Japan had been growing as an Asian power since the Meiji Restoration that I described in earlier episodes. It had launched sneak attacks against China in 1894 and against Russia in 1904 and won both of those wars. As a result, it had gained control of the strategic ports of Port Arthur and Dalian in southern Manchuria. It also controlled the South Manchuria Railway and had an army stationed there known as the Kwantung Army. That was the Chinese name for the territory east of where the Great Wall of China meets the sea.
In spite of Japan’s aggression and expansion, it still seemed to have a chip on its shoulder. It resented that it was not able to expand as quickly as it desired or to have imperial territories and colonies in Asia like Britain had in its Empire or a sphere of influence in the way the United States had in the Americas.
In 1928, officers of Japan’s Kwantung Army assassinated the Manchurian Warlord Zhang Zuolin. But his son, the Young Marshal, Zhang Xueliang and not the Japanese took control of Manchuria. By the end of the Northern Expedition, the Young Marshal had allied with Chiang Kai-shek. The Republic of China flag flew over government buildings in Manchuria. Nationalist propaganda was also increasingly heard in that northeast region. There were calls for abolishing Japan’s foreign concessions there and returning control of the railroads to Chinese hands.
Zhang Xueliang was also building Chinese railways in the area, without foreign capital. And he was promoting use of a Chinese controlled port.
The Chinese population in Manchuria had also increased. Now 28 million out of 30 million in that region were Chinese. Japanese and Koreans were a minority and increasingly feeling threatened.
Since just after the Russo-Japanese war, Japan had the Kwantung Army stationed in southern Manchuria to protect its interests and concessions.
On September 18, 1931, junior officers of the Kwantung Army set off explosives on a section of a Japanese controlled railway to make it look like a Chinese attack on Japan’s interests. It was done in a place that would be easy to repair, to ensure no lasting damage. In fact, the damage was so minor that the next scheduled train was still able to cross the damaged section and continue its voyage.
This was by Liutiao Lake and about 800 meters from a garrison belonging to the Young Marshal Zhang Xueliang. Chinese history usually recalls this event by referencing that lake. In English, it is most commonly called the Mukden Incident, as it was close to that city. Mukden is today called Shenyang and had been the original capital of the Manchus who led the Qing Dynasty.
Within a day, the Kwantung Army had fired artillery on the Chinese garrison, destroyed the Chinese controlled airfield and killed 500 Chinese soldiers. Japan only lost 2 lives. The sneak attack was successful. The Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army, in Dalian, was supposedly initially furious at this insubordination but then relented and after the fact endorsed the moves.
Zhang Xueliang ordered his troops not to defend. But other provincial governors and provincial armies did. The Kwantung Army requested reinforcements.
Many Chinese questioned the new Marshall Zhang’s decision not to defend Manchuria against this invasion. The Chinese media mocked him as General Nonresistance. Here were a few factors involved in his decision. Japan had far fewer troops initially but could be reinforced from Korea and Japan. More than half of Zhang’s troops were south of the Great Wall and the rest were dispersed. Japan had agents within his force given that his father had essentially been a client of Japan’s. He believed his soldiers were less effective than Japanese soldiers. That said, Zhang Xueliang never tried and didn’t put up a fight. We should keep this in mind when, flashing forward, the same Zhang kidnaps Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 and gave the excuse that the Nationalist leader was not resisting Japan strongly enough. The Young Marshal himself did not defend his own territory at all with his large army when first provoked in Manchuria.
However, there was significant official and unofficial Chinese resistance. One of my sources is a 1932 book by a British author who travelled from Shanghai to Manchuria to investigate the situation. He documented significant guerilla fighting and raids on railways and foreign interests. That book estimated that more than a year after the Mukden incident, there were about 200,000 “bandits” resisting the new State and causing disorder. They attacked railcars and tore up railway tracks. They used guerilla methods. He mentioned that perhaps half of these bandits were provincial troops operating under the orders of the previous provincial governors. Others were part of long-standing bandit groups that dated back at least to the last time there had been major foreign fighting in the area, during the Russo-Japanese war. In other words, some of these bandit groups had existed for over 25 years. Interestingly, he didn’t say that any of these resisters were Communists.
