The Evolution of Foreign Involvement in China, 1923–1952

Ja Ian Chong

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139005197.005

Chapter 5 The Evolution of Foreign Involvement in China, 1923–1952 Rising Opportunity Costs and Convergent Approaches to Intervention1

If the early-twentieth-century feudalisation of the Chinese polity was a collective result of foreign intervention driven by divergent perceptions about the opportunity costs of intervention, changes in those conditions should lead to different outcomes on state form. Convergent beliefs about increasingly high opportunity costs of intervention amongst the powers active in China between 1923 and 1952 should bring substantive changes to institutions of governance in the polity. My argument predicts that such a situation should foster demand for less complete access denial and less direct involvement in domestic politics amongst intervening powers, creating broad external support for the development of sovereign statehood.

I posit that the period from 1923 to 1952 witnessed a convergence in external actor expectations about the high opportunity costs of intervention in China. Given this shift in perspectives, there was growing demand amongst intervening powers for the preservation of nonprivileged access rather than more complete access denial. This brought broad foreign backing for the consolidation of the polity under central government rule. Such dynamics of foreign involvement fostered the emergence of a sovereign Chinese state from the feudalised polity of the previous period. Before turning to the aggregated effects of intervention, I first lay out the opportunity cost expectations and consequent approaches to intervention for the major outside players active in China from 1923 to 1952.

Japan and Its Imperial Experiment

From the interwar period until the end of World War II, Japanese leaders expected the opportunity costs of intervention in China to range between moderate and low. Consequently, the choice between complete access denial and expanding the regulation of access dominated debates over China. As elite opinion about intervention coalesced around expectations of low opportunity cost in the 1930s, Tokyo’s focus shifted accordingly to fully denying rivals access to large swathes of the Chinese polity. In comparison, when defeat and occupation by the United States made the anticipated opportunity costs of intervening in China prohibitive, Japanese leaders ceded their claims to access.

Until the early 1930s, Japan’s leaders expected intervention costs in China to be moderate, leading to a temporary emphasis on consolidating Tokyo’s hold over areas where it already regulated access. Japanese cabinets between 1923 and 1931 generally wished to maintain good relations with the other major powers, especially the United States, whilst focusing on domestic reforms.² The European experience with World War I suggested to Japanese elites that the path toward growth and prosperity lay in peaceful economic cooperation rather than confrontation. From 1923 to 1931, these considerations worked to mitigate demands to extend access regulation and even full access denial in China.³

Consequently, the attentions and energies of Japan’s leaders during the 1920s fixed on economic and political reform as well as the consolidation of Japan’s existing overseas possessions. Such reforms ranged from developing Japan’s domestic economy and industry to rejoining the gold standard and extending suffrage to all adult male subjects.⁴ Kato Takaaki’s cabinet even went as far as to reduce the size of the Army and normalise ties with the Soviet Union in order to free up capabilities to attain these goals.⁵

When it came to territories already under Japan’s sway, Tokyo sought new ways to subsume the populace under Japanese rule whilst developing the economies of these regions to feed the needs of the metropole, as with Taiwan and Korea.⁶ On the mainland, evidence suggests a focus on strengthening access regulation in areas where a robust Japanese presence already existed – whilst largely leaving the rest of the polity alone.⁷ This approach had the advantages of limiting the potential for disputes with other major powers whilst intensifying the extraction of benefits from existing holdings. Japan’s leaders were looking to invest capabilities into consolidation rather than expansion.

Japanese political elites largely viewed conflict with other major powers as an impediment to economic, political, and social progress. This desire to relieve pressure on Japan’s core security interests led Tokyo to accede to the Washington treaties – a move that brought, in the words of historian Michael Barnhart, “nearly a decade of stability to Japan’s relations with the West”.⁸ Even hawks like Kato Takaaki of the Twenty-One Demands, Tanaka Gi’ichi, and the Imperial Japanese Army shunned open disputes with other major powers, especially over matters where friction was most likely.⁹ Under the premiership of Hamaguchi Osachi, the Japanese government also participated in the London Naval Conference that resulted in a new naval arms control treaty that committed Japan to maintaining a smaller ratio of warships relative to the Americans and British.¹⁰

However, the collapse of the world economy in the late 1920s convinced many Japanese leaders that survival required access regulation, if not full access denial, over areas that stood outside their empire at the time.¹¹ Such perspectives were prevalent within the Army, Navy, big businesses, the Diet, and even a sizeable part of the public.¹² This weakened the position of those advocating a continued restriction of access regulation efforts to South Manchuria, Shandong, and, to a lesser degree, Fujian.¹³

The 1930s further witnessed the coming together of an Army-Navy coalition that held a belief in twin mounting threats to Japan. The first was a rapidly industrialising Soviet Russia to the north. Not only was Russia a historical rival, but it now also promulgated a communist ideology that the conservative Japanese military establishment found abhorrent.¹⁴ The second danger was the Anglo-American ability to deny Japan access to vital resources necessary for a long conflict with the Soviet Union , given their colonies in Southeast Asia, naval presence in the Pacific, and perceived influence in China.¹⁵ Growing economic woes from American, British, and European protectionism raised convictions amongst Japan’s military leaders about the need to further limit access to China and Asia by other powers.¹⁶

As the so-called “Army-Navy steamroller” gained the upper hand in Japanese politics, Tokyo began to emphasise the importance of more fully denying other major powers access to parts of Asia.¹⁷ For the cabinets in office between 1937 and 1945, failure to exclude rival powers from East Asia and the Pacific threatened to cut Japan off from the raw materials, markets, and strategic locations that seemed vital to its survival. This brought an emphasis on committing capabilities toward denying access to China, Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific, and, eventually, Siberia as fully as possible.¹⁸ The expected gain from successful moves in this direction was the guarantee of long-term survival and prosperity.¹⁹ In contrast, members of the Army-Navy coalition feared that failure on these terms would bring the dissolution of empire, and thrust Japan under the heel of the Soviets or Britain and the United States.²⁰ These beliefs lowered Tokyo’s opportunity cost expectations over intervention to such a degree that the appeal of full access denial across China and the rest of Asia trumped other goals.

In sum, there were two important shifts in Japanese leaders’ perspectives between 1923 and 1945. The period from 1923 to the early 1930s saw the expected net gains from completely denying other major powers access across Asia rise significantly. In comparison, the expected net gains of withdrawing from China and the rest of Asia outweighed other options from around 1941 through 1945. Correspondingly, the opportunity costs Tokyo expected from intervening in China between the early 1930s and 1945 moved from moderate to low.Japan’s efforts to contend for access in China halted under the post–World War II American occupation.

Tokyo’s Robust Access Denial Efforts

Given that Japanese leaders between the early 1920s and 1930s associated moderated levels of opportunity costs with intervention in China, Tokyo’s approach through 1931 focused on firming up access regulation in areas of China already under Japanese oversight. This meant providing local partners in southern Manchuria and Jiaozhou Bay the financial and military wherewithal to manage access to markets, raw materials, and communications. To do so, the Japanese government tried to limit the activities of other foreign actors in regions under effective Japanese jurisdiction, whilst bolstering their own influence in adjacent areas. In return, the Japanese government acquired exclusive rights over the construction, operation, and protection of railways, as well as the exploitation of raw materials and markets in and around Japanese-administered territory within China.

Such efforts to sustain access regulation translated into the transfer of arms and monetary assistance to militarists like Manchuria-based Zhang Zuolin, Shandong-based Zhang Zongchang, and Fujian-based Li Houji.²¹ Acting on behalf of Tokyo, the Kwantung Army also used bribes to break up opposing militarist coalitions.²² As a result, Japanese forces and their militarist partners were by the 1930s able to consolidate control over Manchuria and Shandong, and extend their sway into the northern provinces of Suiyuan, Chahar, Shanxi, Rehe , and Hebei .²³ Zhang Zuolin even occupied Beijing and took over the central government between 1924 and 1928.²⁴ Nevertheless, Japanese leaders remained ready to dispense with wayward local partners who might endanger their interests. Concerns about Zhang Zuolin’s growing independence and ambition, especially the potential threat such developments had on Japan’s position in Manchuria, led to his assassination by elements of the Kwantung Army and Tokyo’s acceptance of the fait accompli.²⁵

The Japanese policy towards China from 1923 to 1931, therefore, generally followed precedents set during the previous two decades or so. By working with local actors to enhance economic and political privileges, Japanese leaders increased penetration into regions they found to be the most important without overly investing capabilities into administration.²⁶ Moreover, by concentrating on areas commonly recognised as being under Japanese influence, Tokyo avoided antagonising other powers.²⁷ Such actions permitted leaders in Tokyo to manage access opportunities to southern Manchuria, Shandong, and, to some extent, Fujian.²⁸ As a result, foreign, and even indigenous, attempts to gain access in such regions required at least implicit Japanese acceptance.

With expectations about the costs of intervention falling rapidly in the early 1930s, Tokyo’s policy toward China became more aggressive. Rather than just regulating access through local partners, Japanese actions began to focus on fully excluding rivals through immediate territorial control. Beginning with the takeover of Manchuria in autumn 1931 , the Japanese military started to occupy large parts of China.²⁹ By April 1934, the Japan’s Foreign Ministry even put forward the Amau Declaration, which declared that all foreign financial and military assistance to actors in China required Japanese government approval.³⁰ Even before the official outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces conquered much of north China in an undeclared war against the Nationalist government .³¹ By the early 1940s, Tokyo held North, East, South, and much of Central China. Seen by leaders in Tokyo as part of its New Order in East Asia, and later the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japanese rule aimed to turn these areas into exclusive imperial preserves.³² Exploitations of the markets, raw materials, and population in these areas were to help fortify Japan and prepare it to face the threats posed by the Soviet Union and Western powers.

As Japanese leaders pursued full denial of access over China, they dropped their wariness about confronting other major powers. In invading and occupying Manchuria, Tokyo ignored protests by the United States, Britain, France, and the League of Nations. When the League-commissioned Lytton Mission investigating the dispute over Manchuria recommended that Japanese forces withdraw, the Tojo cabinet promptly quit the League and established the Manchukuo government in 1932.³³ The Tojo cabinet and its successors likewise disregarded major power opposition as Japanese military forces spread across China in the 1930s and 1940s.³⁴ The running battles between the Kwantung Army and the Soviet Red Army along Manchuria’s Siberian and Mongolian borders in 1938 and 1939 exemplified Tokyo’s assertiveness in securing access over China.³⁵

In areas under occupation, Japanese military and civilian agencies became responsible for overseeing administration at all levels of government.³⁶ At the top, Tokyo backed the creation of collaborationist governments. These included various regimes in Inner Mongolia and North China in addition to the better-known examples of Manchukuo and the Nanjing National Government under the Nationalist faction of Wang Jingwei .³⁷ Even though the Wang regime and other collaborationist governments enjoyed some functional autonomy and the formal abrogation of all unequal treaties, Tokyo directly supervised policy.³⁸ Japanese officials maintained oversight of government agencies, whilst Japan’s military was charged with security matters until, in the words of the treaty governing Tokyo-Nanjing relations, “all threats to safety are resolved”.³⁹

The Japanese presence in governance was apparent not only at the top levels. Timothy Brook and others note that locally stationed civilian “pacification teams”, supported by the closest Japanese military garrison, watched over local government administration into the county level.⁴⁰ Brook notes that Japanese “pacification teams had been the supreme power in occupied counties“.⁴¹ Pacification teams, local Japanese garrisons, and resident collaborators together oversaw everything from security and public works, to social services, civil reconstruction, and education, down to individual villages, albeit with varying degrees of success.⁴²

Unconditional surrender in August 1945 meant that Japanese leaders could no longer invest capabilities into retaining the positions and arrangements previously set up in China.⁴³ Without their backer, the various collaborationist regimes collapsed, ending Japanese pretensions to fully exclude other major powers from access.⁴⁴ American occupation from 1945 to 1952 saw an abatement of Japanese efforts to compete for access in China.

An End to British Prominence

If the Britannic titan was weary at the turn of the twentieth century, it neared exhaustion by the late 1940s. From 1914 to 1952, the need to fight in and rebuild after two systemic wars, recover from the Great Depression, face an emerging Soviet Cold War threat, and manage relations with a newly preponderant United States beset leaders in London. Consequently, British expectations about the opportunity costs of intervening in the Chinese polity remained high for much of the period 1923 to 1952, and became nearly prohibitive toward the late 1940s. British elites saw the limited aim of pursuing nonprivileged access as the most justifiable use of already stretched capabilities in China, but were open to complete withdrawal if necessary.

British interwar cabinets generally had two primary objectives in China regardless of party affiliation.⁴⁵ The first was to ensure nondiscrimination against existing British economic interests by preventing other powers from acquiring exclusive access privileges.⁴⁶ Britain was the second largest exporter in China and one of its biggest investors going into the 1920s and 1930s, although its position in the Chinese economy was in relative decline.⁴⁷ The second was to preserve access equality through cooperation with other actors, notably China’s central government and Japan.

An internal Foreign Office Memorandum by Austen Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary in the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin, summed up the official British view on China from 1923 to 1937, declaring that:

As regards the principles of British policy in China, these can be stated in a very few words. We have no territorial or imperialistic aims. Our first concern is to maintain our position in the trade of China. . .. Our second concern is to maintain the principle of the “open door“ and equal opportunity for all and to see that China does not fall under the tutelage of any single Power. For these reasons we desire to see a united, well-ordered, prosperous and peaceful China, and it is our policy to endeavour to co-operate to that end with the other Great Powers concerned. These are the root principles underlying all our efforts in China.⁴⁸

This view came from the belief that seeking full denial or direct regulation of access in China would distract Britain’s already strained capabilities from more important goals elsewhere.⁴⁹

Voices calling for a more robust British role in China certainly existed. In the early 1920s, British nationals and firms in China lobbied London to suppress the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese nationalism, retain extraterritoriality, and preserve jurisdiction over British-administered areas.⁵⁰ Senior diplomats and bureaucrats as well as British businesses active in China called on London to extend technical, political, and financial support for the Nationalist-led central government’s monetary reform efforts during the 1930s.⁵¹ They did so to bring China informally into the pound-based sterling bloc and expand British influence over the Chinese financial system.

Given the priorities of interwar British political elites, advocates of a more active British government role in China failed to make headway. Most leaders believed that the greatest returns came from committing capabilities to the metropole’s economic revival.⁵² This was a result of Britain’s economic woes after the Great War and following the rise of a labour movement demanding more attention to working-class needs.

Niall Ferguson observed that, “paying for the [Great] war had led to a tenfold increase in national debt. Just paying interest on that debt consumed close to half of total central government spending by the mid-1920s”.⁵³ Exacerbating conditions were decisions by the Baldwin cabinet and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, to return to the gold standard at overvalued 1914 rates. This forced an adoption of deflationary policies that led to rising unemployment, contributing to the 1926 General Strike.⁵⁴ Making matters worse, investor confidence flagged because of uncertainty over the will of an indebted British government to support the gold standard, especially as central banks elsewhere undermined that monetary regime.⁵⁵ The further deterioration of the British economy following the Great Depression compounded these problems.

As a result, prime ministers from Lloyd George to Neville Chamberlain focused on the creation of a pound-based fixed exchange rate system as well as a preferential tariff system centred on the British empire.⁵⁶ The sterling bloc and imperial preference system aimed to ensure ready access to cheap raw materials and captive markets for British firms by managing access across the empire, effectively creating the world’s largest protectionist bloc. Consequently, the share of British exports going to the empire grew from 44 to 48 percent whilst Britain’s imports from the empire expanded from 30 to 39 percent.⁵⁷ In comparison, China accounted for around 0.5 to 2.5 percent of Britain’s trade and about 5 percent of British foreign investment – with the remainder going to the empire and the Americas.⁵⁸

London’s single-mindedness over the revival of the British economy made almost all other objectives seem secondary. To spur economic growth, every British cabinet between 1919 and 1932 even reaffirmed the so-called “ten-year rule” that retrenched defence expenditures and channelled savings toward the economy.⁵⁹ Implementation of the rule contracted military spending by about a third at a time when similar expenditures by major powers except the United States grew between 55 and 60 percent.⁶⁰ If the expected gains from investing in the defence seemed low, perceived returns from intervening in China were nearly negligible – especially if armed confrontation was in the offing.⁶¹ As war cost blood and treasure, and could destroy the very economic potential in dispute, British leaders saw compromise and limited deterrence as the preferred way to address challenges in China.

