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HI 168: War, Revolution, and Reform: China Since 1900
Lecture Week 11
Japanese Imperialism and Militarism: 1905-1935:
Background: Japanese Economic and Political Interests in Northeast China
Since we will be spending the next few weeks discussing China during WW. II,
or what we will refer to as the War of Resistance Against Japan 1937-1945, I’d
like to take a few minutes to talk about the historical background and context of
Japanese imperialism in Asia, and in North China in particular.
What I want to stress is that, like the Revolution which we have been charting
in this course, Japan’s militarism in China was a process which had been slowly
building up since the late Qing period.
Japan started its colonial land grabs as early as 1895, with their control of
Taiwan, and after World War I, they had annexed the Korean peninsula.
Beginning in 1905, Japan controlled the strategic Liaodong peninsula, and built
a modern port city, there, Dalian. This became one of the largest, most modern
port facilities in Northeast Asia. In addition to building this port, the Japanese
established a major railroad, the South Manchuria Railway, run by a massive
corporation with growing interests in controlling trade and resources in the
region.
This railway, the most modern in China at the time, ran from Harbin in the
North, to the port of Dalian in the South. A distance of 650 miles. Through this
company, Japanese business interests began to extract the resources of the
Northeast, particularly soybeans and soy products, which were easily shipped
by rail and loaded onto cargo vessels in Dalian.
--Why were the Japanese so interested in Northeast China, an area referred to as
“Manchuria”?
Manchuria was vast, and sparsely populated. Ancient home of the Manchu
people, the rulers of the last dynasty, the Qing dynasty. The Qing court
restricted Han immigration to the region.
Huge area, relatively small population: 30 million. To give you some extent of
the coming Japanese control, by 1930, there were 1 million Japanese subjects
living in this region.
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The Northeast had abundant fertile land, commercial crops like soybeans are
grown here, and boom on the global market, especially during W.W. I. Used
for food for both people and livestock, for plant fertilizer, oil, and a host of
other industrial applications, including explosives (hence the boom during
wartime).
Manchuria also had abundant natural resources, like coal, oil, iron ore, etc.
So from the Japanese standpoint, you have a huge potential resource base here
through which to sustain industrial development,
you have arable land to absorb crowded Japanese population,
and a strategic foothold to influence China, and a “buffer” against Russia.
It is important to note that up until the early 1930s, most Japanese activity here
was commercial/economic in nature. Some scholars refer to this as “informal
imperialism” ruling by economic policy and not by blunt military force.
And indeed, 75% of the foreign investment here was Japanese.
Politically, we mentioned in our discussion of warlords, that the warlord Zhang
Zuolin, and later his son, Zhang Xuelian, controlled the Northeast. Zhang
Zuolin had close ties with Japan, and the Japanese used their support for him to
ensure that their interests were not threatened in the region.
This system begins to erode by the late 1920s. Here, what you have learned so
far about the mid to late 1920s can help you to understand the nature of the
Japanese response.
This was a period of nationalism, specifically anti-warlord, anti-Japanese
nationalism. With Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern expedition, Japan’s economic
position and political balancing act is under threat. Warlords like Zhang Zuolin
are targets, and mass nationalism becomes highly anti-Japanese in the wake of
the May 30th Incident of 1925.
To make matters worse from the Japanese perspective, Zhang Xueliang
officially sides with Chiang Kai-shek, and begins to carry out plans to challenge
Japan’s economic dominance of the Northeast.
Key thing here: railroads. Competing Chinese railroads are set up which offer
rebates and lower prices than the Japanese railway. A rate war begins to eat
into Japanese profits. There are even plans to try and build a new port to pull
shipping away from the Japanese dominated trade in Dalian.
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At the same time this is going on there are increasing tensions and violence
between Japanese and Chinese in the area, and Chinese and Koreans.
Koreans, as subjects in the Japanese empire, enjoyed privileges in Manchuria
and were encouraged to migrate and settle there. Chinese farmers increasingly
clashed with Koreans over water and land issues.
In addition, Chinese military captures a Japanese military officer carrying a
bunch of heroin near the border with Mongolia. He is shot, leading to more
outrage among Japanese military circles.
Japanese politics:
There are growing tensions between civilian leaders and the military in the late
1920s early 1930s. Japanese military in the Northeast, there to “protect”
Japanese business interests along the railway and in the greater Dalian “Leased
territory”, uses the context and environment of threats and anti-Japanese
nationalism spreading throughout China, to act independently of Tokyo and
seize the Northeast by force.
From “Informal” Empire to Japanese Puppet State “Manchukuo”:
It is this rising tension that leads to Japanese military action, under the pretext
of security, both for their own position, and for “the region”.