This disorder was impacting business, especially the movement of people and goods by rail. It also impacted on the credibility of the new government.
Already by then, in 1932, the New State (as he called it) was officially led by Puyi, the last Qing Emperor, as Chief Executive. It was proclaimed on March 1, 1932, about six months after the Mukden Incident. At that point, the form of government had not yet been defined. It was not a republic. There was no voting. But it was only in early 1934 that a monarchy was proclaimed and Puyi again became Emperor…this time of a state known as Manchukuo.
The Japanese recognized that state but virtually no other country did. The Japanese cabinet that was in power when the state was proclaimed did not immediately recognize it out either of concern for foreign opinion and tried to build international consensus on recognition. But then that Japanese government was replaced by a more nationalist and less internationalist minded cabinet.
The Japanese situation was complicated. This is not a history of Japan so my discussion of Japan is incomplete. There were a variety of Japanese forces and players with different viewpoints and strategy for their country.
One relatively autonomous body was the Kwantung Army. With the Mukden Incident, it acted independently of orders from Tokyo. The moves started in Manchuria but aroused a lot of popular support back in Japan proper. The Kwantung Army Commander-in-Chief became the Japanese Ambassador to Manchukuo. Japan moved in a more expansionary and aggressive direction as a result of what was happening in Manchuria. It can be said that the Mukden Incident was the start of Japan’s aggression that caused the Pacific portion of the Second World War.
At the core of the Japanese position was a feeling that Japan had special rights and privileges in Manchuria and that Manchuria and China were not the same. Some Japanese believed that Japan would need Manchuria’s food and natural resources for its national expansion or survival. Japan had a major coal operation east of Shenyang. The coal was under a layer of shale and the Japanese determined that there was oil in the shale and developed and patented a technique for extracting oil from that shale.
Some Japanese felt threatened by the idea of a nationalist China or a resurgent China, as that would impact their expansion or special role in East Asia. Some viewed Chinese boycotts as a form of war. “Boycott is war in its incipient stage.”
Japanese nationalists pointed out that western imperial powers had done other similar things in the past and that it was only fair that Japan should now be able to have imperial expansion too.
Unlike in the old Qing Great State, Puyi as Manchukuo Emperor had much more limited powers. Japan pulled the strings of Manchukuo. It was not independent or truly under Puyi’s control. In English, it is called a Puppet State. In Chinese, they call it a Fake State.
Changchun was chosen as the capital of Manchukuo, not Mukden now known as Shenyang, which had been the Manchu capital and was the Young Marshal’s family’s center of control. Because it became the New Capital, it experienced a lot of growth, with new government buildings constructed during this time. The urban planners were Japanese as too were the heads of police.
In 1932, a British journalist travelled to Manchukuo and shared his observations through a newspaper in Shanghai and later published the whole contents in book form, which I have read. He reported, “there can be little doubt that considerable number of the Mongols, especially in the Barga region, favour the reinstatement of Mr. Pu Yi, not merely as Chief Executive, but as Emperor. Whether they really approve of his maintenance in power by Japanese bayonets is, however, an open question.”
“To sum up, then, there is little enthusiasm for the new Manchurian regime outside limited monarchist circles. There is sullen opposition to it on the part of the mercantile, political and militarist elements. And the only hope, it seems to me, of a reaction in its favour lies in the realization that nothing will deflect the Japanese from their present policy, and that the native population must be the chief sufferers from continuous activities of bandits, volunteers, and other anti-Manchukuo elements, and from acts of sabotage and destruction, which, however much they may embarrass the Japanese, inflict infinitely greater injury upon the farming and merchant population of the new State.”
The KMT government in Nanjing responded in a few ways, but its main action was an appeal to the League of Nations. It had been created following the First World War and was intended to end wars through diplomacy to solve disputes.