British leaders rescinded the “ten-year rule” in 1932, but only because of the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe. Mounting pressure to protect the British Isles spelt a further decline in the importance of securing access in China.⁶² Whatever gains were to be had from denying rivals access in China would evaporate should Britain face defeat and the forcible dismantling of its empire. London’s long neglect of its military, which left British forces lagging in technology, readiness, and size, only worsened matters. When appeasement failed to prevent Japan from shutting out British access after 1937, London resisted through passive diplomatic and political support for Chiang Kai-shek’s government .

Still, British leaders appeared unwilling to cede access over China completely. Withdrawal from China spelt a loss of both current interests and future opportunities. Moreover, preventing Japan from completely denying access over the Chinese polity could draw Tokyo’s attention away from Britain’s colonial possessions in Asia, and even promise nondiscrimination against British access in China after the war .⁶³ Nevertheless, active and direct involvement in the Chinese polity was not something British leaders were willing to stomach whilst fighting raged in Europe, North Africa, and the Atlantic.⁶⁴

The end of World War II did not raise British expectations of gain from securing greater degrees of access in China. Fighting the war left the British government and economy more indebted than before. Demobilisation and the devastation of war drove the British economy into a severe depression matched by massive inflation.⁶⁵ Moreover, the postwar Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill cabinets faced the need to address Indian independence and the maintenance of empire.⁶⁶ A realisation by Britain’s leaders about a looming Communist threat to Europe further convinced British leaders of the need to allocate any remaining capabilities to Western Europe and the empire.⁶⁷

Even if some elites in London desired more access privileges in China at the expense of the other major powers, pursuing such a goal appeared to necessitate the sacrifice of more pressing strategic objectives. Not only was the British economy in shambles, Japan’s invasion of China destroyed any access advantages Britain enjoyed. Additionally, London’s efforts to sustain the wartime alliance with the Chinese Nationalists meant pressure to relinquish treaty frameworks that undergirded any remaining access privileges.

Consequently, London expected the preservation of nonprivileged access amongst the major powers in China to provide the best return to investment of its limited capabilities between 1923 and 1952. This translated into supporting a largely autonomous central government with a high degree of control over China that was willing and able to preserve nonprivileged access for Britain. London sought to accomplish this through compromises with the central government and the other major powers active in China.

To this end, Britain’s policy in China until 1949 combined efforts to back the Nationalist Party–led central government using political concessions with the appeasement of Japanese aggression. The Foreign Office, after all, identified the National Government as having the most viable claim to central government status, although Whitehall acknowledged that Nanjing effectively controlled no more than two to three provinces as late as 1930.⁶⁸ This desire to maintain nonprivileged access in China also spelt a willingness to recognise a Communist-led central government once Nationalist rule collapsed.

A Strained Defence of the “Open Door”

Economic problems and the rise of new continental threats hemmed in London’s willingness to commit capabilities into competition over access in China.⁶⁹ Instead of providing financial and material assistance to shore up central governments, British support came in the form of concessions that aimed to entice the central governments in China to help maintain London’s interests. It was in this vein that British leaders allowed increased customs tariffs, pledged the eventual relinquishment of control over the use of customs revenues, and promised to progressively remove extraterritorial rights at the 1926 Beijing Tariff Conference .⁷⁰ Accepting such conditions could burnish the domestic nationalist credentials of whoever controlled the central government, while promising greater access to a stable source of income. As London believed that such action would shore up a central government supportive of nondiscriminatory British access, Britain’s leaders pushed ahead with these policies over protests by British nationals and businesses in China.⁷¹

For British policymakers, concessions made at the Tariff Conference were a cheap hedge against different possible results of the Nationalists’ Northern Expedition, then underway. Since the gains from rolling back extraterritoriality and additional revenues could benefit any party that controlled the central government, such concessions could encourage the eventual victor to avoid discriminating against British access. This was of particular concern given Soviet tutelage of the Nationalists and Feng Yuxiang’s Guominjun , as well as Japan’s support for Zhang Zuolin and his Fengtian Clique , which was then the force behind the Beijing central government.⁷²

Efforts at accommodating China’s central government followed into the 1930s and beyond. They included the 1927 and 1928 treaty revisions that saw London hand over a number of concessions and leaseholds across China to the Nationalist-led central government in Nanjing, whilst reducing the British administrative role in other areas.⁷³ This paved the way for British support of tariff autonomy for Nanjing in 1929, as well as the return of the Boxer Indemnity in 1931.⁷⁴ The British government also acquiesced to efforts by the National Government to exert control over Maritime Customs, beginning with its formal incorporation into the Finance Ministry.⁷⁵ London further attempted to win Nanjing’s support for British interests by offering technical assistance for monetary and financial reforms through the 1936–1937 Leith-Ross Economic Mission to China.⁷⁶

At the same time, negotiations to progressively end extraterritoriality began in 1928, and brought the abolition of all British special privileges by 1943.⁷⁷ In order to secure nonprivileged access in China after World War II, London even considered talks with the National Government over revising the status of Hong Kong between 1944 and 1949.⁷⁸ Following the Nationalist disintegration on the mainland in late 1949, Churchill’s Conservative cabinet quickly switched recognition to the newly established central government in Beijing by January 1950. Driving this development was the goal of trying to obtain continued nonprivileged access, or in Churchill’s words, to “secure a convenience”.⁷⁹

The 1927 Nanjing Incident was the only significant departure from official British efforts to accommodate the local actors claiming control over central governments in China. British warships on the Yangzi River shelled the Nationalist Army’s positions in Nanjing for three days. This was in response to looting and violence against foreigners by the Nationalist forces after they entered the city as part of the Northern Expedition.⁸⁰ This Incident was the last major British military action against Chinese forces inside China, and occurred before the Nationalists secured their hold over the central government.

Alongside trying to demonstrate support for central governments in China to secure nonprivileged access, British leaders were also keen to appease Japan to avert a full-blown Sino-Japanese war.⁸¹ Policymakers in London believed that if the Japanese emerged victorious, they would shut out British interests, as was the case with Manchuria following its absorption into Japan’s sphere of influence. Moreover, even if the National Government’s forces held out against the Imperial Japanese Army, fighting in Central and South China was likely to force British businesses to withdraw. As a result, British policy elites hoped to broker Sino-Japanese reconciliation, with, if necessary, help from the League of Nations.

Hence, understanding British accommodation of China’s central governments requires an appreciation of London’s simultaneous concessions to Japan. The most notable of these included British efforts to mediate between Tokyo and Nanjing following the Kwantung Army’s seizure of Manchuria in September 1931 and the subsequent Japanese attack on Shanghai in January 1932.⁸² In negotiating ceasefires through the League of Nations, London pushed for the unilateral withdrawal of Chinese forces that effectively left demilitarised zones around territory gained by the Japanese, allowing the latter to consolidate its positions.

London only offered symbolic verbal criticism of Tokyo and an ineffectual arms embargo on both belligerents after the League of Nations’ Lytton Mission concluded that Japanese claims over Manchuria were weak.⁸³ Given China’s military and industrial limitations, the burdens of the embargo fell disproportionately on Nanjing. Following the Amau Declaration, London even pushed the League to end aid programmes in China.⁸⁴

Concerns over Japanese displeasure were also key in leading London to continually delay a proposed £100 million loan to the National Government recommended by the Leith-Ross Mission and requested by Nanjing for financial and monetary reforms.⁸⁵ Likewise, the British government prevented China from invoking the collective security clause of the League charter following the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and only gave verbal criticism of Japan .⁸⁶ Just as telling of official British attitudes were persistent attempts to reach an understanding with Tokyo between 1931 and 1941. Citing Britain’s accommodation in China as a demonstration of goodwill, London aimed to acquire Japanese government guarantees for British interests in China.⁸⁷ The rationale behind such moves was to avoid exclusive Japanese access at Britain’s expense.

Britain’s China policy remained passive even with the start of the Sino-Japanese War. Fear of provoking Japan prompted Chamberlain’s cabinet to decline Nanjing’s request for arms sales, and restrict assistance to China’s central government to two areas . The first was to allow arms from third countries to reach the National Government through Hong Kong by not imposing inspections.⁸⁸ The second was to finish the Burma Road that was already near completion, and eventually open Burma and India for the supply of war matériel to Chongqing.⁸⁹ British aid to the National Government through 1945 totalled £68.04 million, less than what the Soviets offered the Nationalists between 1937 and 1941.⁹⁰ With the end of World War II, the strain of fighting and rebuilding effectively ended active British involvement in China, with the obvious exception of Hong Kong.⁹¹

Denying Privileged Access and America’s Involvement in China

China was never of very high priority for leaders in Washington from 1923 to 1952. Congress and presidential administrations from Harding to Truman placed domestic development and security concerns in Europe ahead of issues in the Far East. Behind this general outlook was the expectation that committing capabilities to China would bring much smaller returns than investing those same capacities elsewhere. This fostered an expectation about the high opportunity costs of intervening into the Chinese polity amongst key American elites. Consequently, Washington’s approach to China at this time centred on preserving nonprivileged access for American interests.

Between 1923 and 1937, U.S. leaders saw competition for access in China as less important than other objectives. After all, U.S. economic ties with East Asia for the period remained far behind American trade and investment with Europe and Latin America, and paled in importance next to the U.S. domestic market.⁹² Within Asia, the value of U.S. trade and investment with China was less than half of that with Japan, America’s largest economic partner in the Far East.⁹³ Trade with Japan often hovered around 10 percent of the U.S. total and never fell below 7 percent through the 1930s, whilst foreign investment in Japan stood at between 7 to 8 percent of total outward American investment.⁹⁴

Hence, most American leaders up until the Pearl Harbour attack saw anything more than diplomatic intervention into the Chinese polity as counterproductive and unnecessarily burdensome. Given Japan’s interest in China, U.S. officials believed that active involvement in China could risk confrontation with a well-entrenched Japanese military that America was both unprepared and unwilling to face.⁹⁵ Moreover, the need to focus on solving the domestic problems associated with the Great Depression meant that the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations had little time or energy to spare over China.⁹⁶ Finally, the domestic chaos that enveloped China through the 1940s suggested to U.S. political leaders that heavy involvement in that polity was a quagmire to avoid.⁹⁷ Substantial intervention in China seemed to promise few gains next to other, more pressing concerns.

Yet, Washington policymakers saw total withdrawal from China as untenable. This ironically owed much to the strength of isolationism in the United States. Congress and administrations in office during the interwar period wished to avert a major power war. A large proportion of American leaders believed such an event to be economically disruptive and unnecessarily costly, like the Great War. For interwar U.S. leaders, the key to avoiding such conflict seemed to lie in post–World War I treaties and institutions, which they hoped would restrain major powers from using force on each other.⁹⁸

For American policymakers, forgoing access over China in the face of Japanese aggression threatened to undermine the Washington Naval Treaty and Nine Power Treaty designed to prevent conflict amongst the major powers in China and the Asia-Pacific.⁹⁹ Leaders in Washington, including FDR and Secretary of State Henry Stimson, believed that this could contribute to the unravelling of the post–World War I institutional framework.¹⁰⁰ Further, that U.S. economic interests in China were substantial in absolute terms – even if minor relative to other concerns – meant that Washington did not wish to completely relinquish involvement in China even if it was reluctant to take an active stand.

However, events in Europe between 1938 and 1945 led American leaders to anticipate a slight fall in the cost of intervention in China. This encouraged Washington to become more active in trying to maintain nonprivileged access, even if it still tried to stay away from heavy involvement inside China where possible. Nazi Germany’s rise in the late 1930s and early 1940s appeared to point toward the emergence of a world hostile to the United States , a trend that would be complete with the fall of an increasingly beleaguered Britain.¹⁰¹ In this respect, the Roosevelt administration and Congress became increasingly convinced that the loss of British Empire in the Far East would bring Britain’s total defeat.¹⁰² Serious concerns in this regard remained even after Germany turned on the Soviets in 1941.

For American leaders, the key to preventing a British defeat appeared to be bogging down Japanese forces and capabilities in the vast expanse of China, away from British possessions in Southeast Asia and especially India. Planners in the War Department believed that tying down Japanese forces in China could permit the United States to focus on a more pressing German threat.¹⁰³ This was the case even after the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbour and the fall of British, Dutch, and American colonies across Southeast Asia in 1942. World War II led American leaders to see greater gains from more involvement in China in terms of its ability to help the United States reap even larger benefits in Europe.

Consequently, Washington strove to secure nonprivileged access over China with as little investment as possible.¹⁰⁴ This translated into assisting actors in China to avoid defeat. As such, any Chinese victory over Japan would be incidental rather than intended. Even after Tokyo’s surrender, the United States tried to have Japanese forces and their collaborationist allies turn themselves and their equipment over to Chinese Nationalist forces.¹⁰⁵ This enabled Washington to limit military and financial assistance to the National Government as the latter tried to reclaim formerly occupied territory.

Self-imposed American restrictions on postwar aid to China reflected elite beliefs that returns from securing access in China remained secondary to the gains anticipated from investing in the rebuilding of Europe and constructing an Atlantic alliance system.¹⁰⁶ For Harry Truman and his administration, the reconstruction of a war-torn Europe – and Japan – at the end of World War II could provide the United States with strong partners for the postwar world. This was especially important with the emergence of a Soviet threat, since the ability to build on the preexisting industrial bases in Western Europe and Japan seemed critical to any long-term rivalry.¹⁰⁷ China, with its underdevelopment and internal problems, seemed to have little immediate value except as a foil for mobilising the American public to support a massive rebuilding of Europe and Japan, and perhaps as a buffer against the Soviets in Asia.¹⁰⁸ The potentially catastrophic consequences of war with the Soviet Union, especially with the advent of nuclear weapons, further restrained U.S. leaders from acts that might unnecessarily escalate tensions – such as open intervention in China.¹⁰⁹

The Truman administration simply saw preventing exclusive Soviet access across China at minimal American expense as sufficient, given other demands on American energies.¹¹⁰ Postwar policymakers like Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and even Truman himself, continued to hold the perspective that the opportunity costs of intervening in China were high, much like their prewar predecessors .¹¹¹ The Korean War and fears of escalating hostilities in East Asia soon raised the perceived cost of involvement on the Chinese mainland even more.¹¹² However, mobilising for the Korean War and containing Communism in the Far East brought a simultaneous and substantial lowering of the expected costs of intervening in Taiwan to shore up the Chinese Nationalists there.¹¹³

For all the consistency that U.S. policymakers between 1923 and 1952 demonstrated in their understandings about the high opportunity costs relating to intervention in China, this perspective was in dispute. Chinese leaders like Sun Yat-sen and private American citizens and businesses in China were urging the U.S. government to take a more active role in fostering stability within the Chinese polity since the 1920s.¹¹⁴ Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Party took matters further by working with allies in Congress and the media to lobby for more extensive and direct support from the U.S. government during the 1930s and 1940s.¹¹⁵ On the other side of the issue, isolationists like Senator Robert Taft, and their associates in Congress worked consistently to encourage greater American disengagement from the world, including from China .¹¹⁶ Opportunity cost considerations, however, kept U.S. administrations in this period largely unmoved by these calls.

Given their opportunity cost considerations, U.S. leaders from the interwar through postwar eras saw support for a Chinese central government that could maintain a minimum level of stability across the polity as the optimal approach. This was the case so long as the central government did not align too closely with Moscow. Elites in Washington believed that with sufficient political centralisation and external autonomy, such administrations could permit nondiscrimination against American access within China. Anything more was viewed as a waste of capabilities that could go toward economic recovery or securing Western Europe and its large industrial base from first Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia. This was in keeping with the high opportunity costs American leaders associated with intervention in the Chinese polity at the time.

