According to Biao Finance, Japan's dominance at the Washington Conference was aimed at improving the poor relations between Japan and the United States, "What will happen if the naval tapering does not succeed and the naval race continues along the existing plan?" Although Britain no longer has the ability to expand its large navy, Britain will certainly do something...... Although public opinion in the United States opposes the build-up, the United States has the strength to do whatever it wants if it feels the need to do so, and Japan will eventually pay the price. ”

Yuzaburo Kato supported the opinion of Biao of Finance, but the hardliners against the United States, led by Kanji Kato, resolutely expressed their opposition, and the two sides were at loggerheads. The Ministry of Finance then telegraphed the Japanese government and put forward four options for the government to choose from: 1. Do not make any compromises, risk the breakdown of the negotiations and insist on the 80 percentage, otherwise withdraw from the talks; 2. Seek a ratio of 10:7, but keep the battleship "Kii" under construction; 3. Accept the ratio of 10: 7 and abandon the battleship "Kii"; Fourth, accept the ratio of 10: 6 and keep the battleship "Kii".

However, what the Japanese did not expect at all was that this telegram was intercepted and deciphered on the same day by Section 8 (MI-8) of the Military Intelligence Service of the US Department of the Army, codenamed "Code Writing Company," and the US side grasped the bottom line of the Japanese negotiations through its technological superiority.

On 20 October, Japanese Foreign Minister Yasuya Uchida, in the name of the Japanese Government, instructed the Japanese delegation that even elementary school students in Japan had donated money for the construction of the Kii, so the Kii could not be abandoned even from the point of view of national feelings. Uchida asks that every effort be made to realize option one, and that he strive to achieve option two as a last resort. If, despite best efforts, "the circumstances and general approach have to retreat to option three," "every effort should be made to obtain assurances from other countries that their defense forces in the Pacific, or at least to maintain the status quo, in order to weaken the ability of the United States fleet to concentrate its operations in the Pacific." In addition, a reservation should be made to the effect that we agree to the 10:7 ratio only under the above conditions. …… Option 4 is absolutely unacceptable. ”

After receiving the instruction, Kato Kanji thought that the Japanese government was too weak, and said that he did not accept it on the spot, and had a big quarrel with the Ministry of Finance and Kato Yuzaburo for this, so that Kato Yuzaburo had a heart attack on the spot and was admitted to the hospital.

On 1 November, Britain's chief negotiator, Balfort, held another one-on-one meeting with the Ministry of Finance, who told him the bottom line of Japan's negotiations on the basis of the little reciprocity spirit that remained of the "Anglo-Japanese alliance." Balfort had already received relevant information from the Americans, so he calmly told the Ministry of Finance that Britain could meet Japan's request to keep the battleship "Kii" and promised to leave a specific area in the Pacific undefended. On November 2, the Ministry of Finance proposed the first option to the United States, which was to insist on a 10:8 ratio. However, the U.S. side, which had penetrated all of the opponent's hole cards, completely rejected this proposal and insisted on the ratio of 10:6 and the demolition of the "Kii", so Kato had no choice but to call China again for instructions.

At the same time, US Secretary of State Hughes held many talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Gu Weijun to solicit the Chinese side's views on limiting naval armaments.

Gu Weijun told Hughes that the unlimited expansion of naval and military armaments is not conducive to world peace and stability, and huge military spending is a heavy burden on the economy of any country, so it is necessary to reduce armaments, especially naval armaments; the Chinese people have always loved peace; although the scale of China's navy is already the second in the world and the first in Asia, China does not care about the false name of the first and second. China's most important task at present is to develop the economy, and the military expenditure of the navy has already made China's finances unaffordable, and it is really unnecessary for Sri Lanka to retain a navy of this size in peacetime, so the Chinese people are willing to "forge swords into plowshares", as long as the ratio of the US Navy is maintained at 60.

