Japan during World War I Army budget and expanding the fleet. The Navy thus gained significant political influence over national and international affairs. In the first week of World War I Japan proposed to the United Kingdom, its ally since 1902, that Japan would enter the war if it could take Germany's Pacific territories. On 7 August 1914, the British government officially asked Japan for assistance in destroying the raiders from the Imperial German Navy in and around Chinese waters. Japan sent Germany an ultimatum on 23 August 1914, which went unanswered; Japan then formally declared war on Germany on 23 August 1914 in the
Germany–Indonesia relations Indonesia. The German painter Walter Spies (1895-1942) settled on the island of Bali and his works influenced local art. President B.J. Habibie studied and spent most of his life in Germany. The bilateral diplomatic relations officially established in 1952 when Indonesia opened a representative office in Bonn for Federal Republic of Germany, and an embassy in 1976 in East Berlin for German Democratic Republic. During official visit to Indonesia in December 1, 2011, Federal President Christian Wulff and his counterpart, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, identified five key sectors of strategic partnership between Germany and Indonesia; trade and investments, health,