Inattention and Open Access

Between the conclusion of the Washington Conference until Japan’s invasion and the eve of World War II in Europe, American political elites treated China with detachment. So long as there was no discrimination against American access in China, the Harding, Coolidge, and even FDR administrations were happy to maintain a hands-off approach. China policy was to rest on coordination with other foreign powers as well as diplomatic and largely indirect financial assistance for China’s central governments, regardless of whether it was in Beijing, Nanjing, or Chongqing.¹¹⁷

In this vein, the U.S. government readily backed the remitting of surplus revenues from the Maritime Customs and other foreign-run Chinese official agencies to whomever controlled China’s central government, a system reaffirmed by the Washington Treaties.¹¹⁸ At the 1926 Tariff Conference , Washington even supported the promise of tariff autonomy for China and an upward revision of tariff rates to the Fengtian Clique-led government in Beijing.¹¹⁹ Not only did such revenues promise added income, but they also could provide collateral with which central governments in China could secure addition foreign loans.

Likewise, when Nationalist forces established a new National Government in Nanjing in 1928, Washington was quick to switch diplomatic recognition and support from the previous Fengtian-backed central government in Beijing. To the chagrin of some U.S. citizens and businesses in China, leaders in Washington readily entered negotiations with the National Government over the reduction of American extraterritorial rights whilst downplaying differences over the 1927 Nanjing Incident.¹²⁰ This last series of moves had the added effect of shoring up popular support for the Nationalist-led central government. These concessions were, of course, to guard against exclusion by winning over those that ostensibly controlled most of China and its external affairs.

Even Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and subsequent attack on Shanghai the following year did not fundamentally alter the hands-off American approach toward access in China. The primary aim for U.S. leaders remained the avoidance of exclusion from China even if the situation demanded a modification of tactics.¹²¹ Washington now added accommodation of Japan to the provision of limited support to the central government in Nanjing.¹²² United States leaders believed that such an approach could encourage both the Japanese and the National Government to refrain from discriminating against U.S. interests in China without a significant commitment of capabilities .¹²³ This could free the U.S. government to address the problems associated with the Great Depression.

To be sure, many policymakers in Washington joined the chorus condemning Japan’s actions both on moral grounds and as a violation of treaty obligations made at the Paris and Washington conferences.¹²⁴ Secretary of State Henry Stimson even announced U.S. nonrecognition of the territorial gains Japan made through force in China, whilst the U.S. Navy began to redeploy forces to the American West Coast.¹²⁵ At the end of 1935, FDR and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau further agreed to purchase silver from China at a fixed price, helping to provide some respite from the woes that the 1934 U.S. Silver Purchase Act caused for the Chinese economy and the National Government’s ability to resist the Japanese.¹²⁶ Otherwise, the U.S. government essentially accepted the Japanese fait accompli, giving Tokyo a free hand across China.¹²⁷

As the importance of preventing exclusive Japanese access over China grew with the unfolding of World War II in Europe, the Roosevelt administration began to raise support for China’s central government. This began in 1939 with the extension of a US$25 million purchase credit to the National Government followed by US$20 million in 1940 and another US$42.5 million in 1941.¹²⁸ Washington secured these credits on Chinese tung oil, tin, wolframite, and metals, whilst restricting their use to the appropriation of American manufactured and agricultural products.¹²⁹ The Roosevelt administration granted an additional US$95 million in credits in 1941, as well as eligibility for lend-lease, the supply of war material, deployment of military advisors, and a US$500 million loan in 1942.¹³⁰

In 1941, President Roosevelt approved the use of American pilots and aircraft to fly supplies to Chongqing from Burma and India, as well as to assist with air defence on a nonofficial basis. These “volunteer units” – the “Flying Tigers“ – would later become a component of official American wartime aid to China. Symbolically, the U.S. government abrogated treaties guaranteeing American extraterritorial rights, relaxed rules on Chinese immigration, maintained diplomatic recognition of Chongqing, and proclaimed China to be one of the “Big Four” postwar powers.¹³¹

All told, Washington provided approximately US$1.5 billion worth of financial and material assistance to China during World War II, the bulk of which went to the National Government.¹³² Conversely, the United States committed US$31 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the British and Commonwealth governments, whilst deploying forces to take part in the active defence of the British Isles and Australia .¹³³ This suggests that despite its growing importance, China remained subsidiary to America’s other concerns. Even the implementation of long-standing plans to use the Chinese coast as a base from which to attack the Japanese Home Islands was to occur only after victory in Europe.

Limited American support for the central government in China is consistent with prevalent perceptions in Washington about the high opportunity costs of intervention in China, given overwhelming strategic concerns in Europe. Warren Cohen observes that even after Pearl Harbour, America’s wartime leaders took the position that:

In the defence of the interests of the United States, it was important to give the Chinese [central government] enough aid to keep them fighting, but it was not necessary to give them enough to win. And if they would not fight, Asian affairs could await the settlement of vital issues across the Atlantic. The fight to liberate China was merely a sideshow in the war against the Axis, not an important American priority.¹³⁴

Leaders and policymakers in Washington deemed denying Japan exclusive access over China to be a sufficient wartime goal.

From the final days of World War II until the conclusion of the peace process at San Francisco in 1952, Washington also remained careful to restrict its involvement in China to what was sufficient to prevent discrimination against American access. The deal that Roosevelt struck with Stalin at Yalta secured Soviet assistance in fighting Japan and recognition of the right of a U.S.-assisted National Government to establish centralised control over most of China.¹³⁵ This permitted Washington to ensure equality of access over most of the Chinese polity through the National Government without having to sacrifice the capabilities intended for rebuilding Western Europe.¹³⁶

In this regard, Washington kept assistance to the National Government during the late 1940s to a minimum. Insisting that Japanese forces surrender to the Nationalists whilst transferring captured and surplus war material to Nationalist forces gave the National Government territory, equipment, and supplies with little American direct involvement.¹³⁷ The U.S. government also provided logistic support and assistance totalling about US$645 million to the National Government from 1945 to 1949.¹³⁸

Aid to the Chinese Nationalist central government was a fraction of the US$17 billion in Marshall Aid for Europe and the US$50 billion in U.S. defence spending for the same period.¹³⁹ Additionally, the Truman administration provided US$4.34 billion in postwar loans to Britain, as well as more than US$1.3 billion in military assistance to NATO.¹⁴⁰ In fact, the Truman administration advanced assistance to China’s National Government largely to logroll the Isolationists and the Nationalists’ “China Lobby” allies in Congress into supporting the massive release of funds for the Marshall Plan and defence build-up.¹⁴¹

Moreover, Washington tried to convince the Nationalists to enter into a coalition with the Communists even as it offered support to the National Government , as evidenced by the 1945–1947 Marshall Mission. United States leaders believed that the ensuing peace in China could allow a greater focus of their energies in Europe.¹⁴² The U.S. government was also quick to withdraw American troops from China as the Chinese Civil War reignited.¹⁴³ Washington was even ready to abandon the Nationalists following their withdrawal to Taiwan in 1949.¹⁴⁴ Future access in China, after all, appeared possible through cooperation with the new Communist-led central government.¹⁴⁵

With the eruption of the Korean War, U.S. leaders began to see intervention on the mainland as prohibitively costly given the potential for uncontrolled escalation, and the possibility that Korea was a diversion for a Soviet attempt to seize Europe.¹⁴⁶ Accordingly, Washington was willing to concede access over the mainland. This meant a fall in the opportunity cost of intervening in Taiwan to regulate access. American-backed Nationalist control of the island could provide a strongpoint from which to limit the Communist threat in Asia.¹⁴⁷ Strong American influence over Taiwan had the added benefit of preventing a Nationalist attack on the mainland that could raise tensions unnecessarily. For a defence commitment as well as economic and military aid, then, the Nationalists had to support America’s containment strategy and forgo returning to the mainland.¹⁴⁸

The Soviet Union and Its Role in China

For Bolshevik leaders from Lenin to Stalin, Bukharin, and Trotsky, the Soviet Union’s security, survival, and future development hinged on its relationship with capitalist societies and bourgeois governments. They believed that capitalist powers would become increasingly hostile as they weakened under the contradictions and war endemic to the capitalist system even as socialism strengthened the Soviet Union.¹⁴⁹ These leaders also expected contradictions amongst capitalist powers to inevitably spur war and revolution, offering the Soviet Union opportunities to forward socialism. Since most major capitalist powers were in Europe and North America, these areas were the focus of Soviet hopes and anxieties. Next to the anticipated returns for investing capabilities in Europe between 1923 and 1952, leaders in Moscow expected the opportunity cost of intervening in China to range between moderate and high.

Europe, more so than North America, stood at the centre of Soviet concerns. Even before the October Revolution in 1917, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders saw Europe – particularly Germany – as hotbeds for proletarian revolution. The attention on Europe was not surprising, given the recent Russian experience of war with Germany, as well as the large French and British role in supporting White Russian forces in the Russian Civil War.¹⁵⁰ As good Marxists, the early Bolsheviks also believed that members of the large working class in industrial European economies would be natural allies against the bourgeois capitalists that held them in subjection.¹⁵¹ Such views brought the ill-fated Soviet attempt to attack Poland and instigate revolution in 1919, as well as support for the abortive 1921 German Communist Uprising.¹⁵²

Despite a brief respite in the early 1920s, Bolshevik concerns about the European powers soon returned. Entente with the West peaked in 1925 under the influence of Stalin and Bukharin’s claims about the “stabilisation” of capitalism, and the need to first build “socialism in one country” as they tried to secure leadership of the Communist Party after Lenin’s death in 1923.¹⁵³ By 1924, factional infighting within the Soviet Communist Party, as well as the spectre of a resurgent Germany with the 1923 Dawes Plan and the 1925 Locarno Treaty , led to a resurgent belief in imminent attack from capitalist European governments.

This “war scare” presented Stalin with the opportunity to consolidate control over the Soviet leadership, in part by emphasising the need to quickly strengthen the Soviet Union economically and militarily. As such, Stalin purged Bukharin and other backers of the moderate New Economic Policy even as he perpetuated a belief in the need to cow hostile European capitalists through Soviet might. This created a demand for an advantageous “correlation of forces” vis-à-vis capitalist European powers, and later the United States.¹⁵⁴

Moscow’s concern with the “correlation of forces” in Europe continued to inform Soviet strategic thinking into World War II and the Cold War. Even though Stalin and other Soviet leaders expected intracapitalist war to weaken the capitalist powers and pave the way for an eventual Communist victory, they believed that this rested on the ability to deter capitalist aggression for the time being.¹⁵⁵ This depended, in turn, on continued popular mobilisation and the relative Soviet industrial and military strength, especially given the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Soviet leaders even believed that the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact lay with Hitler’s appreciation for Soviet might, as demonstrated by strong Soviet economic performance during the Depression.¹⁵⁶

The Great Patriotic War and its aftermath kept the attentions of leaders in Moscow on denying capitalist access to East and Central Europe.¹⁵⁷ In particular, the German invasion of 1941 suggested that the Soviet Union’s existence depended on the ability to resist this specific threat.¹⁵⁸ As such, the demonstration of Soviet military might along the borders of Manchuria between 1938 and 1939 and the 1941 Neutrality Pact with Japan allayed immediate fears of attack and encirclement from the Far East.¹⁵⁹ After the war, the industrial base and resources of Soviet-occupied Europe seemed key to postwar rebuilding.¹⁶⁰ Restricting capitalist access to East and Central Europe could also create a key buffer against the first blows of Western aggression, and avert the devastation of the earlier Nazi advance.

Soviet policymakers from the early 1920s to the early 1950s largely took areas in Central and East Asia as useful, secondary buffer zones. From 1921 and especially after Stalin’s ascendancy in 1924, Soviet leaders tried to limit access by the other major powers to areas adjacent the USSR’s Central and Northeast Asian boundaries.¹⁶¹ These regions were, after all, where the British and Japanese governments – supporters of the Bolsheviks’ White Russian opponents and perpetrators of intervention during the Civil War – were influential.¹⁶² Denying London and Tokyo free access to neighbouring territories was a way for Soviet leaders to stall potential capitalist aggression in those regions, enabling Moscow to concentrate on more pressing issues.¹⁶³

In comparison, there did not seem to be a clear Soviet approach toward access in China until the 1920s. Previously, the distractions of the civil war, foreign intervention, the Polish campaign, and power struggles within the Soviet Communist Party prevented the formulation of a coherent China policy.¹⁶⁴ Bolshevik leaders only seemed ready to revisit the issue of access in China by 1921, which saw the conceptualisation of northern China as an extension of existing buffers against capitalist-imperialist hostility.¹⁶⁵ Soviet leaders did not see China as central to revolution or the development of socialism.

Bolshevik leaders from the interwar years on wished to avoid having capitalist-imperialist powers completely denying Soviet access to the rest of China. Given China’s domestic instability and susceptibility to foreign influence, Moscow policymakers saw the establishment of exclusive foreign access over the polity, or at least part of it, as portending aggression against the Soviet Union.¹⁶⁶ This fear stemmed from the launching of British, French, American, and Japanese incursions into Siberia from China in the early 1920s.¹⁶⁷

Moscow’s Differentiated Approach to Access Denial

Given their concerns, Soviet leaders adopted a multipronged approach to contend for access in China. The first element of this strategy was to prevent any other external power from gaining exclusive access over China south of the Great Wall. A central government possessing sufficient control over most of the polity as well as independence in external affairs could disrupt, distract, or otherwise drain potential aggressors before they significantly endangered the Soviet Union.¹⁶⁸ So long as nonprivileged access opportunities existed, Soviet leaders believed that they could prompt central governments in China to abet Moscow’s objectives through offers of material, diplomatic, or political support. By limiting involvement in China to the direct regulation of access in border regions and securing nonprivileged access in the rest of China, Moscow could commit capabilities to Europe where expected returns were higher.¹⁶⁹

The second component was protecting the USSR’s southern approaches by regulating access over regions along the Sino-Soviet border.¹⁷⁰ Policymakers in Moscow believed that this was achievable through cooperation with indigenous regimes and political authorities on the ground, saving them the trouble of day-to-day administration. Along these lines, Moscow even tried to obtain formal major power recognition of its position in areas of China bordering the Soviet Union. Finally, to hedge against the rise of either a strong central government that might seek to eject Soviet influence or one subservient to a foreign rival, Moscow cultivated local actors that it could potentially employ to destabilise an unfriendly Chinese government from the inside.

Turmoil from the Russian Revolution and civil war initially prompted the Bolshevik government to reduce involvement in China , leading to the relinquishment of Tsarist extraterritorial rights and privileges in Outer Mongolia and northern Manchuria.¹⁷¹ However, Stalin’s ascendancy and consolidation of power reinvigorated Soviet involvement in a way that reflected a differentiation in the perceived opportunity costs of intervention across China. This saw Moscow engage in simultaneous efforts to regulate access in areas along the Soviet border whilst preventing major power rivals from acquiring exclusive access over the rest of China going into the early 1950s.

