An American scholar also called the consequences of the "Five Power Treaty" "...... He had received assurances from Britain and the United States that they would not take joint military action against him, and that he could only be limited by the diplomatic pressure that the United States could bear. ”

"The dissolution of the alliance is a sad thing. In the long run, it will have no less impact on the United States than on the United Kingdom...... The United States' move to force Britain to abolish its alliance with Ben was a mistake in foreign policy...... The abolition of the Anglo-Japanese alliance caused a shock among the people themselves, and it was the beginning of the turn to a separate action...... This move psychologically communicated the way for me to cooperate with Germany and Soviet Russia......"

British Field Marshal Sir Chatfield also commented that Britain had "turned a disgruntled city into a potentially formidable enemy" and that "the abolition of the alliance had provoked a strong reaction in the book, which believed that the Western world was kicking away an Asian country that had lost its usefulness." Many of these ties were severed, and these ties may well have had a decisive value for the subsequent peace".

Of course, there are many who disagree with Lord Charterfield's view, arguing that "unlike China, it is a country with a rich surname of aggression, and that an alliance with such a country is in itself a very dangerous thing, because when such a country becomes stronger, it will look at its former allies", so that "the rupture of the 'Anglo-English alliance' has a certain inevitable surname", and that "not all Asian countries feel that they have been treated unfairly as Ben does". China, for example, has not expressed any dissatisfaction with the tonnage of its navy and its own status and interests, because China does not intend to expand as indefinitely. ”

Judging from the results of the Washington Conference, this meeting can be regarded as a meeting that is very favorable to China, because whether it is the limitation of naval armaments or the abolition of the Anglo-British alliance, the cause and ultimate goal of the confrontation between the United States and the United States, which is the direct cause of the meeting, revolve around China. Although China's market is still open to China, it can no longer plunder as unscrupulously as before, because the influence of American capital in China is becoming greater and greater. And for the United States, the post-war Far Eastern market is of increasing significance. The Panama Canal, which was officially opened in 1920, greatly shortened the voyage between important American ports and the Far East, and further stimulated the United States to compete for the Far East. The competition for markets in the Far East, especially in China, has been mentioned as a primacy in US foreign policy. Although the emergence of the post-war economic crisis and the growth of anti-war sentiment in the United States made it difficult for the United States to achieve its goal of seizing China's financial and commodity markets in the short term. However, the United States still uses its economic advantages to export capital to China as much as possible. It became increasingly clear that the United States would dominate China's affairs, and he was bent on sabotaging it. Due to the fierce contradictions between the United States and the United States, some of the anti-rhetorical demands of the Chinese political axe were supported by the United States at the Washington meeting. On November 21, 1923, former U.S. Secretary of State Rutter proposed four resolutions, including: 1. Respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity; 2. To give China the most complete and adequate opportunity to develop and maintain a solid and effective political axe; 3. To use the influence of all countries with a view to establishing and maintaining the principle of equal commercial and industrial opportunities for all countries throughout China; 4. It is not allowed to take advantage of China's economic difficulties to "seek to harm the rights of citizens or subjects of other friendly countries in China", and "it is not allowed to reward activities harmful to such national security."

The "Four Roots" show that the US policy toward China is aimed at establishing a unified and effective pro-US regime, and at the same time makes unnamed accusations against Ben for his efforts to squeeze out other countries' forces in China. On December 16, 1923, US Secretary of State Hughes specifically proposed that "no country shall establish a monopoly priority position in commerce or economic development in any particular region of China," and that the "Four Articles" and Hughes's proposal were eventually written into the "Washington Treaty."

On February 6, 1922, the United States, Britain, China, France, and Italy signed the Treaty on the Limitation of Naval Armaments (Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark also acceded to the Convention in 1925), which included the following parts:

1. In terms of capital ships and aircraft carriers, the treaty stipulates that the tonnage of capital ships of the navies of the five countries is: 525,000 tons for the United States; British Empire (including Dominions) 525,000 tons; China 367,500 tons; 367,500 tons; France 175,000 tons; Italy 175,000 tons. Signatories are not allowed to build capital ships with a single tonnage of more than 45,000 tons, and the main guns of capital ships must not exceed 16 inches (406 mm).

The technical specifications of individual ships are limited to all ships in service or under national or foreign construction, as well as vessels built by the contracting State for other non-signatory States (article 15), in which case the building State shall inform the other signatory States of the detailed technical specifications of the signing of the contract, the laying of the keel and the warship (article 16). Finally, if a signatory State is in a state of war, a warship built by that State for another State, or which has been built but not handed over, may not be requisitioned for use by its own combat vessels (Article 17).

