The conference held in the USA between November 1921 and February 1922 to discuss political stability in the Far East and naval disarmament. Summoned on US initiative, the conference was attended by Belgium, Britain, China, France, Holland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the USA and resulted in a series of treaties including a Nine‐Power Treaty guaranteeing China’s independence and territorial integrity, a Japanese undertaking to return the region around Qingdao to Chinese possession, and an Anglo‐French‐Japanese‐US agreement to guarantee each other’s existing Pacific territories. Naval discussions resulted in a ten‐year moratorium on capital‐ship construction. The Washington Conference successfully placed restraints on both the naval arms race and Japanese expansionism, but by the 1930s both problems broke out afresh.