As Japanese military pressure grew alongside the fascist threat in Europe during the 1930s, Stalin extended support to the Nationalist-led government in order to tie down Japanese forces and forestall an outright Japanese victory. Stalin and others believed, for a time, that Japanese success in excluding Soviet access over China could leave the Soviet Union trapped between hostile capitalist-imperialist forces in Europe and the Far East.¹⁷² This made Moscow quick to reestablish diplomatic relations with the Nationalist-led central government in Nanjing by 1932.¹⁷³ Ties between the Soviets and Nationalists initially broke down after Chiang Kai-shek’s Communist purge in 1927. Following the resumption of relations, the Soviet Union began to equip the Nationalists with money, arms, supplies, and advice that eventually totalled as much as US$556.4 million.¹⁷⁴

Soviet leaders too were critical in pushing for cooperation between the Communists and Nationalists against Japan over the reservations of Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek, and their followers.¹⁷⁵ Soviet leaders urged Mao and the CCP leadership to seek a Second United Front in 1935, whilst offering aid to the Nationalists to make cooperation with the Communists more palatable after the 1936 Xi’an Incident .¹⁷⁶ In bringing the two together, Moscow aimed to prevent exclusion by bolstering resistance to Japan, consolidating the position of its Chinese Communist allies, and forcing the Nationalists to accept an active Soviet presence. Further, the Second United Front limited Soviet commitment to China, while averting direct confrontation with Japan until Germany’s defeat.¹⁷⁷

Soviet efforts to shore up central government rule to ensure nonprivileged access persisted even after the Chinese Communist victory on the mainland in 1949. Moscow was well aware of the animosity CCP leaders felt towards the other major powers, which together with their fraternal socialist allegiances, seemed to guarantee at least nonprivileged access opportunities for the Soviet Union. To lock in its recently acquired gains, Moscow poured military and technical assistance as well as more than US$400 million in aid to shore up the Communist-led central government in Beijing after 1949.¹⁷⁸ Soviet leaders were also the first to recognise Beijing diplomatically, and even boycotted the United Nations for not admitting the new People’s Republic of China government.¹⁷⁹ Nonetheless, Moscow discouraged Beijing from simultaneously trying to take Taiwan during the Korean War, fearing that this could escalate tensions and bring direct conflict with Washington.¹⁸⁰

As it focused on nonprivileged access elsewhere in China, Moscow aimed to regulate access over Outer Mongolia , Tuva, Manchuria, and, to an extent, Xinjiang. Soviet leaders combined military involvement with political efforts in order to force both other outside powers and China’s central government into accepting Soviet dominance in these areas. Choibalsan’s Provisional People’s Government only managed to seize control over Outer Mongolia in 1921 and establish the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924 with the assistance of Soviet troops.¹⁸¹ Control over Tuva was likewise established and maintained through the force of Soviet arms. Repelling Japanese and Manchukuo incursions into Outer Mongolia in 1938 were Soviet and Mongolian troops led by Gregorii Zhukov .¹⁸² Moscow’s ability to regulate access over parts of Manchuria traversed by the China Eastern and South Manchurian Railways from 1925 to 1935 and from 1945 to 1952 rested in part on a strong Soviet military presence.¹⁸³ This was also the case with Liaodong after World War II.

Moscow further pressed China’s central leadership between 1923 and 1952 to accept a separate, Soviet-dominated Outer Mongolia, as well as its administration of areas of Manchuria traversed by the China Eastern Railway.¹⁸⁴ This is evident in the 1924 Sino-Soviet Treaty, the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, and the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance .¹⁸⁵ These agreements formalised the Soviet Union’s direct regulation of access in Outer Mongolia and parts of Manchuria.¹⁸⁶ Worth noting is the fact that Soviet attempts to secure access privileges came after Moscow’s official renunciation of extraterritorial rights in China in the 1919 and 1920 Karakhan Manifestos as well as the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1924.¹⁸⁷

To establish access regulation over Manchuria after World War II, Moscow encouraged the Chinese Communists to move into and entrench themselves in the region following its occupation by the Soviets in August 1945.¹⁸⁸ This took place even as Stalin publicly promised to return the area to the National Government and cease support for the CCP in the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty.¹⁸⁹ Stalin directed Soviet forces to tacitly abet CCP consolidation of the countryside and secondary cities in Manchuria whilst stalling the handover of the territory into 1946.¹⁹⁰ Despite the tension this move precipitated among some Soviet and CCP military commanders, it effectively gave the Chinese Communists almost a year to establish a base with a secure rear area in Siberia, free from the threat of Nationalist encirclement.¹⁹¹ By prolonging the Nationalists’ military deployment around the Northeast, the Soviet Union increased strain on the Nationalists’ already weak logistic chain, reducing the combat effectiveness of Nationalist forces.

In return for departing Manchuria militarily, Moscow obtained the withdrawal of the U.S. Marine divisions and other units stationed to support Nationalist efforts to reestablish order and communications in North China.¹⁹² This put the Soviet Union in a position to regulate access over Manchuria virtually unhindered, even if the Nationalists controlled the rest of China. Additionally, the large amounts of captured Japanese arms the Soviet Army quietly channelled to CCP forces in Manchuria featured prominently in the Communists’ early battlefield victories against the Nationalists. It is worth noting that Soviet leaders insisted on secrecy when aiding the CCP to avoid confrontation with the United States.¹⁹³ Stalin even originally accepted a division of China between the Nationalists and Communists, first in Manchuria and then along the Yangzi, to avoid CCP overextension and the provocation of direct U.S. military involvement .¹⁹⁴

To further guarantee its ability to regulate access over Outer Mongolia and Manchuria, Moscow consistently worked to secure acceptance of this position by other major powers. The 1941 Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact traded Moscow’s acceptance of a Japanese-sponsored Manchukuo in exchange for Tokyo’s recognition of a Soviet-dominated Mongolian People’s Republic.¹⁹⁵ Similarly, the 1945 Yalta Conference saw Stalin acquire U.S. and British acquiescence over the resumption of the Tsarist-era privileges in Manchuria and the separation of Outer Mongolia under Soviet tutelage .¹⁹⁶ These concessions, along with acknowledgement of Russian preeminence in Eastern and Central Europe, secured Moscow’s declaration of war against Japan and recognition of the Nationalists as China’s sole legitimate government .¹⁹⁷

Attempts to regulate access over areas of China bordering the USSR further saw Moscow provide support to Sheng Shicai, the dominant militarist in Xinjiang, from 1933 to 1942, as well as his predecessor, Qin Shuren.¹⁹⁸ As with other actors Moscow supported in China, Qin and Sheng’s commitment to Communism was not entirely clear.¹⁹⁹ Nonetheless, Soviet leaders seemed willing enough to provide them with arms, advice, and money as they could help manage access over an area bordering Soviet Central Asia. Sponsorship of Sheng also gave Moscow another point of leverage against the National Government that did not demand much capability investment.²⁰⁰ After Sheng’s defection to the Nationalists in 1942, Moscow tried to continue regulating access in Xinjiang by supporting to Chinese Communists active in the area and cooperative local groups, including proponents of East Turkestan independence.²⁰¹ As Xinjiang’s importance as a buffer area declined following World War II, so did Soviet interest in maintaining access regulation in the region.

Deserving of some elaboration is the final element of Moscow’s efforts to safeguard access over China, namely, maintenance of a potential to disrupt central government rule. Soviet leaders wished to hedge against a strong, independent, but unfriendly central government as well as one controlled by a rival foreign power, both of which might wish to eradicate Soviet influence from China. To enable the Soviet Union to avoid exclusion without committing too costly occupation and direct military intervention, Moscow cultivated local groups it could use to play off and distract a central government from focusing against Soviet access.²⁰² This would enable the Soviet Union to maintain its prerogatives over different parts of China.²⁰³ So, even as Soviet diplomats extended diplomatic recognition and support to the Beijing central government under the Zhili and Fengtian cliques between 1920 and 1925, Moscow nurtured the Nationalist and Communist parties in southern China.²⁰⁴

The presence of Soviet-supported local rivals to Beijing gave Moscow both bargaining leverage and a means to destabilise the central government should it become too unaccommodating. It was partially in this light that Moscow offered monetary and technical assistance to the fledgling Chinese Communist Party. In fact, the Comintern supplied over 90 percent of the Chinese Communists’ operating budget between the latter’s founding in 1921 and 1932.²⁰⁵ Pressure from the Soviet government, including from Lenin, and the Comintern was also responsible for pushing a reluctant CCP leadership under Chen Duxiu to form the First United Front with Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist s.²⁰⁶

In fact, continued Soviet support to the Chinese Communists between the 1920s and 1940s contributed to the party’s persistence and ultimate victory. Admittedly, Comintern-instigated uprisings by the CCP between 1927 and 1934 were brutally put down by Nationalist forces, and led to splits amongst the Chinese Communists as well as the cutting off of regular contact with Moscow.²⁰⁷ Nevertheless, Soviet assistance sustained the Chinese Communists’ viability as a challenger to the Nationalists throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Military, technical, and financial assistance flowing through Outer Mongolia and Soviet-influenced Xinjiang were important in helping the CCP establish and sustain a new base area in Yan’an and Northwest China.²⁰⁸ Moscow too played a key role in limiting the National Government’s military push against CCP-held areas in the late 1930s and 1940s by threatening the flow of aid .²⁰⁹

When the Nationalists looked like a useful challenger to the Beijing central government, especially during its socialist phase during the early 1920s, Moscow promptly extended a helping hand.²¹⁰ By 1923, Soviet leaders were furnishing the Nationalists with weapons, money, organisational expertise, and military training at the price of admitting members of the CCP into its ranks.²¹¹ This aimed to lock in Soviet influence over the Nationalists, which could be especially useful if the latter managed to control the central government.²¹² To maintain a working relationship with the Nationalists, Moscow gave way to Chiang Kai-shek after the 1926 Guangzhou Incident despite the ouster of the CCP and its left-wing allies from key posts in the party and the National Revolutionary Army.²¹³

Similarly, Moscow directed the Comintern to cultivate Feng Yuxiang and his Guominjun Clique, the preeminent militarist group in Northwest China and Inner Mongolia, as an independent power centre under Soviet influence.²¹⁴ This gave Moscow another ally in China with which to check attempts by the Beijing government and others to seal off Soviet access. The partnership with Feng grew even as Soviet officials espoused recognition of the Beijing government and support for the Nationalists and Communists’ national unification goals. After the Nationalist ascendancy in 1928, Moscow continued to supply the Guominjun with enough arms, equipment, money, and advice to be a potent military and political force through 1930 – despite its ambiguous ideological leanings.

Germany in China

Following Japan’s takeover of Shandong in 1914 and the formal surrender of all German privileges in China during the Paris Peace Conference , there was little German involvement in China until the mid 1920s.²¹⁵ Consequently, private initiatives by firms and individuals characterised Sino-German ties from the early to mid 1920s. By the late 1920s, the Weimar government was ready to reinvigorate the German position in China, laying the groundwork for Sino-German cooperation into the late 1930s. In line with German expectations that opportunity cost of intervention in China vacillated between prohibitive and high, Berlin’s approach to access shifted between complete withdrawal and the maintenance of nonprivileged access.

The origins of German government interest in nonprivileged access opportunities in China lay with Berlin’s efforts to address a seeming hostile European situation. After World War I, the German economy was struggling to recover from devastation whilst trying to meet the financial and other obligations of the Versailles Treaty.²¹⁶ French efforts to prevent a German resurgence through the 1920s and 1930s did little to alleviate conditions. These included efforts to maintain a large military presence on the Franco-German border, which came alongside the creation of a system of European alliances and insistence on the repayment of the war indemnity despite severe German economic problems. The Great Depression and British suspicions of Germany in the 1930s compounded matters.

Pressures in Europe created incentives for the Reichswehr and large German industrial concerns to press Berlin for the reconstruction and development of heavy industry, which could pave the way for rearmament.²¹⁷ China, the Soviet Union, Latin America, and Southeast Europe appeared to be areas where Germany could at once acquire raw materials, and access markets for investment as well as excess industrial products – including military equipment. This outlook persisted until the beginning of World War II, when the focus of war efforts on Europe, difficulties in long-distance exchange, and the need for a Japanese ally drew Berlin away from competing for access in China.

Of interest to leaders in Berlin was China’s potential role in German military and economic recovery. China’s large unexploited reserves of high-quality tungsten and the relative absence of restrictions on its trade was a fortuitous opportunity recognised by German military leadership and their domestic allies. Tungsten was a key ingredient in the arms manufacturing that was central to Germany’s military resurgence.²¹⁸

Moreover, the relative stability that the National Government seemed to guarantee could open trade and investment opportunities for German firms in the huge China market. As a result, the Weimar cabinet of Gustav Stresemann promoted systematic contact with and support for the newly established National Government in Nanjing starting in 1927.²¹⁹ This military and economic reconstruction provided the basis for an expansion in Sino-German ties that continued under the Nazis until Hitler chose to align more closely with Tokyo .²²⁰

Berlin Tries to Regain Equal Access

To ensure unhindered access to China, both the Weimar and Nazi leaderships until 1938 sought to bolster the military, economic, and political position of the National Government. After all, the Nationalists controlled much of the tungsten mining areas in China – especially as it gained control of Jiangxi in 1934 – and seemed to show promise in bringing the entire polity under its effective jurisdiction.²²¹ This saw the growing sale of excess German military equipment and arms to the Nanjing government, which came with military advisors and investment in government-linked development projects.²²² German assistance in the 1930s was key in the building of highways, railways, and air links, as well as the new, advanced units of the Nationalist Army that featured prominently in the anticommunist campaigns of the 1930s and the early stages of the Sino-Japanese War. Such interactions saw Sino-German trade grow by more than two-and-a-half times between 1925 and 1938, and German investment in China rising by 750 percent from 1921 to 1938.²²³

Berlin’s efforts to retain nonprivileged access in the Chinese polity continued after the initial outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. However, the National Government’s apparent inability to hold onto Central and South China seemed to call for an adjustment in German efforts at securing access.Building on growing ties with Japan, Berlin attempted to acquire Japanese approval for nonprivileged access in North China and Manchuria, whilst seeking to reconcile the two sides through the good offices of the German ambassador to China, Oskar Trautmann, and the German military attaché, Eugen Ott.²²⁴

German leaders hoped to use diplomacy to retain nonprivileged access across the Chinese polity despite ongoing hostilities, and avoid any commitment of capabilities already employed in Europe.²²⁵ Unfortunately for Berlin, the recalcitrance of both Tokyo and Chongqing, as well as Germany’s own need for Japan to tie down Allied forces in Asia – particularly the Soviet Red Army – derailed their original plans for China . Accordingly, Nazi government settled for barter agreements and other more limited arrangements with Manchukuo and Wang Jingwei’s Nanjing National Government. These lasted, at least in name, until Germany’s defeat ended aims to secure access in China.²²⁶

France and Access in China

The French role in the Chinese polity between 1923 and 1952 was very much on the decline, paling in comparison even next to its relatively passive involvement during the earlier part of the century. Paris’s declining attention over access in China had to do with the troubles facing the French government from the interwar period on. Concerns about a resurgent German threat, economic reconstruction, the Great Depression, the German occupation, and post–World War II rebuilding raised the anticipated opportunity costs of intervening in China from high to prohibitive. This moved French leaders away from largely exchange-based relationships with governments in China and toward withdrawal.

Like many other European powers, the primary concern of French leaders after World War I was recovery and preventing the reappearance of a German menace. Despite efforts to invest in its own economy and military throughout the 1920s and 1930s, as well as efforts to create alliances across Europe, it was apparent by the mid 1930s that France was lagging behind Germany economically and militarily. This situation worsened as the full force of the Great Depression hit in 1933, and its continental alliances began to fray.²²⁷ French leaders began to rely on their leading role in the League of Nations, and what they believed was a British ability to hold off any potential German aggression.²²⁸ As a result, French governments had little capacity to spare over access in China.

The French government was similarly preoccupied with developments in Europe and its colonies during and after World War II, and Paris could ill afford to divert valuable capabilities to securing access in China . German occupation and the establishment of the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain in 1940 meant that the government in France was effectively under German domination. Moreover, the focus of Vichy leaders was to keep conditions in France and French colonies under their control amenable to continued German predominance, rather than to worry about China. The more pressing goal of recovering France likewise kept the Free French government-in-exile from worrying about access in China. With the defeat of Germany and the return of the Free French government in 1945, the attentions of Paris switched to postwar reconstruction and the reestablishment of control over colonies in Africa and Indochina .

