An Overview of Relations between China and Japan, 1895-1945Author(s): Ian NishSource: The China Quarterly, No. 124, China and Japan: History, Trends and Prospects (Dec.,1990), pp. 601-623Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/654639Accessed: 30/11/2010 06:37

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An Overview of Relations Between China and Japan, 1 895 1 945 lan Nish

The relationship between China and Japan is a many-layered cake, impossible to eat all at once. This article will concentrate on the diplomatic layer of the relationship. Diplomatic history is essentially about the decisions of governments and the documents that are subsequently exchanged. Each of these aspects has its difficulties for the historian of East Asia. For substantial parts of the period under review "government" in a western sense hardly existed in China, while in Japan even the considered decisions of the government in Tokyo frequently failed to reflect the situation on the ground. In Japan's relations with China there was often a dual - if not a multiple - diplomacy at work where the army (among others) had an independent hand in fashioning "policy."

The "documents" for Sino-Japanese relations also present a problem for the historian. China and Japan waged psychological warfare for most of the period between 1905 and 1945. This often took the form of a propaganda war, partly to capture the hearts of the people in the other country but also partly to influence public opinion in their own. In the case of the English-language exposition of policy in which both China and Japan indulged to a great extent, the intention was to capture the hearts of third parties and persuade them to take sides. In Japan this propaganda often took the form of pan- Asian doctrines. Probably no Japanese government explicitly em- braced these doctrines, but there were groups close to the reins of power which subscribed to them. Pan-Asianism held little attraction for the Chinese (at least as it was formulated by Japan) and did not form part of their policy statements.

Any overview of Sino-Japanese relations should pinpoint the key dates, which, in the period under review, occurred in 1911-12, 1927-28 and 1937. Accordingly this article is divided chronologically, into four sections.

1895-1911 Japan inflicted a humiliating military and naval defeat on China in

the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and by the treaty of Shimonoseki imposed a harsh peace settlement on her in which she lost territory in Taiwan and a substantial area of the Liaodong peninsula. China's humiliation was partly assuaged by the humiliation which Japan itself subsequently suffered at the hands of Russia, Germany and France in the three-power intervention which restored to the Chinese their losses in Manchuria. Consequently, China was indebted to Russia, entered into various compacts with it, which in essence offered the Chinese the equivalent of a Russian alliance against Japan.

602 The China Quarterly After the restoration of diplomatic relations between China and

Japan on 22 June 1895 Japan observed a low posture policy towards China, even though her armies continued to occupy Weihaiwei until all the instalments of the war indemnity had been paid in 1898. Meanwhile, Japan focused its attention on Korea and the actions of China's successor there, Russia. It remained a spectator on the sidelines as the European countries leased parts of China. Recognising China's weakness, however, Japan offered assistance at various levels. For example, it played a constructive role during the Hundred Days of Reform in 1898. Ito Hirobumi eased the passage to Japan of K'ang Yu-wei (Kang Youwei) and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (Liang Qichao) after the Reform movement had crumbled. The exiles were welcomed in the highest political circles in Japan from whom K'ang sought official assistance. These events inaugurated a decade in which there was an invasion of Japanese ideas into China and of ambitious Chinese to Japan for education.l

In 1900 Japan's legation in Beijing (like those of the western powers) was besieged by the Boxers and a member of its diplomatic staffwas killed. At the invitation of Great Britain, Japan participated in the international relief force sent to China. Her troops, numerically almost as strong as those of Russia, were well-disciplined and took a major part in the relief of the legations. After this success the troops were quickly withdrawn. In the aftermath Japan identified its main interests in the continent of Asia: ( 1 ) Korea where Japan was anxious to get the upper hand over the Russians; and (2) Fukien province where Japan had a non-alienation agreement. While Japan put out feelers for Great Power approval of these plans, they were not to pursue them in 1900. The low posture policy continued.

Russian troops engaged in the International Force against Beijing were withdrawn to Manchuria, despite the protests of the powers. China was impotent to force their withdrawal. The Japanese re- sponded by entering into the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 and by undertaking direct negotiations with Russia in August 1903. But the negotiations made little headway and war broke out in February of the following year.

Japan's motives in going to war with Russia are frequently the subject of historical debate. Some historians suggest that Japan's prime motive was dissatisfaction with Russia over Korea, while others have emphasized the importance of China, especially the Manchurian market. I have argued elsewhere that, while Japan was certainly much concerned about Russian inroads around Yongampo in the summer of 1903, Manchuria was an important factor in its thinking.2 This was not because of Japan's desire to win a rich market

1. D.R. Reynolds, "A golden age forgotten: Japan-China relations, 1898-1907," Transactions of theAsiatic Society of Japan, 4th series, Vol. 2 (1987), pp. 93-153.

2. I.H. Nish, The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War (London: Longman, 1987).

Overview of Relations, 1 895 -1 945 603

but because of the strategic danger which the presence of such a large force of Russian troops posed for Japan and also because of a desire to avenge the Three-Power Intervention. Japan was regarded as an open- door country and, like other open-door powers, was opposed to Russian hegemony in, and military occupation of, the whole of Manchuria. Whereas the powers were indifferent to any police action taken by Japan over Korea, they were generally favourable to any action it took over Manchuria, though they stopped short of actively encouraging Japan in case it was defeated by Russia. Whatever internal considerations weighed with Japan, therefore, it had the tacit approval of Great Britain and the United States in its policing action against Russia.

