Accordingly Japanese diplomacy was forced to re-state and re-group
the whole corpus of the demands. On the 26th April, acting under
direct instructions from Tokio, the Japanese Minister to Peking
presented a revised list for renewed consideration, the demands
being expanded to twenty-four articles (in place of the original
twenty-one largely because discussion had shown the necessity of
breaking up into smaller units some of the original articles).
Most significant, however, is the fact that Group V, (which in its
original form was a more vicious assault on Chinese sovereignty
than the Austrian Ultimatum to Serbia of June, 1914) was so
remodelled as to convey a very different meaning, the group
heading disappearing entirely and an innocent-looking exchange of
notes being asked for. It is necessary to recall that, when taxed
with making Demands which were entirely in conflict with the
spirit of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Japanese Government
through its ambassadors abroad had categorically denied that they
had ever laid any such Demands on the Chinese Government. It was
claimed that there had never been twenty-one Demands, as the
Chinese alleged, but only fourteen, the seven items of Group V
being desiderata which it was in the interests of china to endorse
but which Japan had no intention of forcing upon her. The writer,
being acquainted from first to last with everything that took
place in Peking from the 18th January to the filing of the
Japanese ultimatum of the 7th May, has no hesitation in
stigmatising this statement as false.
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