Consular Police as an International Problem -From the Washington Conference to the Lytton Commission Report

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  • Kajii Y.
    立命館大学社会システム研究所客員研究員

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Other Title
  • 国際問題としての領事館警察小論 : ワシントン会議からリットン報告書まで
  • コクサイ モンダイ ト シテ ノ リョウジカン ケイサツ ショウロン : ワシントン カイギ カラ リットン ホウコクショ マデ

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Abstract

Stationed throughout China on the basis of the jurisdictional authority held by Japanese consulates, the consular police became a problem in China-Japan relations particularly after the 1920s. This article aims to make sense of Chinese and Japanese assertions, as well as Western opinions (especially British and American), from the time of the Washington Conference until Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations in the wake of the Manchurian Incident, as a way of understanding how the positive and negative dimensions of consular police activity were handled on the international stage. There were two main issues of contention between China and Japan in connection with the consular police: 1) whether or not the consular police possessed a legal basis, and 2) the actual activities of the consular police within the context of differing perceptions Chinese conditions at that time. For third party observers in Western nations, neither of these issues were of high interest, but during the 1920s there were numerous indicators of Western sympathy with the Japanese position. Western nations generally held a negative view of Japan's assertion that the consular police had a genuine legal basis, but because of the disorder caused by civil war and the inadequacy of Chinese legal and police institutions at that time, they affirmed Japan's move to station consular police in China and viewed consular police actions positively. However, there were also the assertions of international law scholar C. Walter Young in the Lytton Commission report issued in response to the Manchurian Incident, which were critical of both consular police actions and the dubious legality of the forces themselves. When Japan, dissatisfied with the Lytton Commission report, withdrew from the League on Nations, opportunities to debate issues concerning the consular police on an international stage also disappeared.

Journal

  • 人文學報

    人文學報 106 97-124, 2015-04-30

    THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN HUMANITIES, KYOTO UNIVERSITY

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