ieither all of Micronesia or part of it? Presumably by threats or bribes or horsetrading of some sort?
Why would any one want to? I don't think it was on ANY one's agenda.
Having Japan give up Micronesia? not on anyone's radar.
Errr... What?
Why would any one want to? I don't think it was on ANY one's agenda. Getting Japan out of China? Sure. Having Japan keep to the various naval treaties? Sure. Having Japan treat Koreans and Chinese like human beings? Well, sort of (given the complaining powers didn't treat their colonial subjects like full human beings).
Having Japan give up Micronesia? not on anyone's radar.
I think that's an exaggeration.
As documented in Akira Iriye's "Troubled Encounter", the US was reluctant to acknowledge a Japanese right to occupy at least the island of Yap, because of its strategic cable station.
Writing in 1921, Hector Bywater noted, "The majority of the European delegates at the Peace Conference were mildly surprised at the emphasis
with which Japanese envoys urged their country's claim to become mandatory of the former German territories north of the Equator.
Additionally, Japan felt it necessary to reassure its alliance partners in 1914 that it had no designs prejudicial to the final disposition of the Micronesian territories it occupied. Of course, I think the Japanese gained British diplomatic support for holding on to those territories in 1917 (that is when they got British support for retaining German rights in Shandong postwar).
So yeah, it was not a "hot-button" but it was worthy of discussion and bargaining. It also arguably had more relevance to the security of American imperial positions that the status of Shandong.
How about in the latter part of 1916? By that point you reach the balance point of their having mostly been already lost and American loans to the Entente starting to increase so that the Germans could be minded to sell them off whilst the Entente are in a awkward position to refuse to hand them over.TFSmith121- would the Germans have been willing to sell Micronesia and western Samoa in august 1914 though? it may be considered bad for morale to start the war off by selling parts of the colonial domain and don't the Germans tink they are in a short war anyway?
Would any American government been in position to act quickly enough to make a purchase before the area was invaded by Entente countries?
Dathi Thorfinnson - I am intrigued by the idea of giving Japan a free hand in Sakhalin and the Russian Far East in exchange for Micronesia. However it does seem a bit too cynical to fit with Wilsonian rhetoric. Could this have been palatable to him and if not to him perhaps to a President Charles Evans Hughes instead? Or would Hughes have also practiced a rhetoric and policy of no annexations and no indemnities?