An American scholar also called the consequences of the "Five Power Treaty" "...... Japan has received assurances from Britain and the United States that they will not take joint military action against Japan, and that Japan may only be limited by the diplomatic pressure that the United States can afford. ”

"The disintegration of the Anglo-Japanese 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 Japan was a mistake in foreign policy...... The abolition of the Anglo-Japanese alliance caused shock among the Japanese, and it was the beginning of Japan's switch to independent action...... This move psychologically communicated the way for the Japanese to cooperate with Germany and Soviet Russia......"

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

Of course, there are many who disagree with Lord Chatfield's view, arguing that Japan is "an aggressive country, unlike China, 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", and therefore "the breakdown of the 'Anglo-Japanese alliance' is a certain inevitability", and that "not all Asian countries feel that they have been treated unfairly like Japan". 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 as Japan did. ”

Judging from the results of the Washington Conference, this meeting can be regarded as a very favorable meeting for China, because whether it is the limitation of naval armaments or the abolition of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, the cause and ultimate purpose of the confrontation between Japan and the United States, which is the direct cause of it, revolve around China. Because for Japan, China has broken free from Japan's control and has become a great power with the same status as Japan, and although China's market is still open to Japan, Japan 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 desire of 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 is becoming increasingly clear to Japan that the United States will dominate China's affairs, and it is therefore intent on sabotaging this. Due to the fierce contradictions between the United States and Japan, some of the Chinese government's anti-Japanese demands were supported by the United States at the Washington Conference. On November 21, 1923, former U.S. Secretary of State John Routter proposed four resolutions, including: 1. Respect for China's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity; 2. To give China the fullest and fullest opportunity to develop and maintain a stable and effective government; 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 "Root's Four Points" show that the US China policy is aimed at establishing a unified and effective pro-American regime, and at the same time makes unnamed accusations against Japan's efforts to squeeze out other countries' forces in China. In response to Japan's repeated renegade on its promises, US Secretary of State Hughes specifically proposed on December 16, 1923 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" of Root and Hughes's proposal were finally written into the "Washington Treaty."

On February 6, 1922, the United States, Britain, China, France, Japan, 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; Japan 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 Japan, and 41,000 tons each for France and Italy. This draft article was defeated by the resolute opposition of the French government, because the French navy needed a large number of light ships to defend the interests of its overseas colonies. 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 put an end to 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 Geneva Conference on Disarmament 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 co-signed by representatives of the United States, Britain, China, Japan, France, and Italy, but in the end only the United States and Japan were ratified by the Diets, and none of the other three countries ratified or deposited their instruments of ratification, so it did not enter into force. The provisions on the rules of submarine warfare later became part of the 1930 London Naval Treaty.

4. The United States, Great Britain and Japan 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, until 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," Japanese politicians breathed a sigh of relief. They all rejoiced in the achievements of the Washington Treaty,

First of all, Japan can no longer maintain a huge military expenditure that accounts for more than 40 percent of the total national budget, especially after Japan suffered the worst economic crisis since the Meiji era and the Great Kanto Earthquake. The United States, on the other hand, proposed to use the existing naval forces to determine the proportion of restrictions before the construction of the Japanese Navy's huge fleet took shape, which was very beneficial to Japan, whose military spending was unprecedentedly inflated and which was in great need of contraction. Japanese Prime Minister Gonbei Yamamoto believes that "Japan will already be very cheap to get the ratio of 70 percent," and the Osaka Mainichi 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 Japanese and American navies will be 46:100...... If the United States does not have this proposal, it will be difficult for the Japanese Navy to obtain a ratio of 70 percent...... "Second, the Washington Treaty also forced the United States to terminate the construction of bases at forward posts close to Japan, such as Guam, the Philippines, and the Aleutians, and the security of the Japanese mainland and surrounding waters has been highly guaranteed. Although Japan has its own troubles: in the eyes of the navy's hardliners, the ratio of capital ships to Britain and the United States of 10:7 is still not enough to meet national defense needs, and there is a hint that Japan is a second-class country. The Chinese navy has gained the same proportion as the Japanese navy, and the Chinese navy will still be a serious threat to Japan in the future, and judging from the increasingly close relations between China and the United States, in the event of a war in the future, Japan is very likely to be caught in the middle of the attack by China and the United States, and 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 American and British navies believe that Japan 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 achieved the same "70 percent" naval ratio to Britain and the United States as Japan, and this result is a more than expected explanation for the Chinese navy, government, and people.

