Treaty of Portsmouth

Through American mediation Japan and Russia signed a treaty ending their war; Russia recognized Japan’s paramount political, military and economic interests in Korea.

Russia ceded its lease of the Liaodong peninsula, the South Manchuria Railway and southern Sakhalin to Japan. Before this the United States, in the Taft–Katsura memorandum (July 1905), had acknowledged Japanese control of Korea while Japan disavowed any designs on the Philippines, and Britain, in the second Anglo-Japanese Alliance (August 1905), had recognized Japan’s right to protect Korea in return for Japan’s recognition of its position in India. With the powers’ consent, Japan forced the protectorate treaty on Korea two months later.