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The World View of Shin Chae-ho and the Third Russo-Japanese Treaty (1910-1912)－Focusing on the Russo-Japanese Convention of 1912 dividing Inner Mongolia－

Deokkyoo Choi 1

1동북아역사재단

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ABSTRACT

Editorials Shin Chae-ho authored in early 1910 on issues concerning Manchuria reflected his view of the world, which held a precise insight into the international situation at the time that unfortunately became a reality for history. The fact that he anticipated the possible outbreak of a massive war originating over Manchuria bears major implications as we near the centenary of the occurrence of World War I. Shin Chae-ho’s view connoted a sense of crisis that instability in Manchuria, the Balkan of the East, would become the cause of a massive war as powerful nations at the time took great interest in the region and engaged in a heated competition over it. To solve such a crisis, Shin Chae-ho suggested the following：“Oh, people of Japan, since the world belongs to its people who will not allow Japan to take the lead alone, would it not be wise to maintain happiness by settling for a measure to achieve true peace in the East and strengthen Japan’s position within it?”The core issue of the conflict among the United States, Russia, and Japan in regards to Manchuria and Mongolia was that the United States regarded Manchuria as part of China, while Russia and Japan maintained the “partition of Manchuria” policy. Such a gap contributed to the failure of a joint action among the powers to help stabilize the new government of China, which was established as a result of the Chinese Revolution. The United States supported the “principle of universality” and promoted equal opportunity and open door policy in China. Meanwhile, Russia and Japan adhered to the “principle of particularity” and set Manchuria and Mongolia as their areas of particular interests and blocked the powers from intervening in these regions. As a result, the future of Manchuria and Mongolia, as to which path these two regions would eventually take, became a great concern. This issue required an approach from a world-history point of view as it was interconnected with the hegemonic competition between the United Kingdom and Germany. Against this background, this paper reevaluates the causes that prevented the powers from reaching an agreement on the Chinese issues from the perspective of global history by analyzing the international relations in the imperial period and Chinese policies of the Western powers during the Chinese Revolution. This paper refers to Japanese diplomatic documents, sourcebook of foreign relations of the United States, and British documents on World War Ⅰ, in order to identify the process of concluding the third Russo-Japanese agreement on the partition of Inner Mongolia, and also cites from materials of the National Historical Archives of Russia.

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