French Nonchalance

From the 1920s into the early 1950s, French elites and policymakers paid scant attention to China and the Far East. Between early 1938 and the defeat of the Third Republic in mid 1940, French assistance to the National Government was a paltry 660 million French francs with an additional £160,000 – approximately £26.5 million all told .²²⁹ There was also little attention paid to the French colonies in Indochina, where the porous border with the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi , and Yunnan became an important transit area for Allied war matériel going to the National Government.²³⁰ Paris was similarly hands-off in overseeing – much less developing – the French leasehold in Guangzhou Bay, despite the supposedly close relationship that the Vichy government responsible for Indochina shared with the Axis powers. This situation persisted until Japan effectively took control over French Indochina and most of Guangdong by 1941.

World War II also saw France end the formal, legal access privileges it held in China. To help gain goodwill, the Vichy regime had relinquished all remaining special privileges France enjoyed on paper to the Wang Jingwei -led Nanjing National Government in 1941.²³¹ When London and Washington gave up their extraterritorial and other special rights in 1943, the London-based Free French government followed suit.²³² Except for the maintenance of border trade with Indochina, this effectively ended French involvement in securing access in China.²³³ The need to quell the Viet Minh after World War II even drove Paris to attempt to seal access to China from the mid 1940s on.²³⁴

Conclusion

What this chapter makes clear are the convergent outside actor expectations about the high opportunity costs of intervening in China between 1923 and 1952. Insofar as this confluence in opportunity cost expectations created a common focus on nonprivileged access, the various foreign powers turned to support central government rule in order to safeguard nonprivileged access opportunities across China. However, opportunity cost expectations and policies alone tell only part of the story. To support the view that external pressures fostered sovereign statehood, such changes in the collective pattern of intervention should bring the high levels of political centralisation, territorial exclusivity, and external autonomy that ultimately emerged in China. The next chapter traces these developments.

However, exceptions to the trend of rising perceptions about the opportunity costs of intervention going into the early 1950s did exist. These were Soviet views toward access in Outer Mongolia, and, to some extent, Manchuria, post-1950 American perspectives about Taiwan, and Japanese understandings of access in China during the Sino-Japanese War. Corresponding with their leaders’ perceptions about the moderate opportunity costs of involvement in such areas at various times, Washington, Moscow, and Tokyo tried to regulate access in these regions. However, such gradations in opportunity cost perceptions over different parts of China do not contradict my argument; they simply reflect its sheer size and diversity. Such variation, particularly along China’s frontiers, is not surprising.

Notes

¹ This chapter and the next builds on Chong, Reference Chong2010.

² This was the case with the Navy-led cabinets of Kato Tomasaburo and Yamamoto Gonnohyoe, the Kenseikai cabinet of Kato Takaaki, the Seiyukai cabinet of Tanaka Gi’ichi, and the 1929 to 1931 Minseito cabinets of Hamaguchi Osachi and Wakatsuki Reijiro in office between 1923 and 1931 . Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 51–52, Reference Barnhart1995, 78–92; Iriye, 1967, 143–72; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 237–57.

³ Such calls were particularly prominent within the Imperial Japanese Army, especially the Kwantung Army stationed in Manchuria . Certain businesses with strong interests in the China market also lent their voices to the demand for a greater official Japanese role within the Chinese polity.

⁴ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 65, Reference Barnhart1995, 18, 78–92.

⁵ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 24–29.

⁶ Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 377–83; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 172–74; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 151–54; Schneider, Reference Schneider and Fuess1998, 185–205; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 257–64, 278–95, 716–21; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 569–71, 643–75.

⁷ This came through the “nonintervention policy” initiated by Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijuro and the Kato cabinet, and essentially continued under the Tanaka and Hamaguchi cabinets . Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 377–83; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 143–45; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 99–100; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 569–71, 643–75.

⁸ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 51; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 143–45, 163–75.

⁹ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 25, Reference Barnhart1995, 78–92.

¹⁰ The London Naval Treaty allowed Japan to maintain a 7:10:10 ratio of warships relative to the United States and Britain until 1938, when Japan’s proportion of warships would grow to 6:10:10. In the Pacific, the Imperial Navy would enjoy local superiority unless the British and Americans transferred naval assets from elsewhere . Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 35–36; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 163–75; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 305.

¹¹ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 22–49, 64–76, Reference Barnhart1995, 92–99, 101–21; Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 383–92; Iriye, 1967, 163–64, 76–78; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 352–67; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 115–16.

¹² Chen, Reference Chen2003, 336–85; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 300–04, 315–28, 350–58; Snyder, Reference Chen and ban1991, 127–30, 42–50; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 603–11.

¹³ Those in support of this more restrictive stance included Premiers Hamaguchi, Wakatsuki, Foreign Minister Shidehara, as well as Saionji Kinmochi , then one of the last politically active genros. Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 88–139, 200; Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 383–92; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 151–54; Schneider, Reference Schneider and Fuess1998, 161–205.

¹⁴ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 30–46, 100–4, 136–40, 200, Reference Barnhart1995, 101–44; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 301–45; Snyder, 1991, 115–16, 120–39; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 603–11.

¹⁵ Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 80–84, 129–37; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 172–78, 207–19; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 95.

¹⁶ Barnhart, Reference Kennedy1987, 148–61, 215–62, Reference Barnhart1995, 94–95, 101–39; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 75–84, 129–37; Iriye, 1967, 172–78, 207–19; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 300; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 297–358; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 115–30.

¹⁷ Prominent Navy proponents of expansion included Togo Heihachiro, the Japanese war hero from the Russo-Japanese War, as well as younger officers such as Kato Kanji, Fushimi Hiroyasu, and Suetsugu Nobumasa. Amongst the Army supporters of expansion were Tojo Hideki, Itagaki Seishiro, Hayashi Senjuro, Ishiwara Kanji, and Araki Sadao . Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 136–75, 198–214, 265, Reference Barnhart1995, 88–149; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 335–85; Coble, Reference Chen and ban1991, 182–282; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 33–46; Ishikawa, Reference Ishikawa1995, 134–431; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 151–54; Sadao, Reference Sadao, Borg and Okamoto1973, 225–59; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 492–516; Snyder, Reference Chen and ban1991, 142–50; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 99–100; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 603–11; SHAC 18/1513, “Di wei jiyao di 45–46 hao”, 1942.

¹⁸ These included three cabinets led by Konoe Fumimaro, one by Abe Nobuyuki, one by Yonai Mitsumasa, one by Tojo Hideki, one by Koiso Kuniaki, and one by Suzuki Kuntaro. Defeats by the Red Army at Changgufeng and Nomonhan in 1938 and 1939 led Tokyo to concentrate on China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific . Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 22–49, 64–114, 136–75, 198–214, 237–73; Borg, Reference Borg1964, 442–85; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 335–85; Elleman, Reference Elleman, Kotkin and Elleman1999, 126–27; Fujiwara, Reference Fujiwara, Borg and Okamoto1973, 189–95; Harkavy, Reference Harkavy2007, 90; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 297–358; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 632–60, 708–16; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 94–131.

¹⁹ Situations where the Kwantung Army and other Japanese commands in China presented Tokyo with fait accompli were common in the 1930s. The Army’s influence in politics made it difficult for Japanese leaders to reject such moves. Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 172–78, 207–19; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 632–60, 708–16.

²⁰ Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 75–84, 129–37; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 95–115.

²¹ Although the Army was largely responsible for orchestrating aid to friendly regimes in northern China, cabinets in Tokyo generally gave at least tacit agreement to such behaviour. Barnhart Reference Barnhart1987, 30, Reference Barnhart1995, 82–85, 105; Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 180–208, Reference Chen and ban1991, 1–206; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 58–59; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 151–77.

²² Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 65–74; Usui and Chen, Reference Usui, Chen and ban1990, 365–83; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 551–80.

²³ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 78–84; Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 377–92; Coble, Reference Coble1991, 90–119; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 257–85; Zheng Reference Zheng and ban2001, 551–80; SHAC 18/375, “Taipingyang Huiyi shanhou weiyuanhui taolun guanyu caibing jiaohui Guangzhouwan, jiejue Shandong xuan’an deng wenti de laiwang wenshu ji canyu Huashengdun huiyi wenjian”, 1922; SHAC 1032/653, “Taipingyang Huiyi shanhou weiyuanhui caibing banfa dagang Shandong wenti huiyi shanhou huiyi”, 1923.

²⁴ Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 97–99, 217–29; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 257–85.

²⁵ Barnhart, 1987, 30–31, Reference Barnhart1995, 85–86; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 59–79; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 174–82; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 330–39; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 567, 580–88.

²⁶ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 18, 34–39, Reference Barnhart1995, 79–139; Cao et al., Reference Cao, Pang, dang’anguan, dang’anguan and kexueyuan2004, 3–151; China, Wai chiao pu. and League of Nations, Commission of Inquiry, 1932, 195–206, 117–52, 187–91, 308–9; Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 377–92; Coble, Reference Coble1991, 90–119; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 133–52; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 553–80, 95–675.

²⁷ Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 100; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 566–73, 643–75.

²⁸ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 143–45, 63–77; Schneider, Reference Schneider and Fuess1998, 161–82.

²⁹ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 30–49, 77–161, Reference Barnhart1995, 87–112; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 335–85; China, Wai chiao pu. and League of Nations, Commission of Inquiry, 1932, 2–4, 35–60, 293–96, 319–23, 365–403; Cho, Reference Cho, Borg and Okamoto1973, 383–92; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 57–85; Iriye, 1967, 177–78, 207–11; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 304–15; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 352–74; Snyder, Reference Chen and ban1991, 133–52; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 603–32; SHAC 18/3043, “Zhong-Ri guanxi wenti zhi beiwanglu”, June 1932.

³⁰ This declaration drew its name from the head of the Intelligence Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Amau Eiji, who publicly announced the plan on April 17, 1934. Observers at the time termed the Amau Declaration “Japan’s Monroe Doctrine for Asia ”. Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 116, Reference Barnhart1995, 103; Borg, Reference Borg1964, 46–99; Coble, 1991, 153–62; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 176, 189; Li, Reference Li1999, 232–37; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 451–57.

³¹ Borg, Reference Borg1964, 138–95; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 156–78; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 285–432; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 553–80, 595–632; SHAC 18/3043, “Zhong-Ri guanxi wenti zhi beiwanglu”.

³² Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 28–44, 75, 91–114, 137, 151–54; Cao et al., Reference Cao, Pang, dang’anguan, dang’anguan and kexueyuan2004; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 65–78, 203–323, 366–403; Coble, Reference Chen and ban1991, 182–282; Hikita, Reference Hikita and Kenkyukai1988, 101–34; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 153–71; Ishikawa, Reference Ishikawa1995, 133–354, 434–89; Kirby, Reference Kirby1984, 233–52; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 297–358; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 517–84, 708–16; Zheng, Reference Zheng and ban2001, 553–80, 595–632, 643–75.

³³ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 33, 57–59, Reference Barnhart1995, 97–101; Fei, Li, and Zhang, Reference Fei, Li and Zhang1993, 1–32; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 65–67; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 179; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 388–426; SHAC 18/1343, “Chuxi Guolian xingzheng yuan di yibai ci changwei cong Riben qing Hua baoxing xingzheng yuan de faling he daibiao Gu Weijin de yanshuo”, January 24–February 24, 1938; SHAC 18/2920, “Guanyu Ri qinglue Dongbei shi de shoudian”, 1931; SHAC 18/2921, “Gu Weijun zhi Zhang Xueliang dian”, 1931; SHAC 18/2922, “Zhang Xueliang guanyu Riben qinglue dongbei Waijiaobu dian”, November 1937; SHAC 18/2933, “Gu Weijun yu Zhang Xueliang guanyu Riben qinglue Dongbei shi de laiwang dian”, November 1931; SHAC 18/3268, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Guoji Lianhehui 1938 nian 9 yue suo tongguo guanyu Zhong Ri zhengyi zhijie jueyian ji baogaoshu”, October 1938; SHAC 18/3268, “Guoji Lianhehui yu 1939 nian 1 yue suo tongguo Zhong Ri zhengyi zhi jueyian”, June 1939; SHAC 18/3426, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China, “Zhong Ri wenti zhi zhenxiang canyu Guolian diaochatuan Zhongguo daibiao tiyi zhi ershijiu zhong shuotie 1932 nian 4 yue zhi 8 yue”, March 1933; AH 0700.04/6050.01–01, “Riben fuzhi wei Manzhouguo baogaoshu”, April 1932; SHAC 34/629, “Riben zhizao wei Manzhouguo jingguo shiliao zhailu Guowen zhoubao”, February 1932‒January 1934.

³⁴ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 33–49, 77–118, 137–57, Reference Barnhart1995, 114–43; Borg, Reference Borg1964, 254–317; Coble, Reference Zhang1991, 182–282; Fei, Li, and Zhang, Reference Fei, Li and Zhang1993, 55–165; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 66–79, 129–34; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 172–78, 207–11; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 328–50; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 517–84, 708–16.

³⁵ Fei, Li, and Zhang, Reference Fei, Li and Zhang1993, 169–74; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 96, 115, 85–200.

³⁶ Cao et al., Reference Cao, Pang, dang’anguan, dang’anguan and kexueyuan2004; Chen P., Reference Chen1999; Fei, Li, and Zhang, Reference Fei, Li and Zhang1993, 23–50, 80–87, 122–28, 205–10, 272–80; Huang, Reference Huang1984; Huang and Zhang, Reference Huang and Zhang1984, 60–98; Tong et al., Reference Tong, Ma, Zhao, dang’anguan, dang’anguan and shehuikexueyuan2004, 3–212, 265–418, 487–519, 732–969; Zhongyang dang’anguan (China), Reference Li and ban2000; Zhou and Cai, Reference Zhou and Cai2003, 219–1024.

³⁷ The Nanjing National Government differs from the National Government under the mainstream Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek. Japan and Wang so named their regime to claim the legitimacy of the prewar National Government in Nanjing. Tokyo helped set up the North China government in Beijing – the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, or more commonly, the Huabei Regime. The Huabei Regime and the Nanjing National Government merged in 1940. The Huabei Regime became the North China Political Affairs Committee, which remained highly independent of Nanjing. The Nanjing National Government also included the former Reformed Government of the Republic of China established in Nanjing in 1938. The Inner Mongolian regime was officially the United Mongolian Autonomous Government, or Mengjiang, later rebranded as the Mongolian Autonomous State in Reference Chen1941 . There were other smaller Japanese-sponsored regimes as well. Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 120–21, 56–57; Barrett and Shyu, Reference Barrett and Shyu2001, 21–76, 113–38; Boyle, Reference Boyle1972; Bunker, Reference Bunker1972; Chen, Reference Chen and ban1991, 239–75; China, Wai chiao pu and League of Nations, Commission of Inquiry, 1932, 3, 158, 301–23, 365–403; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 63–90, 160–71; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 173–74, 207–11, 230; Liu, Reference Liu2002, 1–370; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 388–426, 47–91, 559–62, 585–631, 680–85, 700–16; Sheridan, Reference Sheridan1975, 254; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 36–37; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2001, 305–77.

³⁸ Barrett and Shyu, Reference Barrett and Shyu2001, 79–132; Cao et al., Reference Cao, Pang, dang’anguan, dang’anguan and kexueyuan2004, 155–852; Chen P., Reference Chen1999; Hu, Reference Hu1940; Jiang, Reference Jiang2006; Liu, Reference Liu2002, 9–254; SHAC 18/3268, Wang Zhaoming (Wang Jingwei), “Guanyu Zhonghua Minguo Ribenguo jian jiben guanxi tiaoyue fushu yidingshu ji fushu yidingshu liaojie shixiang”, December Reference Hu1940; SHAC 18/3268, Wang Zhaoming (Wang Jingwei), “Guanyu shouhui zhujie ji chechu zhiwai faquan’an”, April 1943; SHAC 18/2061, “Wang wei zhengfu waijiaobu dangan”; SHAC 18/1714, “33 nian 9 yue 31 ri No. 59 di zi 103 hao”, “Di Wei jiyao di 59, 61–67 hao”, 1944; SHAC 2061/2134, “Wang wei tiaoyue mulu ji jianbao”, Reference Hu1940–1943; SHAC 18/1714, “Di Wei jiyao No. 59 di zi 103 hao”, 31 September 1944; SHAC 2061/2109, “Xingzhengyuan guanyu Huabei, Huazhong tiedao, yunying zhanyou Rijun guanli gei Waijiaobu de xunling”, April 1945; SHAC 2061/2115, “Riben zhu Huanan paiqianjun (qinluejun) zhiding Zhongren junlü fa’an de laiwang wenjian”, July–August 1945.

