The Arrangement between the Government of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan and the Government of the French Republic was signed in Paris on 10 June 1907 by Kurino Shinichiro, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the President of the Republic, and Stephen Pichon, senator and minister for foreign affairs, in French, with seals. It is not the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and not the Root–Takahira Agreement. The governments undertake to respect the independence and integrity of China and the principle of equal treatment in that country for the commerce and nationals of all nations; having a special interest in seeing order and a pacific state of things guaranteed especially in the regions of the Chinese Empire adjacent to the territories where they have rights of sovereignty, protection or occupation, they engage to support each other in assuring peace and security in those regions, with a view to maintaining the respective situation and territorial rights of the two contracting parties on the Asian continent. An occupation or demarcation handbook is not set out here.

The same day a declaration concerning French Indochina was signed. The two governments reserve talks for a commercial convention between Japan and Indochina and agree that most-favoured-nation treatment shall be accorded to Japanese officers and subjects in French Indochina as to their persons and the protection of their property, and the same treatment to subjects and protégés of French Indochina in the Empire of Japan, until the expiry of the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 4 August 1896. A tariff schedule or a visa guide is not transcribed.

A secret explanatory note, preserved in Japanese diplomatic papers, states that Fujian is, by reason of the neighbourhood of Formosa, included among the regions where the parties particularly desire order to be maintained. The public text was published in the Japanese official gazette on 17 June. Pichon read the arrangement and declaration in the Chamber on 15 June; the Chamber approved it. Wikipedia records that it took effect on the day of signature; it is not a ratified treaty with a depositary.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry treaty compilation reprints the French text and a Japanese version. It is not the Triple Intervention of 1895 and not a military alliance. The setting is the rapprochement after the Russo-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese talks then under way.

Cover: Hôtel du ministre des Affaires étrangères, Quai d'Orsay, the period seat; we do not claim the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907; 日仏明治四十年協約 (Japanese MFA treaty compilation).