The Friend of My Enemy: German Perspectives on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance

Abstract In 1902, Britain and Japan signed the first of three alliances requiring each state to recognize and guarantee the other’s geopolitical interests in continental Asia. Even before the first Anglo-Japanese alliance was announced, there were obvious currents of both anti-British and anti-Japanese sentiment in Wilhelmine Germany. Whereas the latter was channelled into the so-called ‘yellow peril’ rhetoric popularized by Wilhelm II, the former shaped the ambitions of German Weltpolitik. German reactions to the Anglo-Japanese alliance evolved over the course of its roughly two-decade existence—from ambivalence, to anxiety over its perceived threat to German interests and, finally, to Schadenfreude as it began to unravel—and yet one element remained consistent. Whereas Japan was represented alternatively as the innocent dupe of British scheming and as a savvy political operator, German liberals aimed their critiques of the alliance almost exclusively at Britain. This animosity towards Britain existed alongside, and in a dialogic relationship with, a growing consensus that Japan represented an ambiguously coded counter-model to both Britain and Germany for its ability to navigate the murky waters of international politics without compromising its moral integrity or strategic self-interests. Examining German responses to the Anglo-Japanese alliance thus reveals a new perspective on the Anglo-German rivalry during the Age of Empire and explores the entangled politics of race and space informing German popular and political discourse.