³⁹ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1996; Lee, Reference Lee1967; Zhou and Cai, Reference Zhou and Cai2003, 219–1024; SHAC 18/3268, “Guanyu Zhonghua Minguo Ribenguo jian jiben guanxi tiaoyue fushu yidingshu ji fushu yidingshu liaojie shixiang”; SHAC 18/3268, Wang Zhaoming, “Zhonghua Minguo dui Ying Mei xuanzhan’an fu Zhong Ri xieli yuanzhu dui Ying Mei zhanzheng zhi gongtong xuanyan”, April 1943; SHAC 18/3268, Wang Zhaoming and Zang Shiyi, Foreign Minister of Manchukuo, “Zhong-Ri-Man gongtong xuanyan”, December 1940; Second Historical Archive of China 2061/2164, “Zhong-Ri jiben tiaoyue gangyao”, November 1938; SHAC 2061/2742, “Waijiao Zhengce”, March 13, 1942; SHAC 2061/2745, “Jiaru guoji fangong lianmeng xieding baipishu”.

⁴⁰ Brook, Reference Brook2005, 55; Chen P., Reference Chen1999, 14–35, 116–21, 158–88, 261–68; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 675–80; Yu, Reference Yu, Liu and Cao1985; Liu, Reference Liu2002; and Cao, Reference Yu, Liu and Cao1985; SHAC 18/3268, “Guanyu Zhonghua Minguo Ribenguo jian jiben guanxi tiaoyue fushu yidingshu ji fushu yidingshu liaojie shixiang”; SHAC Reference Brook2005/581, “Ri wei Huabei Zhi’an Qianghua Zongbenbu de zuzhi dagang he dui Beijing Xishan gongbu zuzhi xilie de xiuding”, 1942.

⁴¹ Brook, Reference Brook2005, 55.

⁴² Lee, Reference Lee1967.

⁴³ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 145–50; Chen P., Reference Chen1999, 297–303; Fei, Li, and Zhang, Reference Fei, Li and Zhang1993, 338–47; Ienaga, 1973, 229–34; Ishikawa, Reference Ishikawa1995, 434–88; Liu, Reference Liu2002, 133–254; Provisional Verbatim Minutes, 1951; Record of Proceedings, 1951; Record of Proceedings: Supplement, 1952; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 722–54; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2001, 365–411.

⁴⁴ Liu, Reference Liu2002, 371–254; Zhongyang dang’anguan (China), Reference Zhongyang2000; Zhou and Cai, Reference Zhou and Cai2003, 969–1024.

⁴⁵ These included the Liberal government of Lloyd George, the Conservative governments of Andrew Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, and Neville Chamberlain, as well as the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald . Li, Reference Li1999, 1–12, 225–60, 405–12.

⁴⁶ Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 1–26; Li, Reference Li1999, 1–32, 81–98, 143–53, 225–60, 273, 337, 405–12.

⁴⁷ Li, Reference Li1999, 407.

⁴⁸ Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 4.

⁴⁹ Leaders from across party lines including Foreign Secretaries Ramsay MacDonald, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Anthony Eden, and the Viscount Halifax, as well as Chancellors of the Exchequer Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill, and Neville Chamberlain backed this view . Li, Reference Li1999, 1–12, 225–60, 405–12.

⁵⁰ Behind this stance were the Joint Committee of the British Chamber of Commerce and the Shanghai Branch of the China Association, the British Residents’ Association, British and Chinese Corporation, Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, Federation of British Industries, the China Association, the China Committee, Butterfield, Swire, and Company, Jardine, Matheson, and Company, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, as well as the Sino-British Trade Council. Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 208–32; Li, Reference Li1999, 17–66, 81–127; AH 0645.20/2760.01–02, “Zhujie shouhui”, November 4, 1930.

⁵¹ Advocating this position were the China Bondholders’ Committee, and three former British Ministers and Ambassadors to China – Miles Lampson, Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, and Alexander Cadogan, later Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs – head of the British Economic Mission to the Far East and chief economic advisor to the British government, Frederick Leith-Ross, as well as officials in the Bank of England and Treasury. Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 208–32; Li, Reference Li1999, 273–323; Rothwell, Reference Rothwell1975; Young, Reference Young1971, 216–38, 378–82, 417–18.

⁵² Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 271–75; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 131–37, 75–80; Li, Reference Li1999, 3, 225, 243.

⁵³ Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 271.

⁵⁴ Eichengreen, Reference Eichengreen1992, 164–67, 210–20, 278–86, 302–25; Industry, Reference Nurkse, Eichengreen and Flandreau1997, 246–61; Nurkse, Reference Nurkse, Eichengreen and Flandreau1997, 262–88; War, Reference Nurkse, Eichengreen and Flandreau1997, 229–45.

⁵⁵ Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 316–17.

⁵⁶ Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 131–38; Li, Reference Li1999, 1–12, 242–60, 405–12.

⁵⁷ Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 272; Great Britain, Board of Trade v., 125–199 (1930‒1970); Great Britain, Board of Trade v., 1101–1751 (1918–1930); Li, Reference Li1999, 1–12, 242–60, 406–08.

⁵⁸ Britain’s Board of Trade Journal from 1922 to 1952 reveals that trade volume with China was similar to Malaya, putting it behind the United States (18 percent), Canada (6 percent), Australia (6 percent), and India (5 percent). Great Britain, Board of Trade v., 125–199 (1930– 1970); Great Britain, Board of Trade v., 1101–1751 (1918–1930); Li, Reference Li1999, 406–8.

⁵⁹ The rule assumed that Britain would not be in a major power war within a decade. Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 273–75; Li, Reference Li1999, 3, 225, 243.

⁶⁰ Barnhart, Reference Kennedy1987, 62; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 302–20; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 133–44, 160–75.

⁶¹ Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 1–26; Li, Reference Li1999, 405–12.

⁶² Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 279–85; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 78.

⁶³ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 121; Li, Reference Li1999, 3, 225–60, 337–88; SHAC 18/2954, “Zhong Ying lianhe junshi xingdong tanhua xieding jiyao yu jianyi”, July‒August 1941.

⁶⁴ Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 283–94; Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001f, Reference Hu and Zhou2001j, Reference Hu and Zhou2001k.

⁶⁵ Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 367–68; LaFeber, Reference LaFeber1993, 52; Leffler, Reference Leffler1992, 143.

⁶⁶ Spector, Reference Spector2007, 73–76.

⁶⁷ Ferguson, Reference Ferguson2004, 295–301; Roberts, Reference Roberts and Jensen1993, 33–67.

⁶⁸ Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 3–4.

⁶⁹ Huang, Reference Huang2005, 417–569; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 133–75; Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 126–28.

⁷⁰ It was within this context that London released the December Memorandum, also known as the Lampson Policy, laying out the basic structure for an accommodation policy in China . Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 7–9; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 154; Li, Reference Li1999, 3–4, 17–66, 81–98, 405–07; AH 0645.20/2760.01–02, “Zhujie shouhui”; SHAC 18/3466, Tariff Autonomy Treaty between China and Great Britain, December 20, 1928.

⁷¹ Atkins, Reference Atkins1995, 13–22; Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 128–32.

⁷² Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 7–10; Liu and Tian, Reference Liu and Tian2004, 116–31; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 154–57.

⁷³ Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 12–22; Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 208–32; Li, Reference Li1999, 33–66, 81–127; SHAC 18/3268, Wang Zhengting, Foreign Minister of the Republic of China, “Zhong-Ying jiaoshou Weihaiwei zhuanyue ji xieding”, April 14, 1930; SHAC 1032/651, “Beiyang Zhengfu Taipingyang Huiyi Weihaiwei wenti”, 1923; SHAC 1032/648, “Beiyang Zhengfu waijiao wendu”, 1923.

⁷⁴ Brunero, Reference Brunero2006, 86–100; Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 208–32; Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 132–35.

⁷⁵ Atkins, Reference Atkins1995, 41–106; Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 121; KMTPA Hankou 5277, Wang Jingwei, “Haiguan wenti” [The maritime customs issue], January 1924.

⁷⁶ Iriye, 1967, 190; Lowe, 1981, 150–54; Young, Reference Young1971, 216–38.

⁷⁷ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1991, 155–78; Li, Reference Li1999, 279–323; SHAC 18/3268, Foreign Ministry Song Ziwen (T.V. Soong), “Zhong Ying guanyu quxiao Yingguo zai Hua zhiwai faquan qi youguan tequan tiaoyue”, November 1943; SHAC 18/3269, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Waijiao Baipishu 69 zhi 88 hao”, 1946; SHAC 18/3270, Wang Shijie, Foreign Minister of the Republic of China, “Zhong Ying guanyu Zhongguo Haiguan yu Xianggiang zhengfu jian guanwu xieding zhi huanwen”, January 1948; SHAC 18/3429, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Baipishu di 54 zhi 105”, 1940–1948; SHAC 18/3285, Sino-British Treaty for the Abolition of Extraterritoriality and Related Rights in China, signed at Chungking on January 11, 1943, Instruments of Ratification Exchanged at Chungking on May 20, 1945; AH 0645.20/2760.01–02, “Zhujie shouhui”; AH 0645/8800.01–01, “Chouban shouhui Ying Fa Yi zhujie weiyuanhui huiyi jilu”, June 17, 1930; AH 0645.20/7177.01–01, “Xiamen Ying zhujie shouhui”; AH 0645.20/7177.01–02, “Zhenjiang Ying zhujie shouhui”; AH 0645.20/3460.01–01, “Hankou Jiujiang Ying zhujie shouhui”, February 19, 1927; AH 0645.20/1035.02–01, “Tianjin Ying zhujie shouhui”, January 28–February 23, 1927; AH 0645.20/1035.02–02, “Tianjin Ying zhujie shouhui”; AH 0645.20/1035.02–03, “Tianjin Ying zhujie shouhui”, December 17, 1927; AH 0645.30/5338.01–01, “Weihaiwei zhujiedi shouhui’an”, 1930; AH 0641.90/5044.01–02, “Zhong-Ying Zhong-Mei tiaoyue ji laiwang zhaohui”, May 18, 1943; AH 0641.90/5044.01–01, “Zhong-Ying Zhong-Mei fenbie qianding tiaoyue feichu jiuyue”, January 13, 1943; AH 0641.90/2760.01–01, “Geguo zai Hua zhiwai faquan tiaoyue quxiao”, December 23, 1942–November 1943.

⁷⁸ Chan Lau, Reference Chan Lau1990, 327; Kirby, Reference Kirby1997, 441; Lane, Reference Lane1990; Liu, Reference Liu1994, 191–200; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 199; Wang, Reference Wang and ban1979, 282; SHAC 18/677, “Zhongguo zhi guoji guanxi”, 1929; SHAC 18/1927, “Zhixing shouhui faquan geyue xuzhi”, 1945; SHAC 18/2545, “Waijiaobu niti Canzhenghui de waijiao baogao”, May 9–September 24, 1947; SHAC 18/3270, “Zhong Ying guanyu Zhongguo Haiguan yu Xianggiang zhengfu jian guanwu xieding zhi huanwen”; SHAC 18/3429, “Baipishu di 54 zhi 105”; AH 0632/2034.01–01, “Yingguo anshi yuan jiang Xianggang jiang Lianheguo zuowei Yuandong ji Taipingyang qu zhi fensuo an banli qingxing”, November 15, 1946; SHAC 18/2951, “Guomindang Zhengfu Waijiaobu guanyu Gang-Jiu wenti de jianbao ziliao”, 1945–1946.

⁷⁹ Brunero, Reference Brunero2006, 84–86; Lowe, Reference Lowe1997, 85–119; Tucker, 2001, 72; Wolf, Reference Wolf1983.

⁸⁰ Chamberlain, Reference Chamberlain, Woodward and d’Olier Butler1946, 9–26; Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 130–31; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 298–300.

⁸¹ Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 156–68; Li, Reference Li1999, 18–47, 143–205; Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 136–76.

⁸² The 1933 Tanggu and 1932 Shanghai Ceasefire Agreements paused fighting between Japanese and Chinese forces after the invasion of Manchuria and the attack on Shanghai respectively. Other interim arrangements were the 1935 Chin (Qin)-Doihara Agreement regarding the demilitarisation of Chahar and 1935 Ho (He)-Umezu Accord over the demilitarisation of Hebei . Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 103–4, 121; Coble, Reference Coble1991, 90–119; Li, Reference Li1999, 143–205; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 432–39, 458–69.

⁸³ The embargo was ineffective, since Japan largely produced its own weapons, whilst enforcement on both sides was virtually nonexistent. Shen, Reference Shen2005, 408–17; SHAC 18/2920, “Guanyu Ri qinglue Dongbei shi de shoudian”; SHAC 18/2921, “Gu Weijun zhi Zhang Xueliang dian”.

⁸⁴ Coble, Reference Coble1991, 156–57; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 453–54.

⁸⁵ Li, Reference Li1999, 232–37, 295–323, 410–11; Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 139–54; Young, Reference Young1971, 216–38, 278–82.

⁸⁶ The Chamberlain cabinet used procedural means to prevent the Chinese delegation from invoking collective security clauses in the League’s charter. London then referred matters to the Nine Power Treaty Convention, which was unable to move given a Japanese veto . Borg Reference Borg1964, 399–441; SHAC 18/1311, “Bulujiser huiyi de bao gao”, November 24, 1937; AH 0601.41/3120.01–01, “Wei Riben chubing Dongbei San sheng woguo tijiao Guolian Zongcai Zhongguo daibiao Gu Weijun yu Waijiaobu wanglai dianwen”, September 21, 1931.

⁸⁷ Li, Reference Li1999, 143–205, 242–60, 295–323, 337–88, 410–12.

⁸⁸ Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1999, 398–99; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 198–204.

⁸⁹ Lowe, Reference Lowe1981, 157–76; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 143–44.

⁹⁰ Cui, Reference Cui1995, 242–45, 47.

⁹¹ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1991, 176–77; Lowe, Reference Lowe1997, 201–08, 1981, 85–161; Wang, Reference Wang and ban1979, 282–83; SHAC 18/861, “Zhong-Ying youhao tongshang hanghai tiaoyue Zhongwen weiding gao”, December 1946.

⁹² Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 93–94, 178; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 281–83.

⁹³ This was despite the fact that the United States was one of the largest investors in China, next to Japan and Britain. Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 107–24; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 102.

⁹⁴ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 150–65; Memorandum on United States Investments in Japan, 1933; Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1982.

⁹⁵ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 53–59; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 360–69; Coble, Reference Chen and ban1991, 153–62; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 106–34; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 65–66, 133; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 178–206.

⁹⁶ Coble, Reference Coble1991, 153–62; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 329–30; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 9.

⁹⁷ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 360–69; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 133; Zhang, Reference Chen2004, 417–35, 473–88.

⁹⁸ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 178–98; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 328.

⁹⁹ Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 66; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 131–32.

¹⁰⁰ Borg, Reference Borg1964, 1–45, 92–120, 176–95; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 106–12; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 178–98.

¹⁰¹ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 369–85; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 119–25; Gaddis, Reference Chen and dongshihui2005, 1–18; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 78–83; Iriye, 1967, 194–226; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 330–33; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 11–12.

¹⁰² Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 218; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 143–50.

¹⁰³ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 123–33; Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001l; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 132–33.

¹⁰⁴ Cohen, Reference Soong, Hu and Zhou2001, 105–34; Hu, Reference Soong, Hu and Zhou2001b, Reference Soong, Hu and Zhou2001c, Reference Soong, Hu and Zhou2001f, Reference Soong, Hu and Zhou2001k; Jespersen, Reference Jespersen1996, 108–25; Soong and Hu, Reference Soong, Hu and Zhou2001, 116–18; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 201–19.