2. With regard to other combat vessels, the total tonnage of light ships proposed in the draft Washington Treaty is 90,000 tons for the United States, 90,000 tons for the United Kingdom, 63,000 tons for China, 63,000 tons for Ben, and 41,000 tons each for France and Italy. This draft article was defeated by the resolute opposition of the French political axe, because the French navy needed a large number of light ships to defend its overseas colonial interests. Finally, there is no limit on the total tonnage of cruisers, destroyers and submarines in the text of the treaty.

Ironically, up to the time of the Washington Conference, the capital ships of the major naval powers consisted of dreadnoughts, battle cruisers, and armored cruisers, which were within the limits of capital ships because of their excessive tonnage and the size of their main guns, while the tonnage of light ships below the armored cruiser never exceeded the level of five or six thousand. After the Washington Conference, it became customary for the navies of various countries to build light cruisers with a tonnage of 10,000 tons; The tonnage of destroyers and torpedo boats has also increased from 1,200 tons to 2,500 tons, and the tonnage of torpedo boats has increased from 800 tons to 1,500 tons. Thus, if the Washington Treaty halted the trend towards larger capital ships and the construction of large capital ships, it caused a real arms race in the construction of light ships, which was the main agenda of the failed Neiva Disarmament Conference in 1927.

3. With regard to submarines, the Washington Treaty does not make any provisions. Britain, which suffered from German submarines in World War I, demanded in vain the abolition of submarines as a weapon, but the opposition of France prevented any decision in this regard, and France demanded at least 50 submarines to guarantee its safety at sea.

The Washington Treaty also made no restrictions on the gross tonnage or unit tonnage of submarines, and the only provision of the treaty in this regard was the conclusion of a Lut resolution on rules governing submarine attacks on merchant ships in wartime at the request of former US Secretary of State Rutte. According to the resolution, submarines should comply with the rules of international law for the protection of the lives of neutral nationals and non-combatants, and should comply with the obligation to inspect ships prior to attack and not to attack unless they are resisted by merchant ships. Even if they resist raids, they must be placed in a safe place before attacking. Any submarine of any State that violates these rules shall be tried and punished as having committed acts of piracy.

The Ruth resolution also proposes that States prohibit the use of asphyxiating gases, liquids and other substances in acts of war. The resolution was jointly signed by representatives of the United States, Britain, China, France, and Italy, but in the end only the United States and the Chinese Congress ratified it, and none of the other three countries ratified it or deposited their instruments of ratification, so it did not take effect. The provisions on the rules of submarine warfare later became part of the 1930 London Naval Treaty.

4. The United States, Great Britain and the United Kingdom agree to freeze the construction of naval bases, coastal defense fortifications and military installations in their Pacific territories (Article 19).

5. Detailed rules and schedules for the dismantling and replacement of capital ships, as well as relevant technical explanations. The treaty was set for a period of 10 years, ending on 31 December 1938. The Washington Treaty shall remain in force after the expiration of the treaty until two years have elapsed since the expiration of the declaration by any of the signatory States of its intention to denounce the treaty, unless no signatory notifies the other parties of its eventual termination within two years prior to the expiration of the treaty.

After the signing of the "Treaty on the Limitation of Naval Armaments," the politicians in China breathed a sigh of relief. They all rejoiced in the achievements of the Washington Treaty,

First of all, it is no longer possible to maintain the huge military expenditure, which accounts for more than 40% of the total national budget, especially after the worst economic crisis since the Meiji era and the Great Kanto Earthquake. The United States, on the other hand, proposed to use its existing naval strength to determine the proportion of the limit before the construction of its navy's huge fleet took shape, and this is very beneficial to the unprecedented expansion of military spending and the extreme need to shrink the cost. Prime Minister Gonbei Yamamoto believes that "it is already very cheap to get 70 percent of the total number of US naval forces," and Osaka's "Daily Shimbun" also published an article saying that "if the three-year naval plan of the United States is completed in 1942, the ratio of the US Navy will be 46:100...... If the United States does not have this proposal, it will be difficult for the Navy to obtain a 70 percent ratio...... "Second, the Washington Treaty also forced the United States to terminate the construction of bases at forward posts close to the United States, such as Guam, the Philippines, and the Aleutians, and the security of the mainland and surrounding waters has been highly guaranteed. Although he also has his own troubles: in the eyes of the hardliners in the navy, the ratio of 10:7 to the capital ships of Britain and the United States is still not enough to meet the needs of national defense, and there is a hint that the company is a second-class country. The Chinese navy has gained the same proportion as the Chinese navy, and the Chinese navy will remain a serious threat to the Chinese navy in the future, and judging from the close relations between China and the United States, in the event of a war in the future, the Chinese navy is very likely to be attacked by China and the United States, and it will fall into a dangerous situation of being attacked by the enemy on its back.

