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Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Honours) at Macquarie University. / Thesis (MA (Hons))--Macquarie University (Division of Humanities, Dept. of Asian Languages), 2006. / Bibliography: leaves 137-160. / Introduction -- Anglo-Japanese relations and World War One -- Fear of Japan in Australia -- William Morris Hughes -- Japan's proposal and diplomacy at Paris -- Reasons for rejection : a discussion -- Conclusion. / Japan as an ally of Britain, since the signing of Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, entered World War One at British request. During the Great War Japan fought Germany in Asia and afforded protection to Australia. After the conclusion of the War, a peace conference was held at Paris in 1919. As a victorious ally and as one of the Five Great Powers of the day, Japan participated at the Paris Peace Conference, and proposed racial equality to be enshrined in the Covenant of the League of Nations. This Racial Equality Bill, despite the tireless efforts of the Japanese delegates who engaged the representatives of other countries in intense diplomatic negotiations, was rejected. The rejection, a debatable issue ever since, has inspired many explanations including the theory that it was a deliberate Japanese ploy to achieve other goals in the agenda. This thesis has researched the reasons for rejection and contends that the rejection was not due to any one particular reason. Four key factors: a) resolute opposition from Australian Prime Minister Hughes determined to protect White Australia Policy, b) lack of British support, c) lack of US support, and d) lack of support from the British dominions of New Zealand, Canada and South Africa; converged to defeat the Japanese proposal. Japanese inexperience in international diplomacy evident from strategic and tactical mistakes, their weak presentations and communications, and enormous delays in negotiations, at Paris, undermined Japan's position at the conference, but the reasons for rejection of the racial equality proposal were extrinsic. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xii, 188 leaves

This thesis explains the relationships between the British Expedition to China, the Qing state, and the Chinese maritime and river population during the Opium War (1839-1842). Drawing on scholarship on borderlands and frontiers as well as a variety of textual and visual sources, the thesis argues that the Opium War transformed vast coastal and waterway regions in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces into what can be conceptualized as "water borders." These water borders were initially characterized by the existence of the Qing Empire's sea frontier, where the Qing rulers, with the "inner-outer paradigm" in mind, strove to maintain control over those labeled as "outer barbarians," "Han evildoers," "villainous fishers," and the "Dan." The rise of a British wartime frontier in China and its adverse effects on local transportation as well as Chinese regional and international trade, however, destabilized southeast China's socioeconomic order. With the Qing forces weakened, Chinese piracy was unleashed, and given limited British naval power, there was an absence of any militarily hegemonic power in southeast China's waters. The British occupation and naval blockade, moreover, resulted in the emergence of overlaps and interstices of the Qing and British empires. On the one hand, the British Expedition and the Qing state conflicted over managing Chinese merchant craft and their trade. On the other hand, subject to neither Qing nor British control, many Chinese people living along the coast and rivers took advantage of the wartime opportunities and expanded their activities and networks to fissures of Qing control and the newly opened interstitial space. The thesis engages with Opium War studies by 're-reorienting' the war toward the coast and revealing the war's three "inner" aspects, namely the Qing efforts to "tame" the sea frontier, British rule in wartime China, and the Qing-British conflicts over controlling Chinese littoral people. The thesis, moreover, contributes to scholarship on late imperial and modern Chinese littoral societies. It argues that while the war marked the beginning of an unprecedented-scale interaction of Chinese coastal and riverine people with Westerners in China, the evolution of Chinese littoral societies during the war was in fact a continuation of the preceding centuries. The Opium War, the thesis argues, brought about one of the most dramatic political-social upheavals in late imperial littoral China. Furthermore, the thesis revisits British imperialism in late imperial and modern China by looking at the origins of the British "formal empire," limitations of British power, and wartime aids of the "indigenous" population for the British. The thesis also reassesses the significance of the Opium War in the history of the Qing Empire. It argues that for the Qing state, its anti-opium campaign and anti-British war in 1839-1842 constituted one of the recurrent threats on the maritime frontier for the empire's first two centuries. It also highlights some aspects of similarities and linkage of the Qing Empire's maritime and inland borders. Furthermore, the thesis reevaluates the Qing's state capacity during the Opium War and in the following years, highlighting its partial ability to control the empire's littorals. Last but not least, the water border framework constructed in the thesis serves to underscore some aspects of continuity in the political and socioeconomic development of late imperial southeast China, and to facilitate comparison between different frontiers in the Qing Empire, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

