Abstract
The objective of this paper was to provide an analysis of political and diplomatic relations between the Czechoslovak Republic and the Japanese Empire in the interwar period in respect of the great and small powers politics in the Taisho/Showa prewar era. Multilateral point of view illustrated diplomatic approaches of concerned governments’ foreign policies towards extremist ideologies before the WWII.
Due to the WWI, which circumstances took part in newly emerging Czechoslovak state, the geopolitical disparity of Japan in East Asia and Czechoslovakia in Central Europe was for the first time overcome by common political and military interests of both countries. Fighting together against Bolsheviks in Russian Far East formed conditions for military cooperation between Czechoslovak legionnaires and the Imperial Japanese Army during the Siberian Expedition.
Therefore formal negotiations and informal personal visits were conducted by both Czechoslovak and Japanese political and military representatives and led to the establishment of mutual diplomatic relations in 1918. While peaceful period of 1920’s was significant for positive development ofdiplomatic and economic cooperation between Japan and Czechoslovakia, the Great Depression and political instability of international relations in the 1930’s divided political and economic interests of both countries and affected mutual relations not only on the bilateral level but also within the League of Nations.
As the Czechoslovak government, politically endangered by German militar expansion, supported her foreign trade by controversial arms export to China writhed by military conflicts, so the Czechoslovak and Japanese diplomats, at the cost of diminishing cooperation, had to face more disparities on behalf of their governments’foreign policies up to 1939.