The Japanese cabinet tried to define the central principles of its foreign policy in a cabinet document of 30 December 1903. It laid down:

The main aim of Japan's policy for the continent is to ensure her defence in the north by protecting the independence of Korea and in the south by placing the south China region with Fukien province as its centrepoint within her sphere of influence. It is the first of these which has the higher immediate priority, while the second will be implemented later.3

This statement repeated and clarified decisions which had been taken at an earlier date. The cabinet acknowledged that the battle would have to be fought in Korea and, by extension, in Manchuria on Chinese territory, though Japan's long-term thinking on Manchuria is unclear. The memorandum also posits the dilemma: if the object is to drive the Russian armies out of Manchuria, should China be encouraged to join Japan? The view adopted is: If the Russo-Japanese negotiations unfortunately break down, there is no doubt that the Chinese leadership will be divided between those who are willing to co-operate with Japan and those who wish to remain neutral. They will be perplexed over the proper course for them to take.4

In view of this, the cabinet came out strongly in favour of encouraging China to remain neutral and not to become a belligerent. The Chinese lacked military prowess and the Japanese view was that their assistance would be more trouble than it was worth. There were in any case doubts about China's loyalty to Japan owing to her secret pact with Russia in 1896.

When battle was engaged on the plains of Manchuria the Japanese won but at enormous cost in terms of money, men and material. By the Treaty of Portsmouth (September 1905) Japan obtained the residue of the Russian lease of Liaodong (Port Arthur and Dalny), the rights to the Russian railway from Port Arthur to Changchun and

3. Resolution of the Japanese cabinet, 30 December 1903 in Nihon gaiko nempyo narabi ni shuyo bunsho (Japanese Diplomatic Chronology and Important Documents) 2 vols. (Tokyo: Foreign Ministry, 1955), Vol. 1, pp. 217-19.

4. Ibid.

604 The China Quarterly associated undertakings, but it failed to obtain an indemnity. When the negotiators returned from Portsmouth, Komura surprised the Chinese by going to Beijing to re-negotiate the terms with the Chinese himself. Since the Japanese armies were only just north of the Great Wall, the Chinese were not in a strong bargaining position and had to conclude the Treaty of Peking (Beijing), endorsing the settlement already reached at Portsmouth.s

The Japanese viewpoint was that China should have been grateful to them for expelling the Russians from South Manchuria and by extension for removing the threat to the independence of the Chinese Government. The Chinese howeverS failed to see it in these terms. In a protocol attached to the Treaty of Peking (December 1905) the Chinese agreed that they would not build railway lines parallel to the ones which the Japanese had just taken over from the Russians. The Japanese argued that the railway they had acquired had been used to excess during the war and had been substantially destroyed, and since they did not receive an indemnity at Portsmouth they would have to reconstruct it out of their own resources. It was only reasonable, therefore, that they should enjoy monopoly rights. Naturally enough the Chinese did not regard themselves as being bound to a long-term commitment: within a few years they began to buildS or to plan the building of, railway lines parallel to the new Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway. This was to be a point of great contention for over two decades.

The effects of the Russo-Japanese War on such a comparatively small state like Japan were immense. Japanss Government weighed the cost of "liberating" the Three Eastern Provinces: two billion yen had been spent and 230,000 lives lost. In compensation it had obtained a small lease on the Liaodong peninsula and railway rights, both of which were due to run out in 1923. Japan's object over the next few years was to consolidate these newly acquired rights. The process of consolidation naturally ushered in a period of intense suspicion and occasional friction with both China and her former open-door partners. In gradually establishing its railway empire with the benefit of foreign finance, Japan found it expedient to forge a relationship with its old enemyS Russia, which continued to operate a sphere of influence in northern Manchuria. By treaties of 1907, 1910 and 1912, the two managed to demarcate their respective spheres, while at the same time resisting the incursions of others in their increasingly prosperous sphere. The result was that the volume of exports to China greatly exceeded that to Korea and Taiwan and outweighed the exports of other trading countries.

After the Treaty of Peking there was a period of consolidation, not so much in Japan, as in Manchuria. There was a great deal of inconspicuous diplomatic activity between 1905 and 191 1 in which

5. J.A White, The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.)

Overview of RelationsS 1895 - 1945 605

China and Japan resolved the problems left over by the war. The winding down process of reducing the Japanese military establish- ment in Manchuria and restoring the areas outside the Liaodong leased territory and the railway zone to Chinese administrators took time and was not completed until the end of 1906. Many of the problems that arose were linked to railways. Clearly, the Japanese now operating through the South Manchurian Railway Company wished to legitimize their significant acquisitions by concluding treaties. In April 1907 there was a complicated set of twin agreements: the first involved the restitution of the Xinmintun-Shenyang (Muk- den) Railway to China; and the second provided that the Chinese in building the Changchun-Jilin line should borrow half its construction costs from the South Manchurian Railway Company. A more difficult issue arose over the Japanese desire to embark on the reconstruction of the Andong-Shenyang line, which had been under military control during the war and had suffered much destruction. It was, however, regarded as vital for Japan's strategic position in Manchuria and as the natural arterial line linking it with Korea. Work on the line had been delayed for various reasons until the summer of 1909. On 22 June the cabinet decided that it must bring this matter to a head and on 6 August the Japanese minister in Beijing took the serious step of presenting China with an ultinlatum: if China did not ';show sincerity' over this problem, Japan would begin the reconstruction work on its own accountS without Beijing's sanction. Under this threat the Chinese agreed to the signing of the appropriate agreement in Shenyang later that month. These agreements were a precursor of the far-reaching "Five Manchurian and Mongolian Railway Loans Agreement of October 1913.

There was also an international dimension to this railway diplo- macy: the Chinese project for the Xinmintun to Fakumen Railway (with possible extension to Qiqihaer) in 1907-l909; the Jinzhou to Aihui projected line of l 909; and the American proposals for neutralization of railways in Manchuria (1909). Japan and Russia opposed all three of these projects. Japan regretted the perceived defiant attitude of the Chinese towards its attempt to consolidate the treaty rights obtained at Portsmouth. The Chinese, for their partn were detellllined, either by themselves or by enlisting the support of allies, to prevent the Japanese from expanding their railway interests in Manchuria. It led to frustration on both sides; and the years preceding the outbreak of the first Chinese revolution saw much bitterness in achieving the fruits of"economic diplomacy." The Chinese were playing a weak hand with considerable skill; but gradually Japan succeeded in achieving its economic aims.

