas of land) tended to be more nervous about such things.

 

[Typho]

The colonies tended to be the ones who pushed back hard on race. They essentially feared mass immigration by the cheap labour of Asia. Outposts far from the metropol like Australia (and when you think about it places like the US West Coast were like islands separated from the East by seas of land) tended to be more nervous about such things.

How is it that places like Japan or China didn't fear mass immigration?

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

How is it that places like Japan or China didn't fear mass immigration?

China was being carved up like a Christmas Turkey, no one gave a damn what the Chinese government wanted. Not even the Chinese people.

Japan was and is a crowded country and didn't allow immigration by anyone.

Australia however was a largely empty continent with a population of little more than 5 million that could easily be swamped by Asian migrants.

 

[Jellico]

Population of California in 1900, about 1.4 million. Population of Australia, about 4 million.
Population of Japan in 1900, about 44 million. Population of China, about 395 million. Population of India, about 240 million.

I don't know if you know but immigrants from the three big nations had been travelling to various outposts of the European empires as cheap labour for years. That's how you get Indians in places like Fiji and South Africa. The Chinese followed the trade lanes all through SE Asia and gold to the US and Australia. Japan had pearl divers all over the place and provided laborers on Hawaii and the West Coast.

That was all pretty confronting for the low population European outposts. Because we are talking low population bases it doesn't take many outsiders to make a noticeable difference. In many cases the Europeans were still finishing outpopulating the native population in living memory and could do the math. So we get the standard tropes of dirt, disease, and driving down wages, followed by laws to lock Asians out. Laws the Japanese racial equality clauses were aiming to circumvent.

 

[Citycat]

1910s/1920s Japan wasn't yet about "raping and pillaging" China, merely about expanding its colonial/imperial influence over the country (with the Twenty One Demands, support to the Zhili clique, etc).

"Merely expanding its colonial influence" is dominating , coercing and subjugating another sovereign state. Isn't that effectively the same as raping and pillaging another country? I am sure the Chinese in the first half of the 20th century would have seen it that way, with the Twenty One Demands and the Shandong Problem.

 

[vetinari]

Seems these colonies asking or expecting equality took away potential focus from the racial equality clause.

Australia had established the White Migration Policy and act in 1901, which prevented non-Whites migrating to the Dominion. Australia had ceased to be a colony on 1 January 1901 when it became a Federated self-governing Dominion.

 

[Typho]

Australia had established the White Migration Policy and act in 1901, which prevented non-Whites migrating to the Dominion. Australia had ceased to be a colony on 1 January 1901 when it became a Federated self-governing Dominion.

Woodrow Wilson disagreed with that. Dominion status was very much limbo in terms of international law.