Twenty-One Demands
21개조 요구
The five groups of demands that the Ōkuma Shigenobu cabinet of Japan secretly presented to Yuan Shikai’s Beijing government on 18 January 1915, during the First World War. They covered the transfer of German rights in Shandong, privileges in southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia and control of the Hanyeping iron complex; Group 5, requiring China to hire Japanese advisers, was dropped after the powers objected. Japan issued an ultimatum on 7 May and Yuan signed the treaties on 25 May. The demands provoked a nationwide boycott of Japanese goods and a surge of nationalism that fed into the May Fourth Movement.
In depth
Background: on 23 August 1914, citing the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japan declared war on Germany and took Qingdao and the German leasehold at Jiaozhou Bay. Seeing an opportunity in China’s post-revolutionary disorder and the European war, the Ōkuma cabinet and Foreign Minister Katō Takaaki drafted the list, which was reviewed by the genrō and the Taishō Emperor; Minister Hioki Eki delivered it privately to Yuan Shikai on 18 January 1915.
Contents: Group 1 (four demands) confirmed Japan’s seizure of the German rights in Shandong and extended its sphere over the province’s railways and coast; Group 2 (seven) extended the South Manchuria Railway leasehold to 99 years and gave Japan rights of settlement, extraterritoriality and appointment of officials in southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia; Group 3 (two) gave Japan control of the Hanyeping complex of Hanyang, Daye and Pingxiang; Group 4 (one) barred further coastal or island concessions to other powers. Group 5 (seven) would have had China hire Japanese advisers to run its finances and police and given Japan effective control of Fujian, making China in effect a Japanese protectorate.
Negotiation and results: Beijing leaked the contents to the powers to gain time, and amid British and American objections Japan, after China rejected its revised proposal on 26 April, dropped Group 5 and on 7 May sent an ultimatum with a two-day deadline. Yuan signed the Treaty Concerning Southern Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia and the Treaty Concerning Shandong on 25 May. Japan lost more British and American trust than it gained, and in China a boycott of Japanese goods and anti-Japanese nationalism followed. When the Paris Peace Conference awarded the Shandong rights to Japan in 1919, that anger erupted in the May Fourth Movement.