But the bitterness of diE>lomatic - and economic - relations is not the whole story. Paradoxically there was much mutual admiration between China and Japan. Just as the Japanese acknowledged their debt to China's cultural development3 the Chinese, especially with the growing national spirit of the reformers, acknowledged that they owed

606 The China Quarterly much to the experience of Japan (e.g. the concept of"fukoku kyohei"). Many Chinese felt they were being goaded towards reform by a sense that the incursions of Japan were potentially more dangerous for China than the hated incursions of the Europeans. Chinese oflicer cadets made their way in increasing numbers to the military academies in Japan where their patriotism was often stirred by the discipline they found in the Japanese soldier and the success it had achieved militarily.6 As more and more Japanese instructors were recruited for the new military academies in China, a new class of officer emerged who looked increasingly to Japan with a mixture of apprehension and admiration. Perhaps Japan was regarded as being sufliciently small for it still be be regarded with equanimity.

l-27

Nowhere was the complexity of Japanese policy-making more apparent than in the period of China's early revolutions in 191 1 and 1913. Official policy in the hands of the Foreign Ministry was essentially orthodox and moderate. It was in favour of moderate reform in China, and the attainment of a constitutional monarchy through the modification of the Qing system of government. It professed to have no official contacts in 191 1 with the revolutionaries. When British officials sought to arrange a ceasefire between the government and the revolutionary leadership - thereby in effect recognizing the revolutionaries - eyebrows were raised in Tokyo.7 Yet it was widely known that unofficially Japanese from the business community and from the military were transacting business with the revolutionaries. When Yuan Shih-k'ai (Yuan Shikai) emerged as the interim president of the new republic, the Japanese official line was again moderate, working gradually towards the recognition of Yllan and the consolidation of his position by the grant of an international loan. The governments of the day - there were four cabinets of differing persuasions between 191 1 and 1914 - operated within the International Banking Consortium for China and took part in the Reorganization Loan to Yuan of April 1913. But they reserved their position that the writ of the consortium did not run in Manchuria, against the view of the majority of other members.

The issues became even more prominent in 1913. Sun Yat-sen, whose relations with President Yuan had deteriorated sharply, was cultivating Japanese groups in order to extract aid for the expected confrontation with Yuan. There is no evidence that Japan departed from its policy of non-intervention in Chinese affairs. When anti- Japanese outbreaks took place in Hankou and Nanjing, the calls for

6. Reynolds, "A golden age forgotten.' 7. Ikei Masaru, "Japan's response to the Chinese Revolution of 191 1," Journal of

Asian Studies, Vol. 25 (1962), pp. 213-227; P.C. Lowe, Great Britain and Japan, 1911-15 (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 68-71.

Overview of Relations, 1895 - 1945 607

stronger action were renewed. When the "second revolution" took place in July-August the anti-Yuan forces received assistance from quarters linked to the Japanese army and navy, but this was given against the wishes of the Foreign Ministry and government who claimed that it was the work of a few irresponsible ronin.

With the outbreak of the European war, Japan asked Germany to surrender her leased territory of Jiaozhou-Qingdao. On 23 August, having received no response, it declared war and launched an invasion force through Chinese territory. The Japanese capture of the city of Qingdao on 7 November 1914 brought Sino-Japanese relations to a new low. It led the Japanese to an elaborate scheme for consolidating their ambitions in China. It was elaborate in the sense of soliciting a wide range of opinion - military, commercial and diplomatic - in the preparation of the case Japan wished to put to China. It was elaborate also in the sheer comprehensiveness of the document which was transmitted to Minister Hioki on 3 December for presentation to China when he returned there. This comprehensive package, known in the west as "Twenty-one Demands," was eventually placed before President Yuan Shih-k'ai on 18 January. Whether these items are appropriately described as demands, requests or wishes is something that could only be determined in a more detailed survey. Suffice it to say that the 21 items were not all of equal importance and those in Group V were highly intrusive into China's rights as an independent state. President Yuan allowed the substance of these Demands to leak out to foreign governments and newsmen, while the Japanese, when confronted with this, prevaricated and left the impression that they were being misrepresented. The Twenty-one Demands were an initial bargaining position and are important to the historian as an indication of Japan's long-term and ambitious intentions in China.8

Negotiations continued throughout the spring without Japan obtaining the guarantees it sought. It became necessary to hold an imperial conference (gozen kaigi) on 6 May to determine whether the proceedings of the Okuma Government had the blessing of the Elder Statesmen and what the next step should be. It was agreed that the Chinese should be presented with an ultimatum. In view of the presence of Japanese troops so close to the Chinese capital, Yuan Shih-k'ai had little alternative but to conclude a series of treaties. First was the Treaty of Shantung (Shandong), the prime cause of the current negotiations, and the exchange of letters accompanying it. Next came an exchange of letters about the Jiaozhou Bay leased territory. Following this was the exchange of letters about Fujian, which, being geographically immediately opposite Taiwan, was naturally of interest to the Japanese. Next came the most significant

8. A. Coox and H. Conroy (eds.), China and Japan: The Search for Balance Since World War I (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1978), pp. 98ff; Okamoto Shumpei, "Ishibashi Tanzan and the Twenty-one Demands," in A. Iriye (ed.), The Chinese and the Japanese. Essays in Political and Cultural Interactions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 980), pp. 1 84-1 98.

