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Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Print: 2576-0556 Downloads: 383357 Total View: 3152255
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Article http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.02.005

Inspecting a Candidate—Changes in Britain’s Attitude towards Japan from the First Anglo-Japanese Agreement to the Second Anglo-Japanese Agreement

Naiwen Zhang

Independent Researcher, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.

*Corresponding author: Naiwen Zhang

Published: February 20,2023

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, though the British empire was still a great power, it decayed somehow inevitably. It was confronted by Russia, which had a great appetite for Central Asia and North Asia, especially in Manchuria. Meanwhile, Russia’s expansion into Asia was supported by all European governments on the Continent. Therefore, the policy of ‘splendid isolation’ went bankrupt. In order to confront Russian expansionism, the British ought to find an ally outside of Europe. At that time, Japan, as a rising and ambitious power that also wanted to prevent Russian expansionism, came into Britain’s sight. But at the beginning, the British were not confident in Japan, therefore, when it planned to ally with Japan, it took the British government a long time, from before the signing of the first Anglo-Japanese Agreement until Japan was declared the winner of the Russo-Japanese War, to assess whether Japan was a suitable candidate for the ally.

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How to cite this paper

Inspecting a Candidate—Changes in Britain's Attitude towards Japan from the First Anglo-Japanese Agreement to the Second Anglo-Japanese Agreement

How to cite this paper: Naiwen Zhang. (2023) Inspecting a Candidate—Changes in Britain's Attitude towards Japan from the First Anglo-Japanese Agreement to the Second Anglo-Japanese Agreement. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science7(2), 260-266.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.02.005