China The Interwar Years

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ChinaThe Interwar Years
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Overview Situation After WWI

• By 1919, China had repeatedly been defeated by
  foreign countries
• 1895 1st Sino-Japanese War
• Boxer rebellion
• Economic incursions

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Domestic Conflicts
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May Fourth Movement (May 4, 1919)

• The movement started because of public
  dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles
• It spread to over 20 provinces and 100 cities
  across China
• On May 4th, students and professors of the Peking
  University and other local schools held a
  demonstration in front of Tiananmen denouncing
  the Treaty of Versailles
• Soon, many students from across China went on
  strike
• In early June, workers and businessmen also went
  on strike to support the students
• Under the pressure, the Chinese representatives
  at the Paris Peace Conference did not sign the
  peace treaty

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Northern Expedition (1926-1927)

• KMT, CCP, and the Soviet Union joined forces to
  defeat three powerful warlords in Northern China
• The National Revolutionary Army (NPA), equipped
  with Soviet arsenal, confronted each warlord one
  by one
• The NPA had the support of the people, who were
  suppressed by the warlords
• The warlords were defeated, but in their place,
  new warlords came to power
• The Northern Expedition resulted in an end to
  internal disorder and began the formation of a
  centrally united China

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Political

• 1911-1925 Dr. Sun Yat-Sen organized a modern
  political party and modern army, fought for
  control with the CCP after the collapse of feudal
  China
• 1926 the Chinese Nationalist Party formed
• Two major political problems
• how to deal with two or three of the remaining
  army commanders who only followed the central
  government
• how to cope with the ever growing communist party
  that was thriving among the poverty-stricken and
  dissatisfied peasants of central China
• General Chiang Kai-Shek brought the Kuomintang
  and the military together

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Kuomingtang

• Chinese Nationalist Party
• Centre-right
• Now Taiwan's largest political party
• Retreated from mainland-Chinese politics in 1949
• Led by Chiang Kai-Shek during the interwar
  period, after the death of Sun Yat-Sen

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• The Chinese government
• bound by interlocking treaties and was not fully
  sovereign in China
• past regimes had accumulated a vast foreign debt
  against which the central governments revenues
  were pledged for repayment
• January 1924 the KMT had its First National
  Congress in Canton, new party program drafted,
  goals including
• social reform
• fundamental readjustment of Chinas international
  status
• Sun was the designated leader of the party and
  had veto rights on all decisions, a central
  executive committee was elected to manage party
  affairs and confirm Suns decisions

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• China lacked a unified and centralized political
  structure
• the south was detached from Beijings control,
  and the districts among the southern provinces
  were run by different warlords
• Szechwan was a world in itself that was divided
  among several military rulers
• Christian missionaries operated many schools,
  hospitals and other philanthropic enterprises in
  China, and they were all protected by
  extraterritoriality

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• There was a plan for a military academy
• to train a corps of young officers that would be
  loyal to the party
• Officers would become the lower level commanders
  in a new national revolutionary army that was to
  be created
• After the death of Sun, the KMT went through a
  period of inner conflict, even though it still
  progressed steadily with the help from the
  Russians
• the conflict was caused mainly by the
  radicalization of the party under the influence
  of the Communists who organized labor unions and
  peasant associations and pushed class struggle
  and the anti-imperialist movement
• The two parties competed on
• the direction of the nationalist policy
• control of mass organizations
• recruitment of new members

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The Chinese Communist Party

• The CCP grew from the May Fourth Movement
• Motive spread Marxism to China (from the Soviet
  Union), national revolution directed against
  foreign imperialism and Chinese militarism
• With a representative from the Soviet Union, a
  Socialist Youth League helped starting to recruit
  young intellectuals
• Recruited students that had
• spent time in Russia for training
• studied in France and had gained experience of
  the French labour movement and with the French
  Communist Party

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Social

• 1919 May 4th Movement, professors and students
  who believed that China needed a social
  revolution and began to see Soviet Russia as a
  model (Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu where the CCPs
  cofounders)
• There had been a growing unrest among the
  students in China due to two reasons
• the Japanese occupation of Manchuria
• the impotency of the Chinese government
• the signatory parties to the peace treaties in
  checking Japan's military operations
• Students demanded that they be given military
  training, the students aggressiveness was the
  main reason between clashes with authorities

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• 1932 the Mass Education Movement played a big
  part in adult education
• Motto to eliminate illiteracy in this
  generation
• They determined that literacy does not
  necessarily mean education, so they experimented
  on three broader fields of cultural education,
  economic education, and public health
• The China Foundation for the Promotion of
  Education and Culture decided to give 50 000
  annually to the translation of Western literature
  to Chinese
• Due to traditional good will between China and
  the United States and also because of the
  increasing number of Chinese engineers and
  business men being educated in US, trade between
  the two countries grew

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International Conflicts
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Mukden Incident (September 18,1931)

• Some Japanese junior officers blew up about 1.5m
  of railway that was operated by a Japanese
  company in China
• The Japanese then blamed the Chinese for this,
  and used this as an excuse to annex Manchuria

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Invasion of Manchuria (September 19, 1931)

• It was the start of two decades of Sino-Japanese
  conflict, was Chinas main international conflict
• The Japanese cabinet believed that the Mukden
  Incident was a conspiracy by the officers, but in
  the end ceded to let the army annex Manchuria
• Without the permission of the Emperor, the army
  expanded their operation to the South Manchurian
  Railway
• By February 5 of the next year, the Three Eastern
  Provinces were annexed
• In response, the Chinese boycotted Japanese
  goods, reducing the figure to one-sixth, which
  led to the Japanese invasion of Shanghai
• In 1933, after Japan withdrew from the League of
  Nations, invaded Northern China, which was given
  back to the Chinese after an agreement
• The Japanese occupied parts of China until the
  Marco Polo Bridge Incident

