make it eligible to attend the postwar peace conference, where they hoped to find friends who would help block the threats of Japanese expansion. They planned to send a combat unit to the Western Front, but never did so. British diplomats were afraid that the U.S. and Japan would displace Britain's leadership role in the Chinese economy. They sought to play Japan and the United States against each other, while at the same time maintaining cooperation among all three nations against Germany. In January 1915, Japan secretly issued an ultimatum of Twenty-One Demands to the Chinese government. They included Japanese control of former German rights, 99 year leases in southern Manchuria, an interest in steel mills, and concessions regarding railways. China did have a seat at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. However, it was refused a return of the former German concessions and China had to accept the Twenty-One demands. A major reaction to this humiliation was a surge in Chinese nationalism expressed in the May Fourth Movement. Results Japan's participation in World War I on the side of the Allies sparked unprecedented economic growth and earned Japan new colonies in the South Pacific seized from Germany. After the war Japan signed the Treaty of Versailles and enjoyed good international relations through its membership in the League of Nations and participation in international disarmament conferences. However, it resented the sense of superiority among the western powers. The Japanese army was becoming an increasingly independent political force with its own plans on how to deal with Manchuria, China, and Russia regardless of civilian decision-makers. See also Causes of World War I Diplomatic history of World War I Historiography of the causes of World War I History of China–Japan relations History of Japanese foreign relations International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919) Japan during World War I List of territories occupied by Imperial Japan Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 Notes Further reading Akagi, Roy Hidemichi. Japan's Foreign Relations 1542–1936: A Short History (1936) online 560pp Barnhart, Michael A. Japan and the World since 1868 (1995) excerpt Beasley, William G. Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (Oxford UP, 1987). Dickinson, Frederick R. "Japan" in Richard F. Hamilton, and Holger H. Herwig, eds. Decisions for War, 1914–1917 (2004), pp 300–36 Dickinson, Frederick R. War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, 1914–1919 (1999). Drea, Edward J. Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853–1945 (2016) online