Anglo-American kinship, as a set of historical continuities linking the United States to Great Britain and as a reckoning of relatedness, constituted a valuable cultural resource for Southerners as they contemplated their place within the American nation and outside in the nineteenth century. Like the more conventional calculations of consanguinity and familial belonging it referenced, the Anglo-American kinship was contingent, convoluted, and, not infrequently, contested. Articulated at various times by masters and former slaves, ministers and merchants, plantation mistresses and politicians, this sense of belonging to an imagined transatlantic family transcended the boundaries of gender, race, and class as readily as it traversed national borders. Though grounded in biogenetic factors, the language of Anglo-American kinship encompassed claims of belonging predicated on confessional faith, language, and institutions as well as blood. This thesis considers the interaction between conceptions of Anglo-American kinship and the formation of Southern national identity, both unionist and separatist, between 1830 and 1890 by examining institutions and social rituals that both inculcated filiopietism and constructed Southerness in the Civil War era and beyond. The subjects under consideration in this study include the role of European travel in forging Southern distinctiveness before the war, ring tournaments and the ethos of medieval chivalry they promoted, the Protestant Episcopal Church and its role in managing the sectional crisis, postbellum immigration societies and their vision of the plantation South remade in the image of British manors, and the role that state historical associations played in reunion and the entrenchment of the Lost Cause mythology as the predominant historical framework for interpreting the American Civil War.

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The thesis deals with Britain's early Cold War history and the political history of the Church of England. It mainly uses primary sources, and contributes to our growing understanding of the early Cold War, especially in its cultural/religious elements. It explores how the Church of England dealt with the development of the early Cold War in Britain. It argues that in order to understand better the Church of England's role, an account of its perspective on issues of state modernisation dating back to at least the 1930s is necessary. It was then, during a decade of authoritarianism, and especially at the Oxford Conference of 1937, that the Church' standpoint towards secularisation was established, while the transnational agenda of the ecumenical movement was also adopted and internalized by Church of England. The thesis also examines the agencies which it built and worked with: in particular the British Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. As the Church is the Established Church, its relationship with specific government agencies, especially the British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Information also became increasingly important. The thesis reveals the Church of England's lack of autonomy in time of crisis and the importance of key individuals for the institutional leadership of the Church. Its ecumenical agenda had played an important role, but this was under pressure after the War, as a Europe-wide Christian community was increasingly challenged by 'Western Union' plans for a Cold War Western, Christian community and bloc. By 1948 the Church had been enrolled in the Cold War between East and West which was apparent in its alignment with British government policies and its withdrawn role in the ecumenical community. The thesis adds to our understanding of the Church of England's relationship to the state in these years, and contributes to the cultural dimension of the early Cold War in Britain.

This study examines Churchill's struggle during the summer of 1940 to preserve Britain's naval superiority worldwide, through the neutralization of the French fleet and by securing the active participation of the United States. Sources consulted included autobiographies of the participants, especially those by Churchill, Reynaud, Baudouin, and Weygand, document collections, and British and American official histories. This study is organized to give a chronological analysis of Churchill's efforts from 10 May to 2 September 1940, ending with the United States' acceptance of the destroyers-for-bases agreement. This act committed them to shared strategical responsibilities with Great Britain. The thesis concludes that Churchill's efforts in this period laid the foundation for later Allied victory.

Blair sent British troops to join U.S. forces in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 at great political cost to himself. What motivated him to take this step? Sources for this work include: autobiographies and biographies of individuals close to Blair; journal and newspaper articles and monographs on this topic; Prime Minister's speeches and press conferences. Part one is comprised of five chapters including the Introduction; Blair's years at school; Blair's early political career; and From Parliament to Prime Minister. Part two includes four chapters that analyze motivating factors such as, Anglo-American Relations; Blair's personality, faith, and his relationship with Gordon Brown; and finally, Blair's perception of Britain's Manifest Destiny. All of these factors played a role in Blair's decision.

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Thesis (D. Litt. et Phil. (History))