The circle around genro Yamagata, the most influential survivor of the founding Meji generation, speculated more or less openly about the mistake that Japan had made in joining the side of the Entente. Convinced that Japan would in the long run face a confrontation with the United States, they favoured a conservative alliance with autocratic Tsarist Russia, a relationship that was consolidated by a secret treaty over the summer of 1916. But though scepticism about Japanese intentions toward China was certainly warranted, anti-Japanese outrage easily blinded Western observers to the ambiguity
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