For the Western powers, such as the United States, Britain, and France, just as non-naval figures cheered at the fact that the Washington Treaty made it possible to cut taxes, many professional naval personnel expressed their chagrin and indignation at the outcome of the treaty. The U.S. Navy believed that they had been deceived by the British, because the U.S. needed to abandon more capital ships that had been built or were to be built, and at the same time the treaty did not impose restrictions on cruisers; The British thought they had been deceived by the Americans, because the treaty needed to arrange for the scrapping of more active warships in exchange for the Americans abandoning warships that had not yet started; The US and British navies all believe that Ben is the biggest winner, because it has won the defense of the western Pacific. And the only one who is satisfied with the Washington Treaty is China, which really wants to reduce its navy and develop its economy. China has obtained the same "seventy percent" naval ratio to Britain and the United States, and this result is an explanation of China's navy, political axe, and people beyond expectations.

The Washington Conference was convened against the backdrop of fierce competition between the United States and ended with mutual compromise between the two sides, and the clouds of war over the Pacific Ocean were temporarily dissipated. As the pinnacle and showdown of the sharp confrontation between the United States and the United States over the past 20 years, the Washington Conference produced a strange diplomatic result: The United States and China, which have completely different goals and even opposing goals, have achieved their respective pre-conference countermeasures.

From the US side, "every major goal" proposed by the United States, such as the naval superiority of 10:7 and the abolition of the Anglo-British alliance, has been achieved. Ben was forced to sign the Washington Treaty, and the United States seems to have had a great success. However, from the perspective of the book, the book also realized the pre-meeting countermeasures. Although he was forced to accept the "seventy percent" naval restrictions on the United States, this proportion was commensurate with the national strength of the United States at that time. Although the abandonment of the Anglo-British alliance was reluctant, it was helpless, and the alliance was terminated in a "dignified" manner such as the "Five-Power Pact", which, in the words of the politician, "received a dignified funeral." In addition, the "Five-Power Pact" is a non-aggression alliance treaty that "freezes" the status quo in the Pacific, which is beneficial to the Treaty. On the Siberian issue, the "special rights and interests" of the Far East have not been shaken, and they have finally become a major hidden danger to the peace in the Far East.

The international security system established by the Washington Conference is extremely fragile, and it has neither guaranteed China's security nor effectively contained China, nor has it really eased the confrontation between the United States. In fact, the Washington Treaty does not provide for any means to sanction or punish violations of the treaty, but only replaces them with soft "moral" and "moral" constraints, and it can be seen from historical experience that such a thing as "morality" has no binding force on the original thing. One of the most direct consequences of the Washington Conference was that it contributed to the path of fascism.

Judging from the results of the meeting, the Washington meeting will actually cause endless troubles for both sides. The main agenda item of the two countries at the meeting was to limit naval armaments and curb the expansion of the Far East, and the latter was originally the cause and the former was the effect, but the United States, which was influenced by the post-war isolationism and pacifist ideology, obviously reversed the causal relationship between the two, put the restriction of armaments and the elimination of war in the first place, and spared no cost to achieve this goal. The deeper reason for this result is that the policy pursued by the United States in China is in fact a commercial, peaceful economic competition and market competition, and the United States was not destined to go to war with China from the beginning in order to defend China's territorial integrity or political readiness. The United States has helped China achieve the same naval ratio as the Chinese navy, in fact, pinning its hopes on the Chinese navy to deter and contain the navy, and the Americans certainly know that China's current industrial strength is not enough to build a large fleet that can match the original one, and in fact helping China to obtain more capital ship tonnage share will not help improve the situation. Because it will take more time for China to achieve full industrialization.

Fundamentally speaking, the United States hopes to rely on its own economic strength to occupy the Far East market through peaceful competition, and its established national policy of dominating East Asia will not change, and it will inevitably adopt "resolute measures" when it is unable to engage in economic competition with the United States. Therefore, the United States said that the contradictions were irreconcilable in the end, and this also determined the fate of the eventual bankruptcy of the "Washington system."

The "Washington system" is incompatible with the ambition of dominating Asia. In fact, as early as the convening of the Paris Peace Conference, it was said that Fumima Konoe wrote under the title "Excluding Peace Centered on Britain and the United States": "...... Economic imperialism, which monopolizes huge amounts of capital and abundant natural resources, and which bloodlessly oppresses the peoples of other countries and prevents them from developing freely and can benefit themselves, should be rejected as a matter of course in the same imperialist spirit of using force...... As a small territory, lack of raw materials, small population, and weak market for industrial products, when Britain closed its colonies, it could not maintain the security of its existence under any circumstances. In other words, in order to meet the needs of his own survival, he had to take the same action as Germany before the war to break the status quo. ”

Another nationalist, Defu Sufeng, also put forward the slogan of the "Monroe Doctrine of Asia," saying that "the affairs of Asia should be handled by Asia." The so-called Asians are not capable of undertaking this task except for their own people. The Monroe doctrine of Asia is the doctrine of dealing with Asia by himself. ”

(To be continued)