 Similarly, Germany's more northerly Pacific islands came under a Japanese mandate, called the South Seas Mandate.Despite Japan’s prowess on a global scale, and its sizable contribution to the allied war effort in response to British pleas for assistance in the Mediterranean and East Asia, the Western powers present at the Peace Conference rejected Japan's bid for a racial equality clause in the Treaty of Versailles.Japan nevertheless emerged as a great power in international politics by the close of the war.