Hilo Accords (Napoleon's World)

The Hilo Accords were the agreements reached between the Allied and Asian Powers to end the Pacific War, signed between August 27th-September 4th, 1929. The primary players in the peace negotiations were the Americans, represented by Secretary of State John Andrew Clark, and the Japanese, represented by Shogun Umura Rogoda. Every member of the respective alliances was represented at the conference as well, but the Americans and Japanese largely dictated the terms of the agreements. The neutral French Empire and Socialist Republic of England also had representatives there.

Held in Hilo, Hawai'i, the peace treaty ended the state of war that had existed between the members of the Allied Powers and Asian Powers since 1924. The accords were largely designed to expediate the peace process begun by the agreement of a nominal ceasefire in June of 1929. The Japanese agreed to withdraw from the island of Sumatra in return for an ending of Oceanian claims to the island of Borneo, and the Japanese also agreed to withdraw soldiers from Singapore, a key demand of the French government who had leased the island to Japan during the duration of the conflict. The Japanese also agreed to end their claims on Hawai'i, which was traditionally an American protectorate, and whose occupation had been one of many triggers to the war.

The Americans, seeking to end hostilities with Japan as quickly as possible, made sure to negotiate a withdrawal of Japanese forces from Alaskan territory in the Aleutians and Asia, but did not stipulate the same in Siberia - thus, the Kuriles as well as significant territory of Siberia's Pacific coast were ceded to Japan under the "held territory clause," which mandated that occupied territory in Asia would remain with the country occupying that territory at the time of the ceasefire, causing the deep animosity of Siberia. The Americans, in a position of negotiating power, also forced the battered Chinese to accept the independence of Indochinese kingdoms such as Viet Nam, Siam and Burma, which led to the later growth of French influence in this region. The return of Russian-majority Vladivostok to Siberian hands was not pursued by the Americans, who did not want to involve themselves in Asian territorial disputes. Similarly, the American delegeation chose not to dictate terms of Japanese interference on the Asian continent beyond the return of Formosa (Taiwan) to Chinese hands by Japan.

The Hilo Accords ended Japanese hegemony over the Pacific Ocean, and despite the battle-weary nature of post-war America, the United States economy rebounded in a favorable economic climate in the next decade and the war, while long and bloody, established the United States, and not Japan, as the secondary global power alongside France. The Accords also turned Japanese attention away from direct territorial control, as it had pursued for fifty years, and towards economic hegemony in the Asian Prosperity Sphere. Japan's military halved in size by 1950, while its economy tripled thanks to aggressive reforms undertaken by Hirohito and his influential shogun of the era.