Japan's imperial ambitions. Despite Japan's economic and military strength, and her military assistance in the Allied campaigns against Germany's colonies in Asia, after the war the Allies refused to give Japan the diplomatic recognition its leaders believed they had earned. Under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the Japanese navy was limited to threefifths the number of capital ships (referring to the largest classes of ships, such as battleships and later aircraft carriers) that the British and American navies were allowed. Japan's military leaders, especially its army leaders, were affronted.
The Japanese believed that their country had taken its rightful place as Asia's dominant power, and that their wartime allies Great Britain and the United States should recognize this role. Japan's success against China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), in which Japanese troops successfully invaded Korea, had helped establish Japan's hegemony in the region. A few years later, in the Russo-Japanese War (1904- 05), the Japanese navy had shocked the world by demolishing the powerful Russian fleet. Japan's victory in this war secured economic privileges in former Russian-controlled territory in Manchuria, the northern section of China that possessed an abundance of timber and mineral riches.
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