New Directions in East Asian History The League of Nations and the East Asian Imperial Order, 1920-1946

In the twenty-first century, the interest in the League of Nations is flourishing both in and out of Japan. However, except its involvement in the Manchurian Crisis, the League’s works in East Asia are hardly known. The League of Nations and the East Asian Imperial Order, 1920–1946 uncovers the League’s efforts in East Asia in social, economic, and humanitarian fields, and examines their impact on the international relations in the region.
 
Although the League of Nations was established to prevent wars, what would become causes for the wars was unpredictable. Therefore, the founding fathers of the League made it tackle several issues, not directly related to keeping the peace. They thought these issues to be only supplementary, so that only one article of the covenant, Article 23, dealt with them. The League, however, gradually developed the works in social and other technical fields and started working in East Asia.
 
East Asia in the inter-war period was still the world of empires. Powers had colonies and special interests in the region. Indeed, the mainstays of the League of Nations, Britain and France, together with Japan were empires. The League did not intend to change the imperial order, rather it was the guardians of the empires. Nevertheless, as the problems in the region were closely related to the existing imperial order, the League’s works unintentionally came to challenge the order.
 
One of the most significant examples is the work of the Opium Advisory Committee, which functioned as a forum. The Committee asked countries to submit information on opium, not only from their home countries but also their colonies. Based on the information, the League held open meetings and conferences. It also asked the United States, a non-member, to attend them. The information on colonies and its publicity were often embarrassing to those who represented the empires. Even the threat of publicity and the possibility of public criticism were sometimes sufficient to make the empires introduce reforms in their territories. As a result of these reforms, revenues decreased, while expenditure on the welfare of the subjects increased. Curving opium trafficking and smoking unintentionally shook the financial foundations of the empires.
 
This book has also examined the technical co-operation between the League of Nations and China, from beginning to end. Different from the regulatory works specified by Article 23, the technical co-operation was not envisaged by the founding fathers of the League. Co-operation started in the field of health and developed through personal initiatives. In this case, the role of a company of actors was significant. Furthermore, the technical co-operation unexpectedly turned out to be highly political since it was impossible to carry it out without capital. The actors had to find ways to overcome the existing financial agreement made by the powers. Japan was especially opposed to the change that the proponents of the co-operation were trying to bring in.
 
The League of Nations and the East Asian Imperial Order thus shows that the League was quite active in its functional works in East Asia and its impact on the international relations in the region cannot be neglected. It should be noted that those works have been succeeded by the United Nations and continue even today.

 

(Written by GOTO-SHIBATA Harumi, Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2020)