Paris 1919, A Stolen Chinese Box, An Alternative Theory on China-Japan in WW1 and Robert Goddard’s The Ways of the World

Interesting when you happen to pick up a novel that refers to an incident you’ve recently written about. So, if you happen to be interested in China’s role at the Paris Peace Conference and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles in 1919, you’ll probably enjoy Robert Goddard’s The Ways of the World. The novel is the first in the author’s planned The Wide World trilogy concerning espionage and shady goings-on in the aftermath of World War One and featuring James “Max” Maxted, a former Great War flying ace caught up in Great Powers deception and general murkiness. Book one of the trilogy, The Ways of the World, takes place during the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919 in that great city. One aspect of the book invokes one of the great mysteries of that period and offers a possible hypothesis that any readers of my recent Penguin China World War One series e-book Betrayal in Paris might find interesting.

Here’s the mystery. Obviously during WW1 Japan took advantage of the European Great Powers killing each other in France and Belgium to make a land grab at the former German concession of Tsingtao (Qingdao) and across Shantung (Shandong) province (if you didn’t know that see Jonathan Fenby’s new book on the incident here). Then, with China looking weak, Tokyo made its infamous and extortionist 21 Demands upon Peking. In 1917 China officially declared war on Germany and became a recognised Allied nation. At the Armistice China was awarded a seat at the Paris Peace Conference and came looking for restitution of its territory in Tsingtao and Shantung. They were to be disappointed and betrayed at Versailles – Japan kept hold of Tsingtao with Great Power (and US) acquiescence. That’s the above-the-surface story. Of course there’s also a below-the-surface tale….

The official leader of China’s delegation to Versailles was Lou Tseng-tsiang (Lu Zhengxiang), a veteran diplomat and former Chinese ambassador to the Russian Empire at St Petersburg (Petrograd). Lou sailed from China to France with a stopover in Tokyo. This worried some who considered Lou rather pro-Japanese and some of his masters in the Peking government to be to cosy with Tokyo too. Suspicions heightened when Lou had a two-hour private meeting with Japan’s foreign minister. It became a confused situation – the Japanese claimed that Lou had promised not to cause any trouble between China and Japan, while the Chinese side claimed Lou had not officially recognised the validity of Japan’s 21 Demands.

Then it all became the stuff of a spy book. Rumours appeared in the press of the apparent theft of a box of Chinese official documents in Tokyo during Lou’s stopover. The possible scenarios multiplied:

1) Lou had allowed the Japanese to take the documents to undermine China’s bargaining position over Shantung at Versailles – the reasoning? He was always pro-Japanese and probably worked for them or was bribed;

2) The Peking government had instructed Lou to let the box fall into Japanese hands – the reasoning? The Peking government had strong pro-Tokyo elements who thought an alliance of some sort with Japan would help them beat the Southern, alternative, government established in Canton by Sun Yat-sen. It was an unholy alliance for regime survival purposes;

3) The Japanese did indeed steal the box – the reasoning? Well, they would wouldn’t they, as they wanted to undermine China’s arguments in Paris;

4) The box was never stolen – the reasoning? Lou never confirmed he’d lost it, the Japanese never confirmed they had it and the whole thing was a tall tale thrown together to make Japan look bad and China look even more bullied by Tokyo in Paris.

Goddard, however, has a much more thrilling explanation for the contents of the missing box (which I’ll paraphrase to avoid any spoilers):

The box contained proof that Germany attempted to get Japan to switch sides in WW1 from the Allies to the Axis and so use the Japanese Navy to attack Hawaii and the Philippines thereby distracting America if and when it entered the war. The bait (which the Germans offered via the Chinese – OK, a bit convoluted this – why not go direct to Tokyo?) was German controlled lands in the event of victory in the Pacific, Russian Far East and, rather daringly, Australia and New Zealand. Goddard supposes the Japanese agreed and signed a letter to that effect which was in Chinese hands, but then reneged just prior to America’s entry into the war. Still the letter would have been majorly embarrassing and would, if released, have undermined Great Power support for Japan in Paris and probably seen the Europeans side with China over Shantung and not Japan. Thus they stole the letter back during Lou’s stopover en route to Paris.

Fiendish! And a nice theory….maybe the letter will turn up one day; maybe it won’t; probably it never existed! But then was a Chinese box really stolen in 1918 in Tokyo and, if so, what was in it?