Taft–Katsura agreement
1905 Discussion between leaders of the United States and the Empire of Japan / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Taft–Katsura Agreement (桂・タフト協定, Katsura-Tafuto Kyōtei), also known as the Taft-Katsura Memorandum, was a 1905 discussion between senior leaders of Japan and the United States regarding the positions of the two nations in greater East Asian affairs, especially regarding the status of Korea and the Philippines in the aftermath of Japan's victory during the Russo-Japanese War. The memorandum was not classified as a secret, but no scholar noticed it in the archives until 1924.
The discussions were between William Howard Taft, the United States Secretary of War and Count Katsura Tarō, the Japanese Prime Minister on 27 July 1905. Katsura stated Japan's reasons for its making a protectorate of Korea and repeated that Japan had no interest in the Philippines,[1] which the US had acquired after the defeat of Spain during the 1898 Spanish–American War.
In 1924, Tyler Dennett was the first scholar to see the document and described it as containing "the text of perhaps the most remarkable 'executive agreement' in the history of the foreign relations of the United States."[2] The consensus of historians is that Dennett greatly exaggerated the importance of a routine discussion which changed nothing and set no new policies. Historians pointed out there was no formal agreement on anything new.[1] The word "agreement" in the documents meant merely the two sides agreed that both the English and Japanese versions of the notes of the meeting accurately covered the substance of the conversations.[3] President Theodore Roosevelt later agreed that Taft had correctly stated the American position.[2]
When Dennett first discovered the notes, he assumed they indicated a highly-significant "secret pact" between the US and Japan in creating the basis of an agreement whereby the two formerly-isolationist nations became world powers.[2] The conversations were regarding the extent of the spheres of influence of Japan and the United States and maintaining peace between them in the event of victory of Japan over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War.