Please describe what the content and purpose of the Agreement in its several parts were; the political and strategic circumstances of its conclusion in 1917 and its relation to developments during the First World War; to what extent they were expressions, or deviations from the policy which the agreeing parties hitherto had pursued towards China; how it was received in the diplomatic community when announced; what part China had during the negotiations, and which position it took when confronted with the agreement; what effect it had on the China policy of Japan, the US and other great powers invested in China; how it influenced subsequent negotiations at Washington and the resulting Nine-Power-Treaty of 1922; and, finally, how diplomatic historians characterise the relative merit of the Agreement with regards to Japan’s China policy and Japanese-American competition in Asia respectively.