I have been reading a few journal articles on the subject but I have not really found any information as to what these treaties entailed for these two developing nations. It seems the two nations relationship with Britain takes the forefront. Any information or resources would be greatly appreciated.
What did these two nations want from the treaties and did they receive it?
The Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes wanted a buffer zone between Japan and Australia. Australia had always possessed a strong fear of the “Yellow Peril,” a fear that Asian hordes would descend on Great Britain’s isolated dominions in the South Pacific. By 1918, Japan had emerged as the focus of that fear and their own territorial ambitions in the Pacific raised alarm bells in Australia. To protect Australia, Hughes wanted German possessions in the Pacific, seized by Australian and New Zealand forces early in the war, to be given over to The British dominions. These included German Samoa and German New Guinea. After a fair bit of negotiation and arguing against Japan’s own demand that it keep the German territories it had occupied, the dominions were given mandate over previously German possessions south of the equator while Japan retained those north of the equator.
There is more to this answer and I will return to it later when I have a bit more time.
A good starting point for examining Hughes and the Paris Peace Conference is Joan Beaumont’s Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War as well Fitzhardinge’s biography of Hughes The Little Digger.