Gu Weijun also said sincerely: If other countries hesitate to limit their naval armaments, China is willing to set an example for other countries and reduce their naval vessels first, and if the US side believes that the ratio of 60 is too high and maintains the US side's 55 or even 50, the Chinese side can also accept it.

Hughes said: The Chinese Navy has made important contributions to maintaining world peace, and the Chinese Navy is also an important force for maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region (this sentence is obviously aimed at the Japanese), limiting naval armaments is the consensus of peace-loving countries in the world, and the peace aspirations of the Chinese people will certainly be satisfied. As for the ratio of the Chinese and US navies, Hughes believes that "the size of the Chinese navy should be maintained enough to deal with the 'neighboring maritime countries' (in fact, Japan)", Gu Weijun heard the hint in Hughes's words, that is, the proportion of the Chinese navy will be the same as that of the Japanese navy, so he did not make any further requests. ,

On 17 November, the Japanese government replied to the Ministry of Finance that "three" was the final bottom line, but asked him to try to keep the battleship "Kii" and replace it with the "Amagi" battlecruiser abandoned due to the earthquake. On 29 November, the Treasury met with Secretary of State Hughes and Lord Balfour at the US State Department building in Washington, D.C., and formally proposed Japan's demand for a 10:7 ratio, saying that this was Japan's final floor, and demanding that the United States stop building new military bases on all Pacific islands, from the Aleutian to the Philippines and from Guam to Hawaii. The Ministry of Finance said, "I hope to ...... A clear understanding was reached on the maintenance of the status quo at bases and fortifications in the Pacific. If outposts in the Pacific islands, especially the Philippines and Guam, were allowed to develop without restrictions...... I am worried that the friendly relations between Japan and the United States will immediately turn hostile. Hughes still insisted on a 10-to-6 ratio, agreeing in principle to maintain the status quo in Guam and the Philippines, but excluding Hawaii, which is not an "outpost." Once again, the two sides are at a stalemate. Seeing that the negotiations had not turned for the better, the Japanese delegation threatened to withdraw from the negotiations.

As a result of the decipherment of the Japanese side's communication code, the American side clearly understood Japan's bottom line, and after discussion at the meeting, the American side agreed to the Japanese side's request in order to be able to reach an agreement.

On December 15, representatives of the United States, Britain and Japan reached a provisional agreement on naval disarmament, and Japan accepted the 10:10:7 ratio of capital ships proposed by the United States. Japan could keep the Kii and abandon the Amagi; In exchange, Britain could build two new battleships armed with 16-inch naval guns; The United States, on the other hand, could continue to build the "Colorado" and "Maryland" in the "West Virginia" class, which were building relatively fast, and at the same time had to abandon the battleships "North Dakota" and "Delaware."

Regarding this result, the moderates toward the United States, represented by the Ministry of Finance's Yuzaburo Kato, believe that it is already the best result to avoid direct confrontation with the United States; On the other hand, the hardliners against the United States, represented by Kanji Kato, director of the Naval Command Department, were still not satisfied with the result, and on the night when Japan accepted the disarmament ratio proposed by the United States, Kanji Kato burst into tears and shouted: "The war against the United States began today, and we must take revenge."

While negotiating the ratio of the naval fleet, Japan and the United States agreed to maintain the military status quo in the Pacific islands, and to immediately suspend and freeze all ongoing or planned military projects except Hawaii and the Japanese mainland. However, the two countries then became at odds over how to define the concept of "Japan proper."

According to the Japanese line of thinking, the so-called "homeland" includes both the Japanese archipelago, the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin in the north, and the southern part of Korea. According to the Japanese side's understanding, the area that was considered impossible to build a new naval base was only the German Pacific islands occupied in World War I, which later became the "Nanyang Hall".

