After these agreements, Japan saw no further objection to China’s participation in the war.  The chief inducement held out to China was the hope of recovering Shantung; but as there was now no danger of this hope being realized, Japan was willing that America, in more or less honest ignorance, should unofficially use this hope for the persuasion of the Chinese.  It is true that Japan had reason to fear America until the last days of the Peace Conference, but this fear was considerably diminished by the conclusion of the Lansing-Ishii Agreement in November 1917.

Meanwhile Japan had discovered that the question of China’s entry into the war could be used to increase internal strife in China, which has been one of the aims of Japanese policy ever since the beginning of the revolutionary movement.[75] If the Chinese had not been interfered with at this time, there was some prospect of their succeeding in establishing a stable democratic government.  Yuan was dead, and his successor in the Presidency, Li Yuan Hung, was a genuine constitutionalist.  He reassembled the Parliament which Yuan had dismissed, and the work of drafting a permanent constitution was resumed.  The President was opposed to severing diplomatic relations, and, of course, still more to declaring war.  The Prime Minister, Tuan Chih-jui, a militarist, was strongly in favour of war.  He and his Cabinet persuaded a considerable majority of both Houses of the Chinese Parliament to side with them on the question of severing diplomatic relations, and the President, as in duty bound, gave way on this issue.

On the issue of declaring war, however, public opinion was different.  It was President Wilson’s summons to the neutrals to follow him in breaking off diplomatic relations that had given force to the earlier campaign; but on June 5th the American Minister, acting on instructions, presented a Note to the Chinese Government urging that the preservation of national unity was more important than entry into the war, and suggesting the desirability of preserving peace for the present.  What had happened in the meantime was that the war issue, which might never have become acute but for President’s Wilson’s action, had been used by the Japanese to revive the conflict between North and South, and to instigate the Chinese militarists to unconstitutional action.  Sun Yat Sen and most of the Southern politicians were opposed to the declaration of war; Sun’s reasons were made known in an open letter to Mr. Lloyd George on March 7th.  They were thoroughly sound.[76] The Cabinet, on May 1st, decided in favour of war, but by the Constitution a declaration of war required the consent of Parliament.  The militarists attempted to coerce Parliament, which had a majority against war; but as this proved impossible, they brought military force to bear on the President to compel him to dissolve Parliament unconstitutionally.  The bulk of the Members of Parliament retired to the South, where they