The League of Nations sent a delegation to investigate. The Lytton Commission concluded “the present regime cannot be considered to have been called into existence by a genuine and spontaneous independence movement”. The report wasn’t overly harsh to Japan, but it did call on Japan to withdraw its soldiers. Instead, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933. Japan closed the door on a diplomatic solution in Manchuria.
This was anticipated by the British journalist a year before, when he wrote following that visit to Manchukuo. “One cannot spend even a few weeks in Manchukuo without being impressed by the unanimity of opinion and purpose of the Japanese, whether they are officials or civilians. The development of Manchukuo as an independent State under Japanese auspices has now become virtually a religion with them. They are almost fanatical in their professions of hatred of the old regime, and of optimism regarding the new. Any attempt on the part of a foreign observer to adopt a detached and impartial viewpoint is obviously resented. One gets the impression when talking with the Japanese that their view is that he who is not for us is against us” and that criticism of some of the obvious defects of the new State is an unfriendly act.”
Japan responded to the banditry in Manchuria with bombing runs that not only killed combatants but also civilians. The British journalist reported on this and repeated this observation.
“On another occasion I was told that if it came to the worst, Japan, like Carthage, would put men, women and children into battle rather than abandon her present policy in Manchuria.” That was written in 1932 and speaks an ominous truth, knowing that Japan fought for control of East Asia and attacked the USA rather than abandon its policy in Manchuria and of imperial expansion.
The British journalist was also right in predicting in 1932 that “As far as I can judge, the only means by which Japan would be compelled to abandon her present policy would be by an overwhelming military defeat, or by a domestic economic crisis so grave that she could not find the funds to maintain her military forces in Manchuria.” It took its defeat in 1945 following the US dropping of atomic bombs and the Soviet Union’s moving of forces to get Japan to abandon Manchuria.
Returning to 1931, Nanjing also increased tariffs between China and Japanese controlled territories.
But the Chinese were not satisfied. Chinese nationalism had been a growing force for decades. Parts of the KMT called for Chiang Kai-shek’s resignation because of this new humiliation and he did. He was replaced by Sun Fo, the eldest son of Sun Yat-sen. But after another city in Liaoning fell to the Japanese, Sun too resigned and was replaced by Wang Jingwei, the initial successor to Sun Yat-sen.
“The facts that not a single railway, except the South Manchuria main line is now operating trains at night, that many of the Manchurian lines (including the main-line of the Chinese Eastern Railway) cannot function at all, and that the North and South and East and West disorders of unprecedented gravity are reported almost daily, do not appear to affect the determination or the confidence of the Japanese. They…still talk with the utmost assurance about the new paradise that will emerge from the present chaos.”
But the British journalist believed that Chiang Kai-shek’s policy of not declaring war on Japan at this time was the right one.
“It would be absurd to suggest that China should waive her claims to Manchuria. But unless Japan capitulates to the League it is equally absurd to believe that she can enforce them, for the time being. And the only logical course, therefore, for China to pursue would seem to be to enter a formal caveat against the loss of her sovereignty over Manchuria and to reserve all her rights in connection therewith, and then to seek “without prejudice” a modus vivendi which will enable her Government to concentrate all its energies upon effecting those internal reforms and improvements in national standards which are necessary to place her on a footing of equality with other nations.”
“But the actual state of affairs in the country today -a civil war just over in Shantung, another in progress in Sichuan, and a definite breach threatening between Canton and Nanking at intervals of a few weeks – must react unfavourably upon her case at the seat of the League, and raise grave doubts as to the practicality of restoring Chinese sovereignty over lost provinces when the Government’s authority is so often and so flagrantly defied in the Provinces over which it still claims to rule”.
This reference to Canton was another period of internal conflict in China. The southern provinces wanted to declare independence as they were unhappy with Chiang Kai-shek. But Japan’s moves in Manchuria and Chiang Kai-shek’s willingness to resign in favour of Sun Fo and then Wang Jingwei, created a sort of unity government. One consequence is that the 19th Army from Guangdong in the south, came to Shanghai to provide support for the southerners now involved in the Nanjing government.