The United States, on the other hand, has put forward views that are quite different, and has even taken out the detailed rules for the new administrative divisions promulgated by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs after World War I, pointing out that only the "three prefectures and 43 prefectures" of Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku and the three islands are called "Japan mainland," and since the Nanyang Islands are listed as the "three government agencies" along with Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, the other three government agencies are not Japan mainland, but overseas territories. As for the two colonies of southern Korea and eastern Siberia, which were listed as the "Second Governor's Palace", they could not be regarded as Japan itself. The United States has counterattacked with Japan's administrative divisions, and Japan, which has always been good at messing around, has encountered the entangled United States this time, and it also has a bit of a taste of cause and effect.

After much negotiation, the United States and Japan reached a final compromise on December 30, 1923, which stipulated that the military status quo should be maintained in the following areas: the United States included the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, and the Aleutian Islands, with the exception of the continental United States, the Alaska mainland and offshore islands, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal Zone; The Japanese side included the Ogasawara Islands, Minami-Torishima, and all of the Japanese-mandated territories in the Pacific, with the exception of Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands.

In the subsequent agreement between the United States and Japan and the United Kingdom, the British islands east of the 110th longitude and Hong Kong, as well as the British, Australian and New Zealand mandated islands, were also included in the areas where the military status quo was not allowed to be changed. The coasts of Canada, Australia and New Zealand and their territories are excluded. The agreement did not impose any restrictions on the French Pacific islands and the Dutch East Indies, as the Dutch navy, which was too weak, had long been excluded from the arms limitation conference, and the French navy was not strong enough to pose a threat to Japan or the United States in the Pacific. ,

The United States and Japan finally reached a compromise, and just as the Japanese side was overjoyed by the diplomatic achievements, the Americans appropriately poured some cold water on the Japanese to make the Japanese realize that they were not taking advantage of it as much as it seemed.

Immediately after the Washington Conference, the United States made the dismantling of the "Anglo-Japanese alliance" its first goal and linked this issue to the issue of disarmament. Hughes believed that as long as the "Anglo-Japanese alliance" continued, "there would be no satisfactory disarmament" because "if the alliance existed, the navies of Great Britain and Japan would have overwhelmed the United States with absolute superiority...... But if the alliance fails, the navies of the United States and Great Britain will theoretically deter the Japanese navy with an absolute superiority of 10:3, so that it will not dare to act rashly."

When the British delegates learned of the United States' insistence on abolishing the alliance, they feared that if Japan were to be removed from the alliance, Japan might strengthen its independent expansion in the Far East or seek understanding and cooperation from Germany and Soviet Russia. Britain had financial demands on the United States, but did not want to offend Japan, so it not only intended to preserve the "Anglo-Japanese alliance," but also tried to expand it and draw the United States into this alliance as well. Based on this idea, Balfour suggested to Hughes that the existing "Anglo-Japanese Alliance" be replaced by a new "Anglo-American-Japanese Alliance." The representative of Japan, Kishigero Bihara, also agreed with the British proposal and further proposed that the proposed new alliance would not be in the nature of any military alliance, but would only be a mechanism for mutual consultation among the States parties concerned in the event of a threat to their territorial rights and other vital interests in the Pacific and the Far East. At first, the United States was only interested in abolishing the "Anglo-Japanese alliance" and had no interest in the so-called "replacement of the Anglo-Japanese alliance." However, in the face of the proposal of Britain and Japan, the United States had no choice but to take corresponding countermeasures.

On December 1, 1923, at a joint meeting of representatives of Britain, the United States and Japan, British Foreign Secretary Balfour officially threw out a new plan for the Anglo-American-Japanese alliance, which involved not only the Pacific islands, but also China; It involves not only diplomatic alliances, but also military alliances. Their planned Triple Alliance was actually an expansion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which was firmly opposed by the United States. The United States believes that this is a disguised preservation of the "Anglo-Japanese alliance," which is not only inconsistent with the traditional policy of the United States, but also runs counter to the guidelines of this conference. The United States maintains that States parties should not have an obligation to use military force to settle disputes, and that the scope of the treaty should be limited to the Pacific region.