608 The China Quarterly part of the negotiation, the treaty relating to South Manchuria and "Eastern Inner Mongolia" and the exchange of letters relating to it. Finally there was an exchange of letters about the Hanyebing Company, in which the Japanese had maintained a commercial interest since the turn of the century. These various diplomatic documents, signed on 25 May in Beijing, were duly ratified. It goes without saying that the treaties proposed by the Japanese and their acceptance and ratification by Yuan Shih-k'ai were bitterly opposed by the Chinese people when they learned of them from the press. The letters exchanged were of course concealed for the time being and had they been released would have incensed the public even more. Riots and anti-Japanese demonstrations broke out in cities all over China. Meanwhile, a further agreement was being negotiated over the re- opening of the Chinese Customs at Qingdao, thereby enabling it to re- commence operations as a port for foreign trade. This was duly signed on 6 August and completed the negotiating "package." Foreign Minister Kato was replaced four days later.

Owing to the ultimatum and the threat of force, the Chinese have always regarded these treaties as having been extracted under duress. Group V of the Demands was not pursued. Over Shandong, the treaties, while declaring Japan's intention of restoring Jiaozhou to China, gave it Chinese recognition for any agreement reached between Japan and Germany. Over Manchuria, China undertook to recognize the extension of the leases of Port Arthur and Dairen and the South Manchurian railway territories to 99 years, that is to 1997. In addition the Japanese acquired the right of travel, residence and trade, including the right to lease land for commercial, industrial or agricultural purposes. This last provision was a significant modifica- tion of the restrictions hitherto applied to foreign enterprises. Although these rights represented a vast gain for the Japanese, they were in practice obstmcted by the Chinese.9

There are many baffling aspects of the Twenty-one Demands episode. Many Japanese looked back on it as being rather inept. Mamoru Shigemitsu, working in the Foreign Ministry in the 1930s, thought that it had been inadvisable to confront China with a comprehensive group of demands all at once and that it would have been much more desirable to have solved outstanding disputes one at a time.l? The officials most intimately involved revealed to the British ambassador how unhappy they had been. Minister Hioki, when he finally left Beijing in 1916, told Ambassador Greene that he was "much relieved at getting clear away from his post there." Hayashi Gonsuke, his successor, was not pleased to be going back there: he was "not in sympathy with the policy of the Okuma Government and he had disapproved of the 'demands' episode of Viscount Kato, which

9. Coox and Conroy, China and Japan, pp. 98-g9. 10. D. Borg and S. Okamoto (eds.) Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American

Relations, 1931-41 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973) pp. 132-33.

OverviewofRelations, 1895-1945 609

had been a grave error.''ll At a more senior level, General Yamagata Aritomo, Japan's most senior soldier and Elder Statesman, believed that it was a mistake to antagnoize Yuan Shih-k'ai and weaken the new Chinese Republic. But he was, of course, politically unsympathe- tic to Kato who reciprocated the hostility.l2

The unpopular legacy of the Demands had its effect. When the Terauchi cabinet came to power in 1916, it undertook to adopt a friendly policy towards China to alleviate the effects of the 1915 treaties. It would not interfere in her domestic affairs and would maintain China's independence and territorial integrity. These policy statements had a degree of artificiality about them. Terauchi, without taking account of the Foreign Ministry, entered into loans to the Chinese Government through a personal agent Nishihara Kamezo and the Bank of Korea. These were not industrial loans but political ones, designed to assist Tuan Chijui (Duan Jirui), the president, and Tsao Ju-lin (Zao Rulin), the finance minister. In a sense the loans could be seen as having been supplied to enable the leaders in Beijing to conquer the south which was then experiencing civil war. They were also negotiated secretly with Chinese ministers, and Japan would have suffered severely in the event of China's collapse. Moreover, they were concluded in great haste and without the precaution of security guarantees. To that extent, the Nishihara loans were more generous to the Chinese than the more orthodox loans concluded in the days of the international banking consortium. But it is hard not to conclude that this generosity was the result of the wartime boom in Japan and was intended to woo back the Chinese after the hostility generated in 1915.13

The Hara cabinet decided to discontinue the loans which had caused antagonism in some quarters in China. It went further and disposed of some of the loans which had been contracted. This was designed to appease the Chinese but also to meet the disquiet of the allies who viewed Japan's financial manoeuvres with some suspicion.

These suspicions had the effect of stimulating China's nationalist upsurge which was to lead to the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Chinese boycotts against Japanese goods were already in evidence. Since every nationalist movement requires an outside stimulus, it is probably true that, in thecaseofChina, thatstimuluscamefromJapanratherthan the European imperialists who had departed from her shores.

The future of the lease of Germany in China was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference. After consideration in committee and at the plenum it was awarded to Japan, rather than reverting to China as

1 1. Conyngham Greene to Grey, 8 June and 1 August 1916 in British Foreign Office papers (Public Record Office, Kew), FO 800/68.

12. Yamagata Aritomo to Okuma, August 1914, "Tai-shi seisaku ikensho" in W.T. de Bary (ed.), Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 714-16.

13. Baba Akira, "Tai-ka kyoson kyoie shugi no hatan" ("Failure of the principles of co-existence and co-prosperity with China"), in Tochigi shigaku (Tochigi History), 1989,pp.141-42.

