Initially on official Nazi documents the Japanese were technically "subject" to Germany's racial laws since the Nazi legal clauses were not altered on German documents until Nazi German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath issued an official exemption in 1933. But in everyday practice Adolf Hitler and his Nazi government exempted both Han Chinese and Japanese from these racial laws due their recognition as "Aryans of the East." In cases of dispute or intermarriage, both Chinese and Japanese were exempted from the Nazi racial laws and treated in a lenient manner compared to "non-Aryans" who had not been granted "Aryan" status. Hitler's government began enacting the laws after taking power in 1933, and the Japanese government initially protested several racial incidents involving Japanese or Japanese-Germans that year which were then resolved by the Nazi high command by treating their Japanese allies leniently. But after the Republic of China (Taiwan) switched sides and joined an alliance with the United States and declared war on Nazi Germany Sino-German cooperation collapsed resulting in Chinese nationals facing prosecution in Germany. Influential Nazi anti-Semite Johann von Leers favored excluding Japanese and Chinese from the racial laws due both to the alleged Aryan racial link with Han Chinese and Japanese and to improve diplomatic relations with both China and Japan. The Foreign Ministry agreed with von Leers and sought several times between 1934 and 1937 to change the laws, but other government agencies, including the Racial Policy Office, opposed the change.