The Washington Conference was convened against the backdrop of fierce competition between the United States and Japan, and ended in 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 Japan in the past 20 years, the Washington Conference produced a bizarre diplomatic result: the United States and Japan, which have very different goals and even opposing goals, have achieved their respective pre-conference countermeasures.

From the U.S. side, "every major goal" proposed by the U.S. to achieve naval superiority over Japan at 10:7 and the abolition of the Anglo-Japanese alliance has been achieved. Japan was forced to sign the Washington Treaty, and the United States seemed to have had great success. However, from Japan's point of view, Japan has also realized its pre-meeting countermeasures. Although Japan was forced to accept the "seventy percent" naval restrictions on the United States, this ratio was commensurate with Japan's national strength at that time. The abandonment of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, although reluctant, was reluctant, but also helpless, and the alliance ended in a "dignified" way such as the "Five-Power Pact", in the words of Japanese politicians, "the Anglo-Japanese alliance received a dignified funeral". In addition, the Five-Power Treaty is a non-aggression alliance treaty that "freezes" the status quo in the Pacific, which is beneficial to Japan. On the Siberian issue, Japan's "special rights and interests" have not been shaken, and in the future they have finally become a major hidden danger to peace in the Far East.

The international security system established by the Washington Conference is extremely fragile, neither guaranteeing China's security nor effectively containing Japan, and even the confrontation between Japan and the United States has not really eased. In fact, the Washington Treaty did not provide for any means to sanction or punish violations of the treaty, but only replaced 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 Japan. One of the most direct consequences of the Washington Conference was that it contributed to Japan's path to fascism.

Judging from the results of the meeting, the Washington meeting will actually cause endless troubles for both Japan and the United States. The main agenda item of the meeting between the two countries was to limit naval armaments and to contain Japan's expansion in the Far East, and the latter was originally the cause and effect of the former, but the United States, which was influenced by the postwar isolationism and pacifism, obviously reversed the causal relationship between the two, put the limitation of armaments and the elimination of war in the first place, and spared no cost to achieve this goal. The deeper reason for this outcome 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 Japan in defense of China's territorial integrity or political independence from the outset. The United States has helped China achieve the same naval ratio as Japan, in fact, pinning its hopes on the Chinese navy to deter and contain the Japanese navy, and the Americans certainly know that China's current industrial strength is not enough to build a large fleet comparable to Japan's, 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 Japan's 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 contradictions between the United States and Japan are irreconcilable, which also determines the fate of the eventual bankruptcy of the "Washington system".

The "Washington system" is incompatible with Japan's ambition to dominate Asia. In fact, as early as the convening of the Paris Peace Conference, a Japanese Konoe Fumima wrote under the title of "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, a small population, and a weak market for industrial products, Japan could not maintain the security of its existence under any circumstances when Britain closed its colonies. In other words, in order to meet the needs of its own survival, Japan had no choice but to take measures to break with the status quo, as Germany did before the war. ”

Another Japanese nationalist, Tokufu Sufeng, also put forward the slogan of the "Monroe Doctrine of Asia," saying that "Asia should handle the affairs of Asia." The so-called Asians, other than Japanese nationals, are not allowed to undertake this task. The Monroe Doctrine of Asia, that is, the doctrine of dealing with Asia by the Japanese. ”。

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