610 The China Quarterly

that country's delegates had urged. The transfer merely crystallized the status quo insofar as the Japanese had been in occupation of the lease throughout the war and no power was ready to take on the task of expelling them. Moreover China, though formally a belligerent party against Germany had not made a conspicuous contribution to the allied war effort. The delegates were influenced by Japan's reiteration of the view it had expressed in 1915 that it would return the Qingdao lease to China in due course. Outside Japan everyone recognized that this part of the Versailles Treaty was unsatisfactory; but there was no time for lengthy debate at Paris and the matter was left to post-conference diplomacy and to the newly-created League of Nationsl4

In fact the Shandong problem remained unresolved until the Washington Conference which opened in November 1921. Although effort was made on the part of Great Britain and the United States to clarify Japan's position and resolve the issue, the Japanese insisted on direct negotiations with China while the latter was reluctant to enter into talks unless other powers were also involved. The Chinese delegates tried to get the conference to overturn the 1915 treaties and the Sino-Japanese military and naval agreements of 1918, but without success. Instead the Shandong question was discussed outside the conference between Japan and China in the presence of British and American representatives who presided over the protracted and hotly- contested sessions. Eventually the Shantung (Shandong) Treaty was signed on 4 February 1922, restoring to China the former German leased territory and the Jinan-Qingdao Railway with branch lines and other assets. Pending the completion of the payments for the line, a Japanese traffic manager and auditor were to be engaged. Japan's railway guards were to be withdrawn within six months. The payments due were long outstanding. Japan's willingness to pull out probably reflected the fact that the wartime boom had ended and the civilian cabinet was embarking on a period of retrenchment. Nonetheless, it was a major step towards relaxing tensions in East Asia and Japan sacrificed the gains it had made in 1919.

In order to promote Chinese nationalism, the nine powers at Washington with interests in China put their signature to the Nine- power Treaty. Under its terms they undertook not to create or maintain spheres of influence in China but generally to observe the tenets of the "open-door." This ran counter to Japan's ambitions iIl Manchuria where it clearly had a sphere of influence. For many Japanese the Washington Conference, like the Paris Peace Conference before it7 was seen as a device to ensure a Pax Anglo-Americana. While the Japanese Governments of the day observed the resulting treaties sufficiently conscientiously, nevertheless, they became resent- ful when Japan in the late 1920s was accused of violating the Nine- power Treaty (whose significance it may not earlier have appreciated).

14. I.H. Nish, Alliance in Decline (London: Athlone, 1972), pp. 274-76.

OverviewofRelations, 1895-1945 611

When Shigemitsu became deputy foreign minister in the 1930s he wrote that he did not wish to see a repetition of this treaty "which had limited Japan's means of self-defence through conclusion of a general treaty concerning China; international relations in the Far East cannot be properly controlled by an idealistic peace treaty or an organization that might be suited to Europe.''ls

But, if there was in retrospect bitterness over the Washington treatiesS there was also thankfulness at the relaxation of tension at the time. The Washington package had its pluses and minuses; but a series of Tokyo governments was prepared to work within its parameters. Japan withdrew from her Siberian adventure. She was less significant in Shandong and was anxious to follow a policy of political friendship and co-operation for the sake of commercial expansion in China. For five years after the Washington gathering there was an easing of hostility which had been generated since 1894 and in the pressure which Japan had been applying to a slightly retarded China which was in the grip of civil war.

Typical of this period was the more relaxed policy of Shidehara Kijuro as foreign minister (1924-27). In the main his policy was one of non-intervention in Chinese affairs and he was conciliatory towards Chinese nationalism. ThusS he returned Japan's share of the Boxer Emergency Funds for cultural use in China. It was condemned by the opposition parties as weak-kneed diplomacy (nanjaku gaiko). There were exceptions to this policy in respect of Manchuria where Shidehara maintained the strong policy inherited from his predeces- sors.l6 Any foreign minister would inevitably have been involved in the fate of ';the Mukden clique,' a group of leaders associated with Chang Tso-lin who had a power base in Mukden but were engaged in a tussle for ascendancy in Beijing. The Mukden clique was an amolphous body of warlord figures who were linked with sophisti- cated civilian bureaucrats and western trained army oiMcers. The Japanese had a sort of love-hate relationship with the clique, both as regards the wide-ranging Japanese interests in Manchuria and as regards the clique's plans to take control of Beijing, where Chang Tso- lin had come to power in the autumn of 1924. When Chang was faced with a serious uprising on his home territory towards the end of 1925, the Japanese felt obliged to send a military force to Mukden (Shenyang) with a view to protecting Japanese lives and property. They were, however much more chary about getting involved in complicated Beijing politics.

In China proper the problem for Japan was how to handle Chinese nationalism. The northern expedition of the Kuomintang (KMT)

15. Sharon Minichiello, Retreat from Reform: Patterns of Political Behavior in Inter- war Japan (Hawaii: Hawaii University Press, 1984), p. 50; articles by Usui Katsumi and Hosoya Chihiro, in I.H. Nish (ed.), Anglo-Japanese Alienation, 1917-51 (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press7 1982) pp. 77-96 and 10-18.

16. Baba Akira, "Tai-ka kyoson kyoei shugi no hatan,o' pp. 136-192.

612 The China Quarterly armies which the Japanese tended to describe as the expansion of the ';Southern forces" began in 1926 and captured Hankoutin September. It was hard for the KMT leadership to enforce discipline and anti- foreign outrages took place. By the time Chiang Kai-shekss (Jiang Jieshi) forces had reached Shanghai in March 1927, there was talk of the powers involved in China sending a joint international military force. But Shidehara robustly resisted pressure to join it, stating that non-intervention was essential in promoting "economic co-operation for co-existence and co-prosperity between the two nations." At the end of March Lieutenant Araki who was in charge of some Japanese units at Nanjing was unable to cope with his duties by means of "non- interventions' and in a dramatic gesture attempted to commit suicide. This was followed by a KMT assault on the Japanese concession at Hankou (among other concessions) on 2 April; and the cabinet authorized the use of Japanese marines to drive out the Chinese. Although there was a move within the navy to send a fleet to the Yangtse region to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens, it was not approved. The cabinet resigned on 17 AprilX unable to cope with the financial crisis or deal with the critics of its China policy.l7

