In 1922, the Japanese withdrew from Siberia the last of their troops, which together with British and American forces had landed at Vladivostok, Russia’s principal Far Eastern port, in 1918, shortly before Hara had come to power. On this expedition the Japanese had sent far more than their share of troops in an obvious effort to fish for possible rewards in the troubled waters of the Russian Revolution, but the new government considered the venture unprofitable and withdrew completely.
In the winter of 1921–22, at the Washington Conference, Japan joined the United States and the principal European powers in recognizing the territorial integrity of China and renouncing the generally accepted policy of cutting up the “Chinese melon.” Japan also agreed with other members of the “Big Five” to limit their respective naval establishments. The ratio of capital ships was set at five for Great Britain and the United States, three for Japan, and 1.67 for France and Italy. This ratio, it was thought, would give Japan definite naval supremacy within her own waters but confine her fleet to the western Pacific.
This same winter, by a separate treaty with China, Japan restored to China the area around Kiaochow Bay and the economic concessions in contiguous parts of northern China once held by Germany. Japan also agreed to withdraw all her military forces from these areas. In 1925, the civilian government forced through a reduction of the standing army, and four of the twenty-one divisions were eliminated—a considerable cut in military strength and a saving to the tax-payer.