n.
officially International Conference on Naval Limitation
Conference held in Washington, D.C. (192122), to limit the naval arms race and negotiate Pacific security agreements.
Several major and minor treaty agreements were drafted and signed: the Four-Power Pact (signed by Britain, Japan, France, and the U.S.) stipulated mutual consultation regarding any issue in the Pacific and affirmed respect for the Pacific territories of signatory nations. The Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty (which Italy also signed) imposed proportional limits on the number of warships each signatory nation could maintain and mandated some actual disarmament; it lapsed in 1936 when Japan was refused equality with the U.S. and Britain. Another agreement regulated the use of submarines and outlawed poison gas in warfare. A Nine-Power Pact (with The Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, and China) affirmed China's sovereignty.