How does one assess this phase of Sino-Japanese relations? For five years from 191 1 to 1916 there was a period of Japanese interference, if not direct intervention in Chinese affairs. This raised many doubts in the minds of Japan's intellectuals and it is said that the May Fourth Movement deeply affected men like Yoshino Sakuzo and Ishibashi Tanzan. This interventionist phase was followed by a decade when the Japanese thought they were following a policy of friendship and co-operation. For the most part it was friendship with one or other of the cliques in a warring and unstable China. It was, of course, open to the criticism that the friendship was merely time-serving and designed to smooth the path of Sino-Japanese trade. The fact was that by the 1 920s the China trade was crucial to the Japanese economy. Consequently, competition with Chinese producers and boycotts by Chinese consumers were sensitive matters for the Japanese Govern- ment. Shidehara tried to tackle this problem by adopting in the mid 1920s the principles of co-existence and co-prosperity (Kyoson kyoei shugi). This may have created a spirit of goodwill - the fact that Chiang Kai-shek was prepared to visit Japan for negotiations suggests that the atmosphere had improved since 1919. But Sino-Japanese relations still fell far short of cordiality, partly because xenophobia was one of the natural pillars of surging Chinese nationalism and partly because Shidehara's policy (with the various inconsistencies it contained) was by no means universally accepted in JaE>an.

17. Bamba Nobuya, Japanese Diplomacy in a Dilemma: New Light on Japan's China Policy, 1924-29 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Pressl 1973), pp. 279-282.

Overview of Relations, 1895- 1945 613 1927-36

When General Tanaka Giichi came to power as head of the opposition Seiyukai cabinet in April 1927 he gave the China question high priority. After a decade of division China had achieved a degree of unity. Tanaka was already conscious of the disparities between the views held on various aspects of Japan's approach to China. There were new forces at work in the Japanese army. Not that the army's views had been concealed in the past; but the scale of its initiatives and the independence of its views increased towards the end of the 1 920s. Army officers were becoming increasingly confident that their own vision of Things Chinese was the right one and that the approach of party politicians was suspect. The army's views were many-sided and were by no means "policy." But the time might come when the army's initiatives could prove popular, and the government of the day, either voluntarily or involuntarily, might be tempted to side with them.

Tanaka was convinced of the need to unify the various approaches to China. He therefore convened the Eastern Conference (Toho kaigi) from 27 June to 7 July 1927. He gathered delegates involved in aspects of Japan's interests in China and Manchuria - diplomats, politicians, army and navy spokesmen and some who could be regarded as businessmen. The conference failed to produce tangible results. It also failed to bridge the gap between Chinese nationalist aspirations and Japan's growing appetite for continental expansion. This was to be the main challenge for policy-makers over the next decade. 18

The second phase of the Northern Expedition began in the spring of 1928. In pursuing it Chiang Kai-shek found himself opposed by two forces, the Japanese and Chang Tso-lin in Beijing. Tanaka felt that he had to live up to his rhetoric in opposition and respond to the Nationalists' forward move by following a line which would be positive in strong contrast to the weak-kneed policy of his predeces- sors. Anti-Japanese boycotts were already in force in China and Tanaka had sent his first expedition to Shandong - 2,000 men to Tsinan in May 1927. He held discussions with Chiang in Japan in November but the effect of these conversations is not clear and in April 1928 he authorized a second Japanese expedition of 25,000 men to prevent the extension of KMT power towards Manchuria. The general in charge decided not to await instructions and proceeded westward along the railway line to Jinan. A small encounter took place on 3 May and a battle ensued which lasted probably until the 11th when the KMT forces were driven from the city. The Japanese administered the area until early 1929. This was an early example of military insubordination and an exercise of the rights of supreme

18. Bamba, Japanese Diplomacy, pp. 293-300; and Akira Iriye, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East, 1921-31 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 151-57.

614 The China Quarterly command by General Fukuda. There was an appeal to the League of Nations by the governments in Beijing and Nanjing: it proved ineffective. Instead the Chinese resorted to an anti-Japanese boycott which added to the tension on the part of Japanese residents in China. On 28 March 1929 both countries agreed to withdraw from the area and arranged for a joint commission to settle losses sustained by each side.

Meanwhile the Japanese were in a dilemma in Beijing where the audacious Chang Tso-lin (Zhang Zuolin) was the senior figure in government. They finally decided to urge him to retire and move his troops into Manchuria, warning that, if he did not comply, he would be stopped at the frontier by Japanese forces. Japan had decided that the KMT armies would not be allowed to pursue Chang's forces into Manchuria and that no fighting would be allowed to take place there. After several refusals Chang eventually decided to accept Japan's advice. He boarded a train bound for Mukden, but the carriage in which he was travelling was blown up outside the Manchurian capital on 4 June 1928 by officers stationed in the Kwantung army who wished to take over Manchuria. Chang was an obstacle in their path. It seems likely that this plot was not authorized from Tokyo. Indeed its full details were not known until they were made public for the first time in evidence presented to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo after 1945. In any case the Japanese were foiled in their intentions because the Chinese suppressed the fact of Chang's death until his son and heir could reach Mukden and, when he took over, he had no hesitation in recognizing Japan as an enemy and in declaring his allegiance to the KMT. In October 1928 Chang Hsueh- liang (Zhang Xueliang) declared his loyalty to Nanjing and was in turn appointed a state councillor and recognized as commander-in-chief of the north-east frontier force of the China army. His declaration of loyalty meant that the Chinese Government could state that unifica- tion of China had been accomplished and that the former warlord period had come to an end. This was, of course, a doubtful proposition since Nanjing only controlled the provinces immediately around the major cities and it remained unclear whether its authority really extended to any outlying areas. But Manchuria became more closely tied to the KMT than before - an indication of the failure of the Kwantung army's bomb plot.l9

It has to be said that the China policy of General Tanaka had proved to be a disaster, though this was probably not his fault. When his cabinet fell in July 1929 Tanaka felt that he had been reprimanded by the Emperor for his failures in Manchuria and for his inability to punish the plotters of the assassination of Chang Tso-lin. The army leaders had reserved to themselves the exclusive right to discipline those concerned, and Tanaka with his military background was

19. G. McCormack, Chang Tso-lin in North-East China, 1911-28 (Folkestone: Dawson, 1977), pp. 246-48.

OverviewofRelations, 1895-1945 615

unable to prevail over their obstinate defence of their position though he would personally have favoured trial by court martial.

