Japan and Naval Aspects of the Washington Conference

The First World War and its aftermath saw a great deal of naval building activity in Japan. A leading Japanese expert differentiates between three periods: 1906-16, being a period of gradual expansion; 1917–21, a period of rapid expansion; and 1922-32, the period of adjustment to naval disarmament. ¹ The programme for the building of eight battleships and eight cruisers (the so-called ‘eight-eight programme’) had been in the minds of naval leaders since the Russo-Japanese War and became the object of national ambitions in the Taishō period. But it was only authorised by the Diet in gradual stages. It was only in the budget for 1917 that the ‘eight-four programme’ was approved. It was justified to the Diet on the ground of Japan’s growing wealth in the war years and the threat to Japan’s security which was thought to be posed by the American naval building plans of 1916. The ‘eight-six programme’ quickly followed. Then the ‘eight-eight programme’ received Diet approval in July 1920 as a defence against the building plans announced by President Woodrow Wilson. ²