If a stronger country invades and conquers part or all of a weaker one in an act of aggression, the United States usually does not accept or recognize this act as lawful. This is known as the Stimson Doctrine. Think of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, or Russia’s 2014 invasion of the Crimea. Such was not always how the U.S has approached such situations before the twentieth century. The U.S. would recognize acts of power as facts of life. Peter Deane explains.
Henry Stimson. Source: Harris & Ewing, available here.
U.S. Secretary of State John M. Hay’s Open Door Policy set the background in 1899. The U.S. intended to preserve the territorial integrity of China. At the time, other powers seemed to respect it; however this changed over time.
1915
Japan issued the Twenty-One Demands to China with the goal to obtain control of large portions of China’s infrastructure. With the European powers occupied with World War One, and the Japanese Empire an allied nation, they made no effort to oppose it. China had no choice other than war to the acceptance of the demands.
Secretary of State William J. Bryan was strongly opposed to them as a contravention of the Open Door Policy. Rebuffed by the European powers, he wished then to act unilaterally. He was also a sincere pacifist and wished to do nothing hostile. The State Department issued a note: the U.S. would not recognize the legality of any of the demands, or officially accept them as true. In other words, nonrecognition of any Japanese treaty that infringed on China’s sovereignty. At the time the State Department saw it as a weak expedient—no threat of force or sanction lay behind it—but the best one available. This attack on Japan’s authority did nothing to impair the empire’s power. Japan disregarded the note.
1931
On September 18, the “Mukden Incident” occurred. Mukden was a railway station in Manchuria, a north Chinese province. The Japanese army alleged that Chinese soldiers used explosives to damage one section of track of a Japanese owned railroad. A later League of Nations investigation found the “Incident” to be a Japanese Army fabrication.
However the Mukden Incident provoked public outcry among the Japanese and provided the pretext for the Japanese army to advance against nearby Chinese army forces, which were disorganized and easily defeated. They successfully expanded their attack across all Manchuria in the following weeks.
Manchuria was a resource-rich province adjacent to Japanese-controlled Korea. Many of the Twenty-One Demands had pertained to Manchuria, such as railroad control. The Japanese Empire benefited greatly from influence over Manchuria, and stood to gain still more with absolute control. Japanese occupation of an entire Chinese province was thinly veiled with the formation of a new nation called Manchukuo.
In this way, from the standpoint of international law, stood the Nine-Power Treaty of 1922, which guaranteed China’s territorial integrity, the Kellogg-Briand Treaty (Pact of Paris) and the League of Nations. Both China and Japan were signatories and members, respectively. The U.S. was a signatory of both treaties but not a League member.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact was a 1928 treaty with over fifty signatories. Each agreed to renounce war and military aggression as national policy. Such a lovely idea. But sad to say, the Treaty had no teeth. Violation carried no penalty. Other signatories could respond ad lib.
Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson raised the issue of response in Cabinet meetings. President Herbert C. Hoover, although he had much foreign policy experience, was otherwise occupied. By this time the Depression was worsening steadily, beyond prior ones, with no end in sight.
Hoover was a man of Quaker roots and, while not a pacifist, he shrank from the idea of the use of military force. He saw the U.S. armed forces as a purely defensive tool. In a Cabinet meeting on October 9, Stimson learned that Hoover’s main concern about the crisis was to avoid conflict and not allow “under any circumstances anybody to deposit that baby in our lap.” Perhaps the League of Nations would act somehow.
The European powers faced declining economies too and were in no hurry to act. The League opted to appoint a commission (the Lytton Commission) to investigate the Mukden Incident, over Japanese protest. That decision effectively stalled any League response for months.
Stimson felt the need to do something. Repeatedly he raised the issue of the “weapon” of economic sanctions against Japan. But Hoover had very strong opinions against the use of sanctions because of the civilian suffering they could cause. Also, the U.S. could ill afford to close a foreign market for its goods. Sanctions were warfare conducted by other means and could lead to military conflict (as they did ten years later). He had famously worked to relieve hunger in Europe due to WWI and wished to inflict privation on no one. Hoover grew testy over the issue.
Hoover suggested instead, in the November 9 Cabinet meeting, that Bryan’s strategy of nonrecognition be used. Stimson adopted this idea and worked out a formulation with State Department staff. This he brought back to the Cabinet to some opposition. Both the Secretaries of War and the Navy opposed it as risky; the Administration was not prepared to put force behind any move that might antagonize Japan. But Stimson and Hoover agreed. It committed the U.S. to nothing. Others could join in if they wished.
1932
Stimson’s staff finished the final draft. “The American Government … does not intend to recognize any situation, treaty or agreement which may be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of…” standing agreements.
This was delivered first to the embassies of China and Japan on January 7, and then copies sent to the other Nine Power Treaty signatories. The Chinese and Japanese ambassadors were first informed of its content in person. Neither reacted strongly.
In February, Stimson made the policy public by writing an open letter to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It said in part:
“One cannot discuss the possibility of modifying or abrogating … provisions of the Nine Power Treaty without considering at the same time the other promises upon which they were really dependent.”
The United States could cease compliance with treaties too. But everyone knew that such was an empty threat at a time when the U.S. was attempting to shrink its own navy to save money. Given this reality, the Cabinet officers opposed felt it worse than useless to make an empty threat.
Stimson was stunned when the British government reacted coolly to the note, rather than support and echo its message. Ultimately the British did support it, publicly at the League of Nations. This coincided with the Lytton Commission’s report that the Mukden incident was a fabrication. This led to the prompt departure of the Japanese from the League of Nations.
“Manchukuo” gained little in the way of diplomatic recognition in the following years, but Japanese aggression was not swayed by world opinion.
President Hoover faced re-election and was not fond of the term “Stimson Doctrine”. It had been his suggestion originally. But the term stuck, to the Secretary’s quiet satisfaction. The Doctrine has remained a basic principle of American foreign policy since then.
What do you think of the Stimson Doctrine and China? Let us know below.
Bibliography
Fausold, M. L. The Presidency of Herbert C. Hoover. Lawrence, KA; University of Kansas Press, 1985
Ferrell, R. H. American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929-1933. New Haven, CT; Yale University Press, 1957
Hoover, H. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920-1933. New York, NY; The Macmillan Co., 1952
Jeansonne, G. The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928-1933. New York, NY; Palgrave Macmillan, 2012
Stimson, H. L. and Bundy, McG. On Active Service in Peace and War. New York, NY; Harper Bros., 1947
Wheeler, G. E. Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U.S. Navy: A Sailor’s Life. Washington, DC; Naval History Division, Department of the Navy, 1974