The end of the 1 920s was a period when China took the initiative.20 The Nationalist Government tried to pursue a vigorous foreign policy whereby foreign governments were asked to take part in negotiations over tariffs, extra-territoriality and so forth. Faced with a wave of anti-Japanese boycotts, demonstrations and strikes, Japan was the country most reluctant to entertain these overtures favourably, partly because of its own financial position since the 1927 recession and partly because Japan, as the largest importer into China, was likely to be required to make the greatest sacrifices if duties were to be increased. When a new government succeeded that of General Tanaka in 1929, the new foreign secretary, Shidehara Kijuro, tried to re- establish Sino-Japanese relations on the basis of non-intervention in China's domestic affairs and returned to a primarily economic policy. But his approach ran into considerable opposition from the army and, according to Professor Iriye, the year 1930 marked a definite turning- point in the military's movement for independent action which became much more specifically defined than previously.2l In negotia- tions with China, Japan was unable to patch up a satisfactory relationship. The most intractable issues were disputes connected with the Three Eastern Provinces: by 1931 there were large numbers of outstanding claims by Japan against China, largely of land cases which had not been adequately settled. The Japanese minister to China, Shigemitsu Mamoru, had visited the area with one of the Chinese leaders but had failed to reach a settlement, even though he had succeeded in creating a degree of goodwill.

The Manchurian crisis broke out on 18 September 1931 with the "bomb scare" on the South Manchurian railway line just north of Mukden. Using this as a pretext the Kwantung army took positive steps to possess the cities of southern and central Manchuria and obtain control of the main arteries. The armies of Chang Hsueh-liang offered only modest resistance. The Nanjing Government, preoccu- pied with the widespread flooding, was not inclined to intervene and referred the matter to the League of Nations. This was a risky tactic because Nationalist China had alienated many countries by her actions since 1928. By contrast Japan had been cultivating the League since its origins. Its representatives had been sitting on committees dealing with events in Europe, thereby demonstrating that it was a "great power" with global interests. It could not be argued that China fell into the same category. She was preoccupied with her national struggle and did not have the time to attend to the problems of others. Indeed, she had been an intermittent participant in the League since its inception, although by the autumn of 1931 she had become a member of the League Council. Hence the Manchurian crisis has

20. Iriye, After Imperialism, Pt III. 21. Ibid. p. 276.

616 The China Quarterly always to be seen in two dimensions: the regional dimension of the military campaign in Manchuria and the Chinese response in boycotting Japanese goods and factories; and the international dimension involving the world powers which tried to restore peace through international agencies.

In its regional dimension the crisis led to the withdrawal of Chang Hsueh-liang's forces from the south by 1932, though the boycotts and "banditry" continued. In its international dimension the crisis made heavy weather at the League, where the world powers were reluctant to commit themselves to intervention of any kind. The outcome was the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry as proposed by the Japanese representative. But this was at best an admission that the League had been unable to resolve the crisis to its satisfaction. Nonetheless, there was a strong wave of sympathy for the Chinese among the powers. But, for international mediation, little success could be expected after the Japanese took the decision in June to recognize the state of "Manchukuo," which had been set up on 9 March. The Manchurian crisis of 1931-33 was the turning-point in Sino-Japanese relations. Up to that time there were those who saw the possibility of accommodation between the two countries. After the Mukden incident of 1931 this was an unrealistic prospect.

Any potential settlement was frustrated when Japan sent three divisions to Shanghai in February. Contemporaries shook their heads. Sir Miles Lampson, the British minister in China from 1926 to 1933, who was by no means a pessimist and was himself a great improviser of solutions during the Shanghai incident, wrote of"the fundamental cleavage between the two national policies of China and Japan" in these incisive words:

On the one hand, China who would never willingly agree to or implement any undertaking which she regarded as tending to alienate Manchuria, i.e. Chinese soil; on the other, Japan who for two generations and more had been brought up to believe that maintenance of her so-called special rights in Manchuria was a matter of vital necessity to her continued national life. I could not see how those two policies could ever be reconciled.22

Nonetheless, Lampson and his diplomatic colleagues did manage to resolve the problem of Japan's intervention in the Greater Shanghai area by the Sino-Japanese treaty of May 1932. It was a greater international emergency than the Manchurian crisis and the urgency of a lasting solution was also all the greater. But it could only be achieved as the result of patient outside mediation of a kind which had succeeded earlier during the Shandong discussions at the Washington Conference. And a solution involving the withdrawal of Japanese forces from the area was only possible while the civilian governments of Wakatsuki and Inukai were still nominally at the helm. After May 1932 international mediation was not likely to be successful.