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Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 7, 1937)

• Japan claims that a soldier is missing in Wanping
  Town, and wants to send in the army to look for
  him
• KMT forces denies the request, and Japan sent an
  ultimatum that if they were not allowed in within
  the hour, they would open fire on the town
• By the afternoon of the next day, the Japanese
  took over Wanping Town
• KMT, after reinforcement from nearby units,
  outnumbered the Japanese, completely retook the
  town the day after
• The two parties then went to negotiate (Zhang and
  Hashimoto)
• The KMT agreed to all of Japans conditions in
  return that they do not invade Beijing
• As Zhang left, the Japanese launched a full-scale
  attack on Beijing
• The Japanese conquered the bridge and Wanping in
  3 days, and Nanyuan Town the day after
• Beijing fell to the Japanese on July 29, Tianjin
  on 30th, and the North China Plain by the end of
  the year
• The Chinese armies were constantly retreating
  until the Chinese victory at Tai'er Zhuang

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• When the KMT saw that the League of Nations was
  powerless in checking Japan on Manchuria, the
  leaders decided to take back the lost territory
  by force, leading to

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Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937
September 9, 1945)

• It was an incident until the attack on Pearl
  Harbour, and the Chinese officially declared war
  on Japan
• This Sino-Japanese War merged into WWII
• The Chinese army was poorly equipped, and lost to
  the Japanese army in many engagements
• Battle of Shanghai Chiang sent his
  German-trained soldiers (his best) to defend
  Shanghai after 3 months, the Chinese were
  defeated and had to retreat to Nanjing, but it
  showed that the Chinese were not defeated easily
• After declaring war on the Japanese (December 7,
  1941), China started to win back their land with
  aid from the United States

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The Rape of Nanjing/Nanjing Massacre(December
13, 1937)

• The capital of China was transferred from Beijing
  to Nanjing
• As soon as the attack began, the bureaucrats fled
  
• Japanese war crimes against the Chinese,
  including execution, rape, looting and burning
• Target non-military, mostly civilians affected,
  population around 1 million before massacre
• The city was full of Chinese refugees, who fled
  from other parts of China (ie. Shanghai, where
  Japanese had just invaded)
• 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were
  killed, and 20,000 women were raped
• Atrocious and barbaric methods of killing

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International Alliances, Pacts Treaties
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• November 1921 to February 1922 Washington Naval
  Conference
• desire to adopt a policy designed to stabilize
  conditions in the Far East
• to safeguard the rights and interests of China
• to promote intercourse between China and the
  other Powers upon the basis of equality of
  opportunity
• To evade the technical difficulties, the Japanese
  created a separate state called Manchukuo (the
  1928 Kellogg Pact and the Nine-Power Treaty/Open
  Door Policy)
• According to Lytton Commission
• Japan was the clear aggressor
• But China did not participate in negotiations
  with Japan
• Manchuria would become an autonomous nation

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Sino-German Cooperation (1920s-1930s)

• The Chinese needed to modernize their military
  and industry in order to defend against Japanese
  aggressions
• The Germans were in short supply of raw materials
• The cooperation helped the Chinese greatly in
  their resistance against the Japanese in the
  Sino-Japanese war
• Max Bauer was invited to survey investment
  possibilities in China in 1926
• He advised on the modernization of Chinese
  industry and army to the KMT government
• He supported opening up the Chinese market to
  spur German production and exports
• Before, China only had 10 000 miles of railways
  (and most was in Manchuria, under Japanese
  control), but construction of railway tracks
  picked up pace from funding and modern technology
  from Germany
• Chinese military was modernized to German
  standards
• Cooperation ended when Hitler came to power

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• Although the great powers tried to refrain from
  helping particular parts of China, it was not for
  the best because China was in turmoil with
  regional militarism in full tide, as well as a
  movement against the unequal treaties that were
  beginning to take shape

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Overview Situation Prior to WWII

• The Chinese were resisting Japanese since 1937
  (2nd Sino-Japanese War)
• KMT refused to ally with the Communist Party of
  China to fight the Japanese, and opted to fight
  both at the same time
• The Japanese are a disease of skin, the
  Communists are a disease of the heart.
• - Chiang Kai-Shek
• China was weakened by civil war and the people
  were divided

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Bibliography

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  Nov. 2006. Department of State Publication 2033.
  17 Nov. 2006 lthttp//www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/di
  plomacy/forrel/1922v1/tr22-01.htmgt. Buschini, J.
  "The Boxer Rebellion." Small Planet
  Communications. 2000. Small Planet
  Communications, Inc. 20 Nov. 2006
  lthttp//www.smplanet.com/imperialism/fists.htmlgt.
• "China in the Interwar Years." China in the
  Interwar Years. California Polytechnic State
  University. 20 Nov. 2006 lthttp//www.calpoly.edu/
  gsteenso/l7.htmlgt.
• "Japanese War Crimes." Nanjing Massacre. 1995. 17
  Nov. 2006 lthttp//www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njm
  assac/gt.
• Jewell, L. (1998.) Monograph 144-chapter 1.
  Retrieved from the Internet on November 20, 2006
  from http//www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/144chap1.
  html.
• "Qing Dynasty Ancient China Dynasties." Travel
  China Guide. 18 Nov. 2006. 20 Nov. 2006
  lthttp//www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/qin
  g.htmgt.
• Wikimedia. (2006.) Wikipedia. Retrieved from the
  Internet on November 17, 2006 from
  http//www.wikipedia.org/.