However, just then, Japan also attacked the Chinese controlled parts of Shanghai in 1932. This time, they were fiercely resisted by the Chinese.
There was no real reason for the Japanese invasion, other than some anti-Japanese protests and boycotts as a result of the Japanese moves in Manchuria. There was no disorder or significant threats to Japanese interests.
The fighting started when Japanese marines attacked a Chinese controlled district of the city. The Japanese navy may have wanted to show the Japanese army that they too had power. They may have wanted to punish Chinese for recent anti-Japanese demonstrations. But the Japanese marines were surprised by the resistance. Western diplomats then arranged two brief ceasefires, to assist civilians and to try to negotiate a truce.
Contrary to propaganda, and as demonstrated by Donald Jordan’s well researched book released in 2001, Chiang did not try to stop the fighting and placed his own 5th Army soldiers under the 19th Army’s command. Chiang Kai-shek’s own soldiers were then involved with the 19th Army in fighting the Japanese in Shanghai for 33 days.
This was a time when Chinese dug trenches in the streets of Shanghai and picked off Japanese soldiers.
The defending Chinese used city walls and other urban features and then the swampy terrain outside the city. Japan had to invest more and more troops and import overwhelming equipment to overcome this fierce resistance.
During this Battle of Shanghai, over 8000 soldiers were killed, almost 12,000 wounded. There were tens of thousands of civilian dead. About a third of the housing in a vibrant urban district were lost, with hundreds of thousands of residents displaced.
Unlike in Manchuria, where the fighting took place mostly on hard, dry land, the fighting in Shanghai was urban combat. Japan had no experience with modern urban warfare. Japan had bombers and artillery, which caused tremendous losses of life. But that also made things more difficult for the Japanese soldiers. Chinese defenders could fire from behind the rubble, which slowed the movement of Japanese forces through the city. The Japanese navy could not take the city and had to call in the Army for help. Even then a joint attack failed. More and more reinforcements were needed to avoid the Japanese losing face in front of an international audience in Shanghai’s foreign concessions, which were not targeted.
The Japanese then responded with a combined arms attack outside the city. The Japanese benefited not only from air superiority, but also naval dominance. But now, the fighting was in a river delta, complete with marshlands. That posed its own complications. The Chinese built deep ditches behind water streams and added features like barbed wire fences. Eventually, the Chinese were defeated as the Japanese were able to outmaneuver the fixed defences of the Chinese. The end result was a diplomatic solution and the League of Nations was involved. Japanese troops withdrew and Shanghai was demilitarized by the Chinese.
Most of the locals supported the Chinese defenders with food and help digging trenches. But it also seems that one subgroup of Wu speaking Han Chinese, the Subei people, assisted the Japanese at this time. So, there were real divisions within China.
The Japanese army produced a report 3 years later of the fighting that was more than 1300 pages. Japan intended to learn from this first Battle of Shanghai.
International opinion towards Japan began to turn as the foreigners in the International Settlement and French Concession in Shanghai were able to witness Japan’s unprovoked aggression.
It was Nanjing’s enemies who tried to minimize credit to Chiang Kai-shek’s government for resisting Japan. But his government’s prestige increased in the Chinese cities and it was Communist propaganda that tried to paint Chiang as an appeaser in this case.
With the Japanese attacks on Manchuria and Shanghai, it was clear that Japan had entered a new phase of expansion towards China. The government in Nanjing not only faced internal divisions from warlords and strong provincial governors, as well as groups of Communists committed to overthrowing the government. Now, China faced a strong and aggressive power to its east, trying to carve off and gain further parts of China. The same Japanese divisions that attacked Shanghai in 1932 would return in 1937.
The KMT in Nanjing faced a combination of serious challenges. One of them was to become its 14-year war with Japan. But the others were internal, including Communists that tried to take advantage of Japan's aggression for their own sake.
Mao would decades later thank Japan. “If there had been no Japanese invasion of China, there would have been no Communist victory”.