The Manchurian Incident, Mukden Incident: Big date in modern Chinese
history: September 18, 1931
Acting independently of the government in Tokyo, local Japanese military takes
matters into its own hands, and “blows up” a bit of Japanese train tracks outside
of Shenyang (Mukden). They blame the bombing on the Chinese, as a pretext
for military action to control the whole Northeast.
(Kind of like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!)
The Japanese military was greatly outnumbered by Nationalist army, yet there
was virtually no significant resistance to the Japanese takeover. Zhang
Xueliang ordered his men not to fight. By 1932, the Japanese had taken over
the Northeast.
Rather than set up the region as a colony of Japan, they established a new
“nation”, essentially a puppet regime ruled by the Japanese military, named
“Manchukuo” or Manzhouguo in Chinese. A capital is established in
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Changchun, and Puyi, the “last emperor” of the Qing who had been forced to
abdicate after 1911 is restored by the Japanese as the emperor of this new nation.
Now, indirect or informal imperialism, like we have discussed, is one thing.
But military occupation, a “new country” established by foreigners on your
territory?
So why the inaction on the part of Chiang Kai-shek?
For one, the bulk of the Nationalists military force was in the South, and
engaged in fighting the Communists in the extermination campaigns. But the
main reason is a conscious decision by Chiang Kai-shek to first fight the
Communists, then fight Japan. Chiang Kai-shek believed that a China free of
Communism was necessary to do this right. The Nationalists believed they
could not fight both the Japanese and the Communists at the same time.
Effects on Chinese Politics:
This is where people really begin to loose faith in the Nationalists: They do not
stand up and fight the Japanese, but pursue the Communists on an insane 6,000
mile chase. It becomes harder and harder for people at this time to believe that
the Communists, who are nationalistic Chinese people, are, as Nationalist
rhetoric paints them—somehow worse than the Japanese.
The pattern, from 1931 to 1937 when outright war was declared, was the
following: Japanese aggression and territorial expansion in China, no resistance
from the government, massive outrage, protests, crackdowns on the protests.
The Shanghai Incident (Jan.-March 1932)
Popular outrage at the ceding of the Northeast to Japan led to massive boycotts
of Japanese goods in Shanghai, dropping the sale of Japanese products by 2/3.
The Japanese military declared this boycott an act of aggression, and bombed
civilian neighborhoods in the city.
A division of Nationalist troops, the Chinese Nineteenth Route Army, acting
AGAINST the orders of Chiang Kai-shek, fought back against the Japanese.
Chiang was outraged and transferred the army to a useless location.
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Political polarization once again: nationalism goes through a new change: resist
the Japanese.
Japanese military continues aggressions:
January 1933: seizes the strategic location of Shanghaiguan.
February 1933: Takes Rehe (present day Hebei) and Inner Mongolia
After this event, the criticism of Chiang Kai-shek picks up: Sun Yat-sen’s wife
lays out a major diss: “The Chinese people want resistance against the Japanese.
The time has come when phrases about ‘prolonged resistance’ can no longer
hide the facts of betrayal, cowardice, and non-resistance.”
Chiang’s response: reiterates his line that first China should be pacified
internally (get rid of Communists) then deal with external threat.
The Tanggu Truce May 1933:
Sets up a demilitarized zone between Beijing and the great wall, an area the size
of Connecticut. No Chinese troops allowed, but Japanese were allowed to
station patrols there.
At this point critics from both the right and left are outraged. Journal and
Newspaper articles say Chiang is surrendering to the Japanese, others compare
him to Yuan Shikai.
By 1935, Japan controls much of North China, and calls for its independence
from China.
Students launch a nationwide protest: The December 9th Movement (1935).
This was an anti-Japanese student movement. Huge student protests and rallies
in major cities.
This movement was significant for several reasons: Leads to the formation of
“National Salvation Associations” : grass roots organizations that called for
stopping the civil war against the Communists, and to unite in resistance against
the Japanese.
The protests were suppressed by the Nationalists, with schools raided, leaders
arrested. The right wing of the party attacked students as “tools of the
Communists”: for what: wanting to fight the Japanese:
Such action further discredits the legitimacy of Chiang Kai-shek’s government.
Conclusion:
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Critics and supporters of Chiang, even today, debate this period. Some say he
was right to wait, to try and build strength for a big fight against the Japanese,
others say he had no plan to fight Japan, only to continue a suicidal drive to rid
China of Communism.
What is know for sure is that Japan’s actions had major effects on Chinese
political reality. A single, foreign enemy now stood on China’s soil. This
actually strengthened Chiang’s leadership: factions who threatened unity now
fall by the wayside for a country demanding unity and action. But Chiang did
not capitalize on the rising nationalism, and calls for resistance.
That would be picked up in the countryside, and be a major part of young
Communist policy. The coming war with Japan changes politics and society
here in massive ways, and we will be looking at this in some detail in the
coming weeks.