China accepts Japan's demands

The British chronology of the war records under 9 May 1915 that China accepted Japan’s demands. Strictly speaking, the Chinese reply to the Japanese ultimatum is dated 8 May and was handed to the Japanese minister Hioki Eki late in the evening of that day, around midnight. On the morning of 9 May the foreign minister in Tokyo informed the American chargé d’affaires that, according to a telegram from Peking, the Chinese government had “unconditionally accepted the ultimatum”. The deadline set by the Japanese expired at 6 p.m. on 9 May, and it was this day that China remembered as the day of capitulation.

Deliberations in Peking

On 8 May President Yuan Shikai called a meeting of the government and the Council of State at the Zhongnanhai residence, which lasted several hours. According to the American minister Paul Reinsch, no one had any illusions that China could resist the Japanese army. The Chinese commanders, too, concluded that it was necessary to give way, and backed the President. There was no help from outside. The day before, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had expressed to the Chinese minister in London the hope that his government would accept the demands in their present form, since Japan had postponed the fifth group.

The Chinese handed the first version of the reply to the Japanese at about 8 p.m. It contained a wording which implied that all the disputed questions had been settled. Hioki refused to accept it and demanded an explicit undertaking that the points of the fifth group would still be discussed. In the final text the Chinese government declared that, “with a view to preserving peace in the Far East”, it accepted all the points of groups one to four and the note concerning the province of Fujian, as worded on 26 April, while the five points of the fifth group were postponed to future negotiations. The Japanese minister was asked to fix a day for signing the agreements. Reinsch judged that Japan had not given up the fifth group and that it could be expected to begin pressing again soon.

Day of National Humiliation

When news of the concessions spread, China was in uproar. Newspapers condemned the capitulation, and students and merchants in many cities organised a boycott of Japanese goods. Money was collected for a national salvation fund intended to strengthen the state, and buying Chinese products became an expression of patriotism. As early as May, Chinese associations, among them teachers’ associations, proclaimed 9 May the Day of National Humiliation. There was some argument over whether 7 May, the day the ultimatum was delivered, should be commemorated instead. In the following years the day was marked unofficially, and in 1927–1940 it was a public holiday in Kuomintang-ruled China.

The Bryan note

Washington reacted only after the event. On 11 May Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan sent identical notes to Tokyo and Peking. In them the United States announced that it would not recognise any agreement between Japan and China that impaired the treaty rights of Americans in China, the political or territorial integrity of the Republic of China, or the Open Door policy. This, however, changed nothing about the acceptance of the ultimatum. Japanese and Chinese diplomats set about drafting the final texts, which were signed on 25 May in Peking.