¹⁰⁵ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 153–56; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 36–65; SHAC 18/3050, “Notes of a Conversation between Dr. Wang (Shijie) and Dr. (Wellington) Koo on one part and Hon. James Bryne, U.S. Secretary of State, 2 p.m., September 11, 1945, at Claridge’s Hotel”, 11 September 1945.

¹⁰⁶ Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005, 15–18.

¹⁰⁷ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 32–58; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 136–76; Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005a, 30–32, 2005b, 18–123; Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 13–26, 131–33; Ikenberry, Reference Ikenberry2001, 163–214; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 238–49; Jespersen, Reference Christensen1996, 128–31, 63; Kennan, Reference Kennan and Kenneth1993, 17–31; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 133–40; Tucker, 1983, 19–39, Reference Tucker1994, 22–24.

¹⁰⁸ Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 119–20; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 264–89.

¹⁰⁹ Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005a, 48–68.

¹¹⁰ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 58–133; Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005b, 18–124; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 251–84; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 433–82; United States, Dept. of State, and United States, Dept. of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, 1966, No. 31–37 (1949–50).

¹¹¹ Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005a, 25–30; Tucker, 1983, 173–94.

¹¹² Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 133–93; Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005a, 40–46; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 281–300; Kupchan, 1991, 422–23, 458n, 463, 474; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 123–44; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 289–96; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 164–72; Tucker, 1983, 195–207; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 319–23.

¹¹³ Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 113; Kupchan, 1991, 442, 47n, 72–81; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 123–44; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 263–64, 289–96; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 28–38.

¹¹⁴ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 160; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 136–43; Tucker, 2001, 38–40, 62–74, 91.

¹¹⁵ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 39–40, 69–76; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 115–25, 160–72; Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001d; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 156–67, 211–16, 232–38; Jespersen, Reference Christensen1996, 24–107, 126–71; Tucker, Reference Tucker1983, 12–22, Reference Tucker1994, 80–172.

¹¹⁶ Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 17–23; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 321–42; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 263–89.

¹¹⁷ Barnhart, Reference Kennedy1987, 115–35; Borg, Reference Borg1964, 1–45, 92–99, 176–95; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 360–69; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 82–134; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 302; Zhang, Reference Chen2004, 417–35, 473–88.

¹¹⁸ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 148–65, 195–98, 216–22.

¹¹⁹ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 93–101; SHAC 1032/650, “1926 nian Beiyang zhengfu jiang guanshui gaiwei zili ji youci er yinqi Zhongguo Beiyang junfa zhengfu ruhe liyong guanshui shouru changhuan geguo zhaiwu wenti waiguo zhengfu dui zhe wenti de yijian”, 1926; SHAC 18/3466, Treaty Regulating Tariff Relations between the Republic of China and the United States of America, December 20, 1928; AH 0645.20/2760.01–02, “Zhujie shouhui”.

¹²⁰ Chen, Reference Chen and dongshihui2005, 91–97, 163–70.

¹²¹ Accommodating Japan was not new for the U.S. government. Tokyo’s opposition led Washington to scuttle plans for a loan to the central government in Beijing in 1926. What was new in the 1930s was the growing scale and intensity of Japanese aggression in China, and American leaders’ decision to ignore these developments. Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 115–35; Borg, Reference Borg1964, 1–45, 92–137, 171–95, 318–441, 504–44; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 105–34; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 66–79, 132–33; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 40–42; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 10.

¹²² Following the Japanese government’s announcement of the Amau Declaration, a proposed U.S. Government Cotton and Wheat Loan to the National Government underwent a downward revision from US$50 million to US$20 million. Washington also pulled Export-Import Bank representation on a delegation to China put together by the private National Foreign Trade Council for fear of violating the Amau Doctrine. Coble, Reference Coble1991, 153–62; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 453–54; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 102.

¹²³ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 164–98, 216–22.

¹²⁴ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 363–66.

¹²⁵ During this time, the U.S. government acquiesced to the formation of private relief organisations dedicated to providing aid to China. These entities consolidated into the United China Relief (UCR) in late 1940. Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 116–25, 235; Jespersen, Reference Jespersen1996, 45–58.

¹²⁶ Large silver purchases under the Act caused substantial fluctuations in China’s silver-based currency, leading to credit contraction and a severe recession that made resisting Japanese incursions all the more difficult. By agreeing to purchase silver from China at a relatively high fixed price, the U.S. government helped stabilise the Chinese currency without offending the Silver Lobby. The Treasury Department restricted the use of revenues from the sale of silver to paying off American creditors or purchasing American goods. Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1987, 41, 176–97; Chen, Reference Chen2003, 369–71; Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001e; Young, Reference Young1971, 211–15, 78–82, 417–18.

¹²⁷ Roosevelt, however, decided not to invoke the Neutrality Act following the formal outbreak of Sino-Japanese hostilities in 1937, which would result in a U.S. arms embargo on both China and Japan. Given the underdevelopment of China’s arms industry, such an embargo would hurt the National Government more than Japan. Chen, Reference Chen2003, 363–66; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 78–79; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 11.

¹²⁸ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1991, 17–33; Cui, Reference Cui1995, 240–63; Kimball, Reference Kimball1969, 71, 130; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 48–67; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 134–50; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 11–12.

¹²⁹ Eastman, Reference Hu1991, 144–46; Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001a, Reference Hu and Zhou2001b, Reference Hu and Zhou2001g, Reference Hu and Zhou2001l.

¹³⁰ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1991, 17–58; Eastman, Reference Chen and ban1991, 114–48; Han, Reference Han2003, 100–39.

¹³¹ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1991, 66–104; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 124–47; Gaddis, Reference Chen and dongshihui2005b, 10–11; Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001a, 2001h; Iriye, 1967, 251–58; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 69–74; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 150–55; Tsou, Reference Tsou1963, Vol. 1, 33–124; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 16; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 312–14; SHAC 18/155, “Luosifu Zongtong ji Yihui gongshang zhanhou jihua”, April 13, 1942; SHAC 18/155, “Guoji zhuzhi yu zhanhou heping xianzai ying taolun de wenti”, July 1, 1943; SHAC 18/156, “Kuada de guoji zhuyi yu guli zhuyi yiyang weixian”, October 30, 1948; SHAC 18/2987, “Zhongguo daibiaotuan canjia guoji heping jigou huiyi (Dunbadun huiyi) daibiaotuan baogao”, 1944; SHAC 18/2985, “Zhanhou guoji heping jigou ji qita wenti”; SHAC 18/2986, “Guanyu zhanhou shijie heping zhuzhi de gexiang fangan”, 1943; SHAC 18/3268, Wei Daoming, Ambassador to the United States, “Zhong-Mei guanyu quxiao zai Hua zhiwai faquan ji chuli youguan wenti tiaoyue”, December 1943; SHAC 18/3269, “Waijiao Baipishu 69 zhi 88 hao”; SHAC 18/3429, “Baipishu di 54 zhi 105”; AH 0641.90/5044.01–02, “Zhong-Ying Zhong-Mei tiaoyue ji laiwang zhaohui”; AH 0641.90/5044.01–01, “Zhong-Ying Zhong-Mei fenbie qianding tiaoyue feichu jiuyue”; AH 0641.90/2760.01–01, “Geguo zai Hua zhiwai faquan tiaoyue quxiao”.

¹³² This includes approximately US$600 million in military aid. Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 16; Pepper, Reference Pepper and Eastman1991, 303–05; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 133–36, 148–50.

¹³³ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 216–22; Kimball, Reference Kimball1969.

¹³⁴ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 133. Also see Han, Reference Han2003, 100–39, 172–207, 132–79; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 216–22.

¹³⁵ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 133, 143–50, 174–75; Iriye, Reference Kuo and ban1967, 243–79; Kuo, Reference Kuo and ban1967; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 103–06; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 142–67; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 35–36; Tsou, Reference Tsou1963, 237–87; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 16–18; SHAC 18/1884, “Wang Shijie rennei yi nian lai zui zhongyao guoji huiyi de baogao”, September 1945–September 1946: 4–5.

¹³⁶ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 66, 66n–67n; Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 13–26, 81–133; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 418–76; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 21–24.

¹³⁷ The United States even encouraged the absorption of surrendered Japanese and collaborationist units by the Nationalist army to bolster their ability to independently fend for themselves . Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 156–66; Gillin, Reference Gillin1967, 285–88; Iriye, Reference Gillin1967, 251–74; Jespersen, 1996, 132; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 106–12; Snyder, Reference Cohen and Kennedy1991, 263–89; SHAC 18/2960, “Junzhengbu jieshou Meifang yijiao wuzi baogao”, May 29, 1946; AH 0643/3450.01–01, “Yuandong shoufu diyu xingzheng guanli xieding fangan”, June 26, 1944–March 26, 1945.

¹³⁸ This figure includes the US$400 million appropriated through the 1948 China Aid Act. In comparison, the regions covered by the Marshall Plan had a combined territory and total population of roughly half of China, and were not in the midst of a civil war. Yet, China only received roughly one-thirteenth of the aid that went to Europe. In the spring of 1947, the Truman administration requested US$400 million in aid just to put down Communist insurgencies in Greece and Turkey. Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 58–76, 95; Cleveland, Reference Cleveland1949; Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005b, 40; Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 3–26, 35–133; Jespersen, Reference Christensen1996, 132, 54–60; Kupchan, 1991, 442, 456, 463; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 327–28; United States Dept. of State, 1948, The Far East: China, Vol. VIII; SHAC 18/2960, “Junzhengbu jieshou Meifang yijiao wuzi baogao”; SHAC 18/3541, “Meiguo yuanwai fa’an, Zhong-Mei zhuyao maoyi shangpin tongji”, 1947–1948.

¹³⁹ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 58–76, 95; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 150–76; Gaddis, 2005b, 40.

¹⁴⁰ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 80–96; Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 131–33.

¹⁴¹ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 58–96; Kupchan, 1991, 478–82.

¹⁴² Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 112–21; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 215–310; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 67–72; Tsou, Reference Tsou1963, 288–440; Tucker, 2001, 19–39, 57–79, 173–207; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 23, 34; Westad, Reference Westad2003, 35–66, 159–68.

¹⁴³ Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 29–34; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 114–21; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 332–42; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 67–69; Tsou, Reference Tsou1963, 441–86; Tucker, Reference Tucker1983, 57–79, 173–94.

¹⁴⁴ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 105–15; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 162–69; Gaddis, 2005b, 45, 101–16; Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 81–133; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 264–85; Jespersen, Reference Christensen1996, 175–78; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 442, 447, 447n, 471–83; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 332–42; Tsou, Reference Tsou1963, 486–591; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 34, 61–92, 2001, 28–32; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 313–14.

¹⁴⁵ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 77–79, 106–37; Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005b, 40–45, 67–68, 83, 100, 140–43; Tucker, Reference Tucker1983, 31–67, Reference Tucker1994, 24–38, 2001, 17, 57–79.

¹⁴⁶ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 172; Hawes, Reference Hawes1977, 131–33; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 285–300; Kupchan, Reference Cohen and Kennedy1991, 61–85, 422–23; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 83–89, 2001, 32–38; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 319–23.

¹⁴⁷ Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 132–44; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 289–96; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 316–17.

¹⁴⁸ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 115–37; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 169–72; Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005b, 112; Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 285–300; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 461–63, 482–85; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 132–44; Snyder, Reference Cohen and Kennedy1991, 289–98; Tsou, Reference Tsou1963, 558–64; Tucker, 1983, 90–91, 1993, 32–38, 2001, 195–207; Zhou, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 292–99.

¹⁴⁹ Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 320–24; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 18–26; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 164–75, 199–209; Wohlforth, Reference Wohlforth1993, 45–46.

¹⁵⁰ Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 18–26; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 133–58.

¹⁵¹ Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 324–27; Kindermann, Reference Kindermann1959, 59–72; Uldricks, Reference Uldricks1979, 60–63; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 130–33, 166–88.

¹⁵² Uldricks, Reference Uldricks1979, 147–60; Wohlforth, Reference Wohlforth1993, 36–46.

¹⁵³ Entente was evident in the conclusion of the 1919 Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, the 1922 Rapallo Treaty with Germany, and the Soviet Union’s entry into the League of Nations in 1934. Haigh, Peters, and Morris, Reference Haigh, Peters and Morris1999, 131–76; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 28–32; Uldricks, Reference Uldricks1979, 69–95.

¹⁵⁴ Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 37–42; Wohlforth, Reference Wohlforth1993, 36–58, 113–15.

¹⁵⁵ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 336–38; Garver, 1988, 90–128, 182–230, 251–59; Uldricks, Reference Uldricks1979, 161–62.

¹⁵⁶ Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 36–54; Wohlforth, Reference Wohlforth1993, 46–54.

¹⁵⁷ Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005a, 10–14, 32–34, 99–106; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 63–102; Novikov, Reference Novikov and Jensen1993, 5; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 129–209.

¹⁵⁸ Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 57–63.

¹⁵⁹ Hu, Reference Hu and Zhou2001g; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 66–67, 81–82.

¹⁶⁰ Bunce, Reference Bunce1985; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 58–102; Wohlforth, Reference Wohlforth1993, 59–87.

¹⁶¹ Kindermann, Reference Kindermann1959, 73–77; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 241–79; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 179–85; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 432–57.

¹⁶² Haigh, Peters, and Morris, Reference Haigh, Peters and Morris1999, 41–126.

¹⁶³ Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 241–79.

¹⁶⁴ Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 31; Uldricks, Reference Uldricks1979, 47–95; Whiting, Reference Whiting1954, 24–71.

¹⁶⁵ Walt, Reference Walt1996, 197–99; Whiting, Reference Whiting1954, 72–154.

¹⁶⁶ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 336–60; Novikov, Reference Novikov and Jensen1993, 7–10.

¹⁶⁷ Borisov, Reference Borisov1977, 57–74; Wohlforth, Reference Wohlforth1993, 36–46.

¹⁶⁸ Garver, Reference Garver1988, 192–96; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 112–30; Whiting, Reference Sun1954, 10–58.

¹⁶⁹ Gaddis, Reference Gaddis2005a, 10–14, 32–34, 99–106; Garver, Reference Garver1988, 99–103, 24; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 66–67, 82–83; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 63–78.

¹⁷⁰ Holubnychy, Reference Holubnychy1979, 126–35; Iriye, 252–53; Novikov, Reference Novikov and Jensen1993, 9–16; Westad, Reference Westad2003, 310–20.

¹⁷¹ Sheridan, Reference Sheridan1975, 243; Whiting, Reference Whiting1951, 31–33, 269–75; Zhou, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 24–62.

¹⁷² Chen, Reference Chen2003, 354–60; Garver, Reference Garver1988, 16–52; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 82–83; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 64–85; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 213–21, 280–81; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 312–90.

¹⁷³ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 115; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 111–19; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01/247/1–19, “Zhong Su qianding hubuqinfan tiaoyue zhi zhuyao yuanze” [Primary principles for the signing of a Sino-Soviet non-aggression treaty], April 6, 1933; SHAC 34/624, “1932 nian Zhong Su huifu bangjiao shiliao” [Historical Documents on the 1932 Restoration of Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Recognition], 21 December 1932.

¹⁷⁴ There is some dispute over the amount of Soviet wartime aid to China. The traditional figure is US$250 million. Newer work cites evidence indicating a total between US$306.4 million and US$556.4 million. Cui, 238n1, 38–47, 62–65; Eastman, 144; Garver, 37–48, 104–08, 145–46; Li, Reference Li1988, 217; Sun, Reference Sun1993, 112–30; Wang, Reference Wang1957, Vol. 3, 1115; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 129–48; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 263–71; Young, 1963, 18–26, 54, 125–30; SHAC 18/3222, “Zhong-Su tongshang tiaoyue”, 1939; SHAC 18/3283, “Waijiaobu gezhong tiaoyue”, 1920–1939; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01/247/1–19, “Zhong Su qianding hubuqingfan tiaoyue zhi zhuyao yuanzhe”.

¹⁷⁵ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 118, 39–43.

¹⁷⁶ Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 312–90.

¹⁷⁷ Garver, Reference Garver1988, 80–83, 112–17, 123–48.