Hughes put forward two conditions for the signing of the new alliance: one was to formally abolish the "Anglo-Japanese alliance", and the other was to invite France and China to participate. The United States insisted on inviting France and China to participate in this agreement because the United States felt that Britain and France had many contradictions over the Near East and Germany, and in particular, France had a lot of debts to the United States, and that drawing France into this agreement would enhance the strength of the United States to compete with Britain and Japan. Hughes also believed that inviting China into this alliance would make the Chinese side feel that they were still an important force in the Far East, and that when a vote was required in the new alliance, there would be five votes instead of three, so that "no one would say that Britain and Japan were united against us." On the basis of Britain's original proposal and the United States' proposal, Japan's representative Bihara proposed an amendment, which was adopted by Hughes, Balfour, and Treasury Biao at a meeting and Hughes notified China and France to invite them to join. In this way, the "Five-Power Alliance" was formed.

On December 7, 1923, Britain, the United States, and Japan agreed to invite France and China to join the alliance. On December 9, the content of the alliance agreement was agreed, and on December 10, the five countries announced the content of the agreement.

On December 13, 1923, representatives of the United States, Britain, China, France, and Japan signed the Treaty on Insular Dependencies and Territories in the Pacific Region, commonly known as the "Five-Power Treaty," in Washington. In accordance with Article 4 of the "Five-Power Treaty," the "Anglo-Japanese Treaty" was formally abrogated on the date of entry into force when the five countries deposited their instruments of ratification in Washington. The other three of the treaty stipulate that the five States "respect each other's rights to insular possessions and possessions in the Pacific region" and that if such rights are "threatened by an act of aggression by any State", they shall "consult comprehensively and frankly with a view to reaching an agreement to take the most effective measures, jointly or individually". The Pact of the Five is valid for 10 years. In order to prevent the Japanese from becoming extraneous trouble, the treaty also stipulated that the "Pacific Island Dependencies and Territories" were limited to the islands under the Japanese Mandate, excluding the Japanese mainland archipelago, the Kuril Islands, and the Ryukyu, which had become independent. ,

The abolition of the "Anglo-Japanese Alliance" was a major step taken by the United States to curb Japan's expansion in the Far East and the Pacific, and it was also one of the important results achieved by the United States at the Washington Conference. After the "Anglo-Japanese Alliance" was dismantled, a number of Japanese politicians were still nostalgic for the great benefits that the alliance had brought to Japan in the past, and they lobbied among British politicians, but in vain. At the time of the collapse of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Takaya Chugosa, who had just returned to Tokyo after returning from his post at the end of World War I, said to Colonel Pickott, the British military attache in Japan: "In the future, it may not even be popular for the two sides to exchange translation officers assigned to the army." ”

As far as Britain is concerned, it is of little significance to continue to maintain the alliance after the demise of Russia and Germany, and if there is no special conflict of interest with Japan, the cooperative relationship between the two sides can be maintained secretly, but in the case of Japan's continuous infringement of British interests in the Far East, it is not harmful to abolish it, but some people have predicted that once the Anglo-Japanese alliance relationship is dissolved, Britain will inevitably become one of the hostile targets of the "yellow-skinned monkey cub" called by Tsar Nicholas II in the future, and it is impossible for British colonies in the Far East to be completely free from the scourge of war and abolished in the future." The legacy of the Anglo-Japanese alliance will erupt in the most violent form in the future. The subsequent development of the situation proved this point of view.

For the United States, the significance of this victory is not as high as it itself estimates. Britain is already in turmoil, and Japan itself is well aware of this. In the instructions given by the Japanese Government to its plenipotentiaries before the Washington Conference, it was called for "the preservation of Japan's special rights in Asia as the basic principle" when expanding or revising the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Moreover, the United States made further concessions in the treaty, recognizing Japan's special interests in the western Pacific region......

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