ABSTRACT
Prior to 1929 Japan emerged more fully on to the international stage, just as the nation's political system became correspondingly more democratic and open to debate and change. Japan's alliance with Western nations during 1914–18 was continued in the Siberian Expedition of 1918. The victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia after 1917 abetted Japan's emergence as an international power. The 1919 Versailles Peace Conference gave Japan a permanent seat as a member of the Big Five in the League Council of the League of Nations, and assigned to Japan former German rights over Shantung. The 1921 Washington Conference permitted Japan to maintain war shipping in the ratio of three ships to every five American or British.
