The Foreign Office and Yoshida's Bid for Rapprochement with Britain in 1936–1937: a Critical Reconsideration of the Anglo-Japanese Conversation

Abstract

The complete history of the secret negotiations between Yoshida Shigeru, the Japanese ambassador to London, and Eden from July 1936 to July 1937 later known as the Anglo-Japanese conversation has never been written. Though the negotiations came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937, they were greatly misunderstood at the time. The conversation gave rise to fears that Britain was planning a Far-Eastern 'Hoare-Laval Agreement'.1 Evidence from British sources now confutes earlier assessments and reveals, more importantly, a revulsion of feeling among the Foreign Office officials against the Japanese ambassador's proposal for an Anglo-Japanese agreement in 1936/7. It also indicates that Eden and his Foreign Office advisers were not prepared to injure Chinese interests for the sake of preserving Britain's own interest in the Far East. In short, British leaders were not prepared to use China as a bargaining counter when negotiating with Japan. They were also convinced that Japan had ambitions so large that they could only be satisfied in full if Britain accepted a Japanese domination of China. Above all, the officials of the Foreign Office knew that Yoshida did not possess the full confidence of his government in making his proposal. Yoshida had been sent to London in June 1936 when the military in Japan had refused to accept him as the Minister for Foreign Affairs. What Yoshida tried to do in London was to gain prestige by extracting something from Eden which he could represent as a triumph of himself in Tokyo. In essence, political expediency was a powerful influence in his proposal for an Anglo-Japanese rapprochement in 1936/7. This trace of opportunism in his search for an agreement with Britain, well appreciated by the Foreign Office officials, made them highly suspicious of his intention and this suspicion undermined any hope of an Anglo-Japanese agreement in 1937. Thus, the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937 actually helped to bring to an end the dreary conversations which had been Droceeding for almost one year.