¹⁷⁸ Iriye, Reference Iriye1967, 339; Tucker, 2001, 44–45; Westad, Reference Westad2003, 310–20.

¹⁷⁹ Christensen, Reference Christensen1996, 147–49.

¹⁸⁰ Kim, Reference Kim, Yung Chung and Chung1994, 68–78; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 609–60.

¹⁸¹ China, Wai chiao pu and League of Nations, Commission of Inquiry, 1932, 301–299; Elleman, Reference Wang1997, 85–191; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 419–26; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 119–24; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 158–72, 222–33, 272–78.

¹⁸² Borisov, Reference Borisov1977, 57–74; Fei, Li, and Zhang, Reference Fei, Li and Zhang1993, 269–71; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 53.

¹⁸³ China, Wai chiao pu and League of Nations, Commission of Inquiry, 1932, 326–28; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 147–49; Garver, 1998, 262; Walt, Reference Walt1996, 183–84; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 237–418; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 178–85, 266–369; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 151–57, 73–212, 234–47, 286–308, 329–46; AH 0632.97/5011.02–01, “Dongbei jieshou yu dui Su tielu jiaoshe”, October 13, 1945; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01, “Zhong Su qianding hubuqinfan tiaoyue zhi zhuyao yuanze”.

¹⁸⁴ Yang Reference Yang2005, 304–26, Zuo Reference Zuo2005, 140–56; AH 0632.97/5011.02–01, “Dongbei jieshou yu dui Su tielu jiaoshe”, October 13, 1945; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01, “Zhong Su qianding hubuqinfan tiaoyue zhi zhuyao yuanze”.

¹⁸⁵ Garver, Reference Garver1988, 182–230; Whiting, Reference Whiting1954, 31–33, 208–35, 269–82; Zhou, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 24–41, 117–34; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01, “Zhong-Su youhao tongmeng tiaoyue ji youguan xieding”; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01/247/1–19, “Zhong Su qianding hubuqinfan tiaoyue zhi zhuyao yuanze”; PRCFMA 109–000020–01(1), “Zhong-Su youhao tongmeng huzhu tiaoyue, Zhong Su guanyu Zhongguo Changchun tielu, Lushunkou ji Dalian de xieding, Zhong Su guanyu daikuan gei Zhongguo de xieding (Zhong E wenben), yidingshu”, 14 February 1950.

¹⁸⁶ Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 265–431; PRCFMA 109–000020–01(1), “Zhong Su youhao tongmeng huzhu tiaoyue”.

¹⁸⁷ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 90; Elleman, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 23–50, 126–32, 80–81; Ke, Reference Ke2005, 82–97; Sheridan, Reference Sheridan1975, 243; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 15–38; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 134–57; Zhou, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 24–62.

¹⁸⁸ Borisov, Reference Borisov1977, 75–252; Garver, 1988, 153–77, 256–57; Wang and He, Reference Wang and He2005, 285–328, 380–419; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 178–208; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 286–308; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 519–70.

¹⁸⁹ Atwood, Reference Atwood, Kotkin and Elleman1999, 137–58; Elleman, Reference Elleman, Kotkin and Elleman1999, 130–32; Garver, 1988, 214–28, 262–65; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 150–67; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 21–22, Reference Wang and ban2001, 18; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 111–215; AH 0641/5044, “Zhong-Su tiaoyue ji zhixing xingyue xuzhi yinzhi”, September 3, 1945 – June 11, 1946; AH 0641.10/5044.01–01, “Zhong-Su youhao tongmeng tiaoyue ji youguan xieding”, August 14, 1945; SHAC 18/2318, Chinese Embassy in Moscow to the Foreign Ministry, Message No.: 61932, “Guanyu fabiao Su jun chebing Dongbei de gaojian”, 8 April 1946.

¹⁹⁰ Levine, Reference Levine1987; Niu, Reference Niu and Westad1998, 52–61; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 242–52; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 27–47, 65–71; Westad, Reference Westad2003, 35–50, 83–86, 216–17; SHAC 18/2318, “Guanyu fabiao Sujun chebing Dongbei de gaojian”; SHAC 18/3049, “Di yi ci Mosike huiyi”, October 19–30, 1945.

¹⁹¹ Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 374–400; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 191–205.

¹⁹² Levine, Reference Levine1987, 45–86; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 49–70, 224–25.

¹⁹³ Garver, Reference Garver1993, 36–39; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 374–400; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 519–605.

¹⁹⁴ Niu, Reference Niu and Westad1998, 65–67; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 607–18.

¹⁹⁵ Garver, Reference Garver1988, 95–99, 209–28; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 150–54, 172–75; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 272–99.

¹⁹⁶ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 143–49; Garver, 1988, 114–17, 182–87; Kuo, Reference Kuo and ban1967; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 35–36; Tucker, Reference Tucker1994, 16–18.

¹⁹⁷ Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 69–77.

¹⁹⁸ Garver, Reference Li1988, 153–77; Li et al., 1997, 445–646; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 124–29, 156–58; Whiting and Sheng, 1958, 21–97, 163–267; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 248–62.

¹⁹⁹ Liu and Tian, Reference Liu and Tian2004, 116–31; Sheridan, 1966, 165–69, 97–202; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 432–38.

²⁰⁰ Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 432–57; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 339–90; KMTPA Zhongzheng hui 7/3.1, Tian Kunshan et al, “Waimeng jun qinru Xinjiang Xizang zhengbian ji woguo dui Yuenan taidu ge weiyuan yijian jilu”; KMTPA Zhongzheng hui 7/3.1, Central Political Committee, “Waimeng jun qinru Xinjiang wenti an banli qingxing”, July 15, 1947; KMTPA Zhongzheng hui 7/3.6, Defence Ministry, “Waimeng jun qin Xin zhi jingguo”, June 30, 1947.

²⁰¹ Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 438–57, 75–80; Whiting and Sheng, 1958, 98–146.

²⁰² Chen, Reference Chen2003, 336–50; Holubnychy, Reference Holubnychy1979, 126–245; Kennedy-Pipe, Reference Kennedy-Pipe1998, 36–54.

²⁰³ Walt, Reference Walt1996, 183–85, 97–99; Whiting, Reference Whiting1954, 10–58.

²⁰⁴ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 208–32,Reference Chen2003, 336–50; Elleman, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 23–76, 282–85; Ke, Reference Ke2005, 105–222, 313–17; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 241–48; Schaller, Reference Schaller1979, 38–39; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 15–63; Whiting, Reference Whiting1954, 72–86, 155–247; Wu, Reference Wu1950, 134–59, 173–85, 311–16; Yang, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 15–50; Zhou, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 117–46, 202–19, 243–66; SHAC 1039/553, “Zhong-E xieyue E yue yanjiu huiyi jilu ji Zhong E huiyi cankao wenjian”, 1919; KMTPA Han 13730, “Erquandahui zhi quan E guomin diangao”, January 1926; KMTPA Zheng 4/4.2–1, “Bao Luoting zhi Jiang Zongsiling dian”, 3 February 1927; KMTPA Zheng 4/4.2–2, “Zhongzhenghui bishuchu zhi Bao Luoting dian”, 9 February 1927; KMTPA Zheng 4/4.2–3, “Bao Luoting zhi Zhongzhenghui bishuchu dian”; KMTPA Han 17849.12, “E shi yan Guomindang”, 19 April 1925.

²⁰⁵ Elleman, Reference Elleman1997, 55–76, 196–207; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 9–11.

²⁰⁶ Li et al., Reference Li, Titarenko and ban1997, 7–296; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 241–48, 273–76; Yang, 1997, 15–67.

²⁰⁷ Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 436–65.

²⁰⁸ Newer scholarship suggests that there is traditionally some underestimation about the importance of Soviet assistance to the Chinese Communists before 1949. Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 147–53; Garver, Reference Li1988, 153–77; Li et al., Reference Wang1997, 7–138; Shao, Reference Shao and ban1995, 224–52; Wang, Reference Wang and ban2003, 432–38; Wei, Reference Wei1956, 119–29; Whiting and Sheng, 1958, 21–78, 163–254; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 333–90, 467–518.

²⁰⁹ Garver, Reference Garver1988, 128–30, 45–47.

²¹⁰ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 208–32; Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 88–92; Holubnychy, Reference Holubnychy1979, 158–78; Zhou, Reference Zhou and ban1997, 11–41, 64–99, 117–266.

²¹¹ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 336–37; China, Wai chiao pu and League of Nations, Commission of Inquiry, 1932, 326–28; Wilbur, Reference Wilbur, Ho and Tsou1969, 224–35, 251–53; KMTPA Hankou 17849.12, “E shi yan Guomindang”, April 19, 1925.

²¹² Holubnychy, Reference Holubnychy1979, 246–329; Li et al., Reference Li, Titarenko and ban1997, 297–646; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 50–139.

²¹³ The Zhongshan Warship Incident, the March 20^th Incident, and the Guangzhou Incident are different names for the same event.

²¹⁴ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 180–208; Liu and Tian, Reference Liu and Tian2004, 116–31; Mizuno and Zheng, Reference Mizuno, Zheng and ban1998, 129–34; Sheridan, Reference Sheridan1966, 165–69, 197–202; Van de Ven, Reference van de Ven2003, 96, 108; Whiting and Sheng, Reference Whiting and ai Sheng1958, 21–97; AH 0623.20/4412.01–02, “Sulian rao bian”, August 26, 1928–October 18, 1928.

²¹⁵ Germany’s share of investment in China dropped from a high of 20.9 percent at the turn of the century to a low of 2.7 percent in 1921, whilst its share of the China trade fell from 4.7 percent in 1914 to 1.3 percent in 1921. This accompanied a corresponding decline in the number of German firms and residents in China. Kirby, Reference Kirby1984, 23–24.

²¹⁶ Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 304–10; Snyder, Reference Snyder1991, 91–95, 105–09.

²¹⁷ German firms pushing for an expansion of Sino-German economic ties included Dornier, A.E.G., Daimler-Benz, Siemens, I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp, Otto Wolff, Stahlunion, Rhinemetall, the Deutsche-Asiatische Bank, and the Handelsgesellshaft für Industrielle Produkt (HAPRO) amongst others. They made some headway into China with the cooperation of the Reichswehr, the China-Studien-Gesellshaft of the Reichsverband der deutschen Industrie, Colonel-General Hans von Seeckt, and, after 1933, economics ministers Hjalmar Schacht and Walter Funk . Chan, Reference Chan1982, 48–56, 83–84, 116; Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 165–232; Kirby, Reference Kirby1984, 24, 256–57.

²¹⁸ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 78–87; Fox, Reference Fox1982, 52–78.

²¹⁹ Chen, Reference Chen and ban1983, 180–208; Coble, Reference Chen and ban1991, 161–62; Fox, Reference Fox1982, 9–145; Gillin, Reference Gillin1967, 24, 40–41, 166–68, 183; Ma and Qi, Reference Ma, Qi and ban1998, 41–99; Sheridan, Reference Sheridan1975, 251; Xue, Reference Xue2005, 150–61; KMTPA Zhongzheng Hui 1/2.2, “Zhong-De tiaoyue”, August 17, 1928.

²²⁰ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 129–334; Fox, Reference Fox1982, 108–74, 209–331; Kirby, 1984, 233–52.

²²¹ Fox, Reference Fox1982, 53–78; Ma and Qi, Reference Ma, Qi and ban1998, 101–470.

²²² Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 334; Kirby, 1984, 190–232.

²²³ Despite the Great Depression, the total value of Sino-German trade in 1937 reached RM 262.7 million, and German direct investment in China stood at US$300 million. Just four years earlier, Sino-German trade was at a low of RM 116 million while German direct investment in China was also in a trough, at US$40 million . Kirby, 1984, 23–24, 73, 191; Xue, Reference Xue2005, 139–49.

²²⁴ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 129–262, 303–18; Eto, Reference Eto, Barrett and Shyu2001, 50–51; Huang and Zhang, Reference Huang and Zhang1984, 100–70; Ienaga, Reference Ienaga and American1978, 72; Kirby, Reference Huang1984, 234–44; Ma and Qi, Reference Ma, Qi and ban1998, 361–87; Shen, Reference Shen2005, 550–59.

²²⁵ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 115; Kirby, 1984, 233–52.

²²⁶ Chen, Reference Chen2003, 263–334; Fox, Reference Fox1982, 146–331; Ma and Qi, Reference Ma, Qi and ban1998, 465–81; SHAC 18/3268, Wang Zhaoming (Wang Jingwei) and Chu Minyi, “Zhongguo jiaru guoji fanggong xieding’an”, October 1942.

²²⁷ Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 277–84, 310–16, 334–40; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 213–67.

²²⁸ Christensen and Snyder, Reference Christensen and Snyder1990.

²²⁹ Cui, Reference Cui1995, 245–47; Eastman, Reference Eastman and Eastman1991, 144.

²³⁰ Barnhart, Reference Barnhart1995, 123; Chan, Reference Chan1982, 54–63, 102–05; Spector, Reference Spector2007, 117–21; Taliaferro, Reference Taliaferro2004, 102–04; AH 641/5034.04–01, “Zhong-Fa guiding Yuenan yu Zhongguo biansheng guanxi tiaoyue”, 16 May 1930–4 May 1935.

²³¹ SHAC 18/3268, “Guanyu shouhui zhujie ji chechu zhiwai faquan’an”; SHAC 18/1917, “Zhonghua Minguo Guomin Zhengfu guanyu feichu bupingdeng tiaoyue yu Ying Mei Rui deng guo qianding xin tiaoyue ji fujian”, 1943–1946.

²³² SHAC 18/1927, “Zhixing shouhui faquan geyue xuzhi”; SHAC 18/2545, “Waijiaobu niti Canzhenghui de waijiao baogao”; SHAC 18/3269, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Waijiao Baipishu 69 zhi 88 hao”; SHAC 18/3429, “Baipishu di 54 zhi 105”; SHAC 18/877, “Zhonghua Minguo Guomin Zhengfu yu Faguo Linshi Zhengfu jiaoshou Guangzhou Wan zhujie zhuanyue”, December 1946; SHAC 18/879, “Zhong-Fa guanyu Faguo ‘fangqi’ zai Hua zhiwai faquan ji qita youguan tequan tiaoyue”, February 1946.

²³³ Colbert, Reference Colbert1977, 62–63; Garver, Reference Garver1993, 44; Kupchan, Reference Kupchan1994, 267–96; Westad, Reference Westad2003, 316–18; SHAC 18/3269, “Zhong Fa yu bianjie wenti jiejue”, 1946; SHAC 18/3429, “Baipishu di 54 zhi 105”.

²³⁴ Cohen, Reference Cohen2000, 169; Kennedy, Reference Kennedy1987, 381–83; Yang, Reference Yang and ban1997, 621–22.

Book contents

Chapter 5 - The Evolution of Foreign Involvement in China, 1923–1952

Summary

Information

Chapter 5 The Evolution of Foreign Involvement in China, 1923–1952 Rising Opportunity Costs and Convergent Approaches to Intervention1

Japan and Its Imperial Experiment

Tokyo’s Robust Access Denial Efforts

An End to British Prominence

A Strained Defence of the “Open Door”

Denying Privileged Access and America’s Involvement in China

Inattention and Open Access

The Soviet Union and Its Role in China

Moscow’s Differentiated Approach to Access Denial

Germany in China

Berlin Tries to Regain Equal Access

France and Access in China

French Nonchalance

Conclusion

Notes

Footnotes

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information

Book contents

Chapter 5 - The Evolution of Foreign Involvement in China, 1923–1952

Summary

Information

Japan and Its Imperial Experiment

Tokyo’s Robust Access Denial Efforts

An End to British Prominence

A Strained Defence of the “Open Door”

Denying Privileged Access and America’s Involvement in China

Inattention and Open Access

The Soviet Union and Its Role in China

Moscow’s Differentiated Approach to Access Denial

Germany in China

Berlin Tries to Regain Equal Access

France and Access in China

French Nonchalance

Conclusion

Notes

Footnotes

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information

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