In time, most people came to look more for guidance in national matters to military commanders than to political leaders. The main concern of Japanese military modernization in the early 1900s focused on adopting the weaponry of the Western world. To do so Japan had to create a system where they could manufacture the technology themselves. This would cause the industrialization of Japan, called for by the leaders of the island country. Another strategy that Japan used to advance their position in the world would be to ally with European nations. Japan saw itself vulnerable to European powers, thus the country decided to ally with Great Britain in 1902. The alliance, named the Anglo-Japanese alliance, called for both nations to come to each others aid if a war with more than two additional nations broke out. Wars and other conflicts The first overseas test of the nation's new military capabilities was the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, which was in retaliation for the 1871 murder of shipwrecked Ryūkyūan sailors. It was followed by a series of victorious military ventures until World War II. Japan moved against Korea and China (First Sino-Japanese War), and Russia (Russo-Japanese War) to secure the raw materials and strategic territories it believed necessary for the development and protection of the homeland. Territorial gains were achieved in Korea, the southern half of Sakhalin ("Karafuto" in Japanese), and Manchuria. As an ally of Britain in World War I, Japan assumed control over Germany's possessions in Asia in the Treaty of Versailles, notably in China's Shandong Province, and the German-controlled Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall islands in the Pacific Ocean. During the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) in China, the Japanese contingent was the largest among the Eight-Nation Alliance. The Russian Civil War led to Japanese intervention in Siberia to prop up the White Guard. The Naval General Staff, independent from the supreme command from 1893, became even more powerful after World War I. At the 1921–22 Washington Naval Conference, the major powers signed the Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty, which set the international capital ship ratio for the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy at 5, 5, 3, 1.75, and 1.75, respectively. The Imperial Navy insisted that it required a ratio of seven ships for every eight United States naval ships but settled for three to five, a ratio acceptable to the Japanese public. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 brought