SDHF Newsletter No.421 The Road to the Greater East Asian War No. 35 Ch.10-1

THE ROAD TO THE GREATER EAST ASIAN WAR
Nakamura Akira, Dokkyo University Professor Emeritus
(English Translation: Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact)
Part 35, Chapter 10: The Manchurian Incident-I

February 25, 2025

The ultimate objectives of Shidehara diplomacy and Tanaka diplomacy were to maintain and develop Japan’s vested interests. The difference between the two lay in the means by which they were to be implemented. Neither Tanaka’s positive policy nor Shidehara’s friendship policy was able to quell Chinese anti-Japanese activities or fully protect Japanese interests in China. With no effective solution in sight, the Japan-China relationship lurched toward the catastrophe that was the Manchurian Incident.

Subsequent to the Northeast Flag Replacement, the influence of the communizing GMD spread to the three eastern provinces, and the anti-Japanese sentiment there intensified steadily. Communization and the anti-Japanese campaign were, without doubt, the underlying causes of the Manchurian Incident. Wang Zhengting, who was installed as the Nanjing government’s ministry of foreign affairs in the throes of the Jinan Incident, cleverly used the democratic movement to promote anti-Japanese policies. The policy that proved most shocking to the Japanese was his “revolutionary diplomacy.”

It was an exceedingly selfish diplomatic ploy by which the Chinese announced, without engaging in any negotiations, that all unequal treaties would be abrogated. On July 7, 1928, the Nationalist government initiated another aspect of revolutionary diplomacy, advising Japan that the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation concluded in 1896 was now null and void.

According to the provisions of that treaty, negotiations on its revision could be held every 10 years. However, this time the Chinese stated that the treaty would become invalid should such negotiations take place and fail. With full support from ruling and opposition parties, Japan vehemently protested this unilateral declaration for making light of international practices and principles of good faith. Shidehara, as foreign minister of the Hamaguchi government, recognized Chinese tariff autonomy on May 6, 1930.

However, deep in Manchuria communism was rapidly gaining ground, and violent anti-Japanese incidents were breaking out in the Jiandao region, where the Chinese government had no control. The Korean Communist Party of Manchuria opted to disband and merge with the CCP’s Manchurian Committee. During an uprising that occurred on May 30 in Jiandao, electric power plants, and communications and tariff facilities were destroyed. The Japanese Consulate and the homes of pro-Japanese Koreans were attacked, and Japanese and Koreans living in the area were thrown into panic. Immediately after the incident ended, Japanese residents held a meeting at which they criticized the spineless Foreign Ministry and local authorities. They drafted a petition demanding an increased police presence, which they sent to the prime minister, foreign minister, governor-general of Korea, and Japanese political parties and newspapers. Not long thereafter, Chinese troops fired a volley of shots at Japanese police officers on patrol. Two officers were killed instantly, and another was seriously injured. The Japanese decided to dispatch reinforcements in the form of 103 police officers. However, Shidehara judged that increasing the number of Japanese police would intensify strife between Japan and China, and even threaten Japanese interests in Manchuria. Therefore, over the objection of Saito Makoto, governor general of Korea, he ordered the reinforcements to withdraw, but that decision was met by vociferous protests against Shidehara from Japanese residents of Jiandao. In the latter half of 1930 the number of terrorist incidents in the Jiandao region was estimated at 81, resulting in 44 deaths, and countless injured, not to mention numerous homes destroyed by fire.

By 1931 anti-Japanese sentiment in Manchuria had escalated to the point where the central government could not begin to control them. In April the Liaoning Nationalist Foreign Affairs Association sponsored an anti-Japanese conference in Fengtian, which was attended by 300 representatives from all over Manchuria who discussed the elimination of Japanese interests in Manchuria, including the confiscation of the South Manchurian Railway. When the GMD convention was held in Nanjing from May 5, the mood there was such that Japan became the target of criticism. There was a huge outcry of, “Down with Japanese imperialism!” and angry demands for the recovery of Port Arthur, Dalian, and the Manchurian Railway, as well as withdrawal of Japanese troops guarding railway property. The Chinese did not return the goodwill of the still idealistic Shidehara in kind. Instead, they were relieved by Shidehara’s return and simply barreled ahead, placing their hopes in revolutionary diplomacy.

The Manchurian Incident was set in motion by the Liutiaogou Incident, which took place on September 19, 1931 at Liutiaogou, 8 kilometers north of Fengtian, when explosives were detonated on the tracks of the South Manchurian Railway. After the explosions, the 500-man Shimamoto Battalion attacked a 6,800-man Chinese brigade, routing it completely.

Today everyone in Japan knows that it was the Japanese who struck the match, who instigated the explosion on Manchurian property at Liutiaogou, in a Manchuria whose environment had already turned toxic. If the Japanese had not struck that match, the Chinese would assuredly have done the honors. That is how very explosive and volatile the situation in Manchuria had become. The explosion was merely the final, tiny cause, the last of a mountain of innumerable causes – the last straw, to borrow an English expression that means “a further difficulty that comes after a series of other difficulties, that makes a situation unbearable.” Therefore, the incident was more of an effect than a cause. In other words, the Manchurian Incident cannot be defined as the first stage of Japanese aggression in China. The author’s conclusion is that it was the inevitable result of Chinese policies that were, for a quarter of a century, hostile and insulting to Japan.

URL: 　 https://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/2286/
PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Road35E.pdf

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact