The Renewal of Japan’s Interests in the Caucasus Ë 121
5.3 The Renewal of Japan’s Interests in the Caucasus
Having grown into a major international power in the aftermath of World War I, Japan
now sought to become an empire comparable to the world superpowers of the time.
Going along with them to gain international respectability, Japan accepted a degree of
disarmament and engaged in “liberal internationalism,” which was “less dependent
upon continental expansion than upon global trade and participation in the new in-
ternational framework for peace.”⁵⁴
There was another aspect to this “new Japan”: imperialist arrogance and ambi-
tions tempered by the perception of disrespect on the part of Western powers. Fa-
mously, Japan’s proposal for including a racial equality clause at the Versailles Peace
Treaty had been rejected. The United States had already been alarmed by Japan’s vic-
tory over the Russian Empire in 1905 and went so far as to devise war plans against
Japan soon afterward (see p. 62). By 1923, the Anglo-Japanese alliance itself was termi-
nated: despite Japan’s contribution to British war eorts during World War I, Britain
feared Japan’s rise and preferred closer ties to the United States.⁵⁵Moscow in turn
willingly sought to exploit the rift between Japan and the Anglo-American alignment.
Thus emerged the basic con guration of powers for the Paci c War twenty years later.
But in the 1920s, the Soviet Union was still Japan’s most important potential foe, espe-
cially for those Japanese strategists who dreamed of Japan’s continental expansion.
Following the end of the Russian Civil War, Japan continued to be involved in Cau-
casian aairs. There was a considerable movement of people between the Caucasus
and the Far East, especially Manchuria, which Japan closely monitored. Simon Or-
dzhonikidze (or Mikhail Nazarov, see p. 66), for example, was allegedly dispatched
to Tbilisi in 1923 as chief of Japanese intelligence in Georgia; there he ran a cinema
in the city. Fearing arrest, he “illegally” returned to Harbin in 1930, and his duty was
taken over by the Socialist Federalist David Rostomashvili (see p. 104), who, like Or-
dzhonikidze, had moved to Georgia from Harbin. Also, between 1923 and 1930 three
others (Giorgi Pitskhelauri, “Gurgenidze,” and “Kobaliani”) were sent to Georgia as
“resident spies” for Japan, ten additional agents being dispatched with them. Kirill
Gelovani and Serge Dzhokhadze were also consigned from Vladivostok to Georgia,
along with thirteen other agents. Gelovani allegedly recruited additional agents in
Tbilisi: in his 1937 confessions to Soviet authorities, he listed Zakharii Mirianashvili,
a former board member of the Society of Georgians in Vladivostok, “Kutateladze,” a
government o cial, and Aleksi Purtskhvaladze, also a former board member of the
Society of Georgians who settled in Kutaisi. Pitskhelauri was said to have used the
wine trade as a cover for his work as a “Japanese spy” and to have reported to Japan
54 Frederick R. Dickinson,World War I and the Triumph of a New Japan, 1919-1930(Cambridge-New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 8.
55 Phillips Payson O’Brien, ed.,The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922(London-New York: Rout-
ledge Curzon, 2004).