Victory, Riots, and Rejection

The Russo-Japanese War, Japanese Nationalism, and the Collapse of the Harriman-Katsura Memorandum

Abstract

This paper examines railroad magnate E.H. Harriman’s failed bid to acquire control of the South Manchuria Railway following the Russo-Japanese War. The paper primarily draws on George Kennan’s contemporary account, E. H. Harriman's Far Eastern Plans (1917), as well as many scholarly sources about the Russo-Japanese War, the Treaty of Portsmouth, Meiji Japan, the Hibiya riots, and other relevant topics. Newspapers, photographs, and other primary sources are also incorporated. The paper argues that the collapse of the Harriman-Katsura memorandum was not due to a simple failure of negotiation. Instead, it was a collision between two positions that were fundamentally incompatible: American commercial capitalism, which viewed the railway as a business asset that could and should be sold and optimized for profit, and Japanese imperial nationalism, grown by the Meiji Restoration and intensified into anti-Western sentiment following Japan’s stunning victory over Russia in 1905. The Japanese victory over a major European power was the first of its kind in modern history, and with that, Japan did not want or see a need to share the spoils of its war with American capitalists. For the Japanese, the South Manchuria Trophy was a crucial trophy of a war that had cost them nearly 100,000 lives. The Hibiya riots of September 1905 showed the volatility of the Japanese public over the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth. Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō's decision to oppose and ultimately block the memorandum showed a pragmatic assessment of the domestic political situation. Harriman built his career by rehabilitating and acquiring failing American railroads, and he assumed that Japan’s financial strain would compel them to comply. He was wrong. The collapse of the Harriman Memorandum marks a moment when new Japanese confidence, born of their military successes, prevented a joint U.S.-Japanese economic venture and set the stage for a strategic rivalry in East Asia.