22. Diary of Sir Miles Lampson, 14 February 1932.

Overview of Relations, 1895- 1945 617 When it was eventually published on 2 October 1932, the report of

the Enquiry Commission went against Japan on several counts and went against China on others. The Japanese Government in Septem- ber had already recognized the new state of Manchukuo despite an injunction to the contrary by the League. In preparation for a full- dress debate at the League in November, Japan set out its case as follows: [She] is convinced that the recognition of Manchukuo contravenes none of the principles of international obligation, satisfies the aspirations of the Manchurian people and could probably in the future gain the acquiescence of China herself. Japan, because of her special position in Manchuria, cannot affort to leave her in a state of instability and concludes that the recognition of Manchukuo [by all powers] is the only way of stabilizing the situation in Manchuria and ensuring peace in the Far East.23 But the debates went against Japan and the last-minute attempts at mediation failed. The report of the Commission of Enquiry was adopted by the League Assembly on 24 February 1933, Japan alone opposing. The Japanese cabinet, after a good deal of soul-searching, decided to pull out of the League and formulated its reasons for doing so as follows: The conclusion must be that, in seeking a solution of the question, the majority of the League have attached greater importance to upholding inapplicable formulas than to the real need of assuring peace . . . Because of the profound differences of opinion existing between Japan and the majority of the League in their interpretation of the Covenant and of other treaties, the Japanese Government have been led to realize the existence of an irreconcil- able divergence of views, dividing Japan and the League on policies of peace and especially as regards the fundamental principles to be followed in the establishment of a durable peace in the Far East.24

Underlying this crisis was Japan's perception of China. Foreign Minister Yoshizawa had said in a foreign policy speech: "we should not regard China as a well-organized and coherent state, comparable in the efficacy of its authority to the settled states and Governments of Europe." This led to the allegation that a disorganized China was a threat to the stability of the region and that this gave Japan a natural cause for concern, if not a ground for action. Such views were increasingly reiterated but were probably never more straightfor- wardly formulated than in the Amau Declaration of 17 April 1934. Here Amau Eiji, who held a post equivalent to that of press attache in the Foreign Ministry, stated: History shows that [China's order, unity and territorial integrity] can be

23. Japanese Government observations on Lytton report, 20 November 1932, trans. in Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy, 1869-1942. Kasuz1?igaseki to Miyake7aka (London: Routledge, 1 977), pp. 298-99.

24. Japan to League of Nations, 27 March 1933, quoted in Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy, pp. 299-300. Also Nish, "The Showa Emperor and the end of the Manchurian Crisis," Japan Forum, Vol. I (1989), pp. 265-273.

The China Quarterly

attained through no other means than the awakening and the voluntary efforts of China herself. We oppose therefore any attempt on the part of China to avail herself of the influence of any other country in order to resist Japan. We also oppose any action taken by China, calculated to play one power against another. Any joint operations undertaken by foreign powers even in the name of technical or financial assistance . . . would have the most serious repercus- sions upon Japan and East Asia.25 Amau was arguing that Japan had a special position vis-a-vis China and a special mission in East Asia. It is true that the Japanese took steps to retract the statement but there is evidence enough that it represented the "inner thoughts" of many within the Japanese Government.26 It was a warning to China that she must look exclusively to Japan for aid and a warning to foreign countries not to assist China. This ran in the face of the explicit recommendation of the Lytton report that countries associated with the League of Nations should co-ordinate aid-giving to China urgently. It came close to being a doctrine of hegemony in East Asia and a claim to Chinese inferiority to or dependence upon Japan. The fact that the statement was withdrawn implies that it cannot be regarded as authentic policy but it is still, neverthelessn an indicator of contemporary attitudes. As Sir Alexander Cadogan, Britains ambassador to China, who had just arrived at his post wrote to London:

Perhaps the Japanese declaration of April 17th exposed their hand rather prematurely and the subsequent ;;explanations" have been taken to mean that the Japanese themselves realise that they must draw in their horns for the moment.27

The Amau declaration has to be seen as one in a chain of pronouncements on China in the 1930s, running from the notice to quit the League of Nations to Prime Minister Konoe's declaration on the New Order in East Asia in 1938 and the doctrine of the Great(er) East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. These pronouncements became more extreme as the decade advanced; but Manchuria arld China were fundamental to all of them. While they had political overtones, it is remarkable that all had an economic ingredient. These were state- ments emanating from Tokyo. One could, of courseS cull a similar set of statements of a more extreme kind from military sources.

After the Tangku Truce of May 1933, which brought the Manchu- rian crisis to an uncertain end, there was a period of lull. There was no dramatic development; but the army was becoming increasingly active in the area of Tientsin and Beijing and in the affairs of Mongolia, where they were encouraging autonomous regional govern- ments of disaffected groups. Thus, Major-general Umezu Yoshijiro,

25. J.C. Grew, Turbulent Era, 2 vols. (London: Hammond, 1953), Vol. II, pp. 957-962.

26. Akira Iriye in E.M. Robertson (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 251-52.

27. Cadogan to Vansittart, 29 April 1934, in Foreign Office papers, FO 800/293.

Overview of Relations, 1 895 -1 945 619

commander-in-chief of the occupying forces in north China, entered into negotiations on 10 June 1935 with General Ho Ying-ching ofthe Military Council at Beijing and secured a "local" undertaking that KMT forces would be withdrawn from the general area. In November 1935 the Eastern Hopei Autonomous Council declared its indepen- dence. It would appear that the tactics which the Kwantung army had applied in creating autonomous administrations which were depen- dent upon it were being extended more widely from its earlier experiments in Manchukuo to northern China. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Tokyo to exercise control over what was happening on the ground. Nationalist China was making steady progress though her "governability" was thrown into question by the Sian incident, while Japan appeared to be stable and prosperous despite the crisis caused by the 26 February Mutiny in 1936.

1937-45 Ordinarily diplomatic relations between two countries lapse with

any outbreak of war between them. But the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War did not have that consequence. The fiction was maintained by the Japanese that there was no war but, first, "the North China Incident" and later "the China Incident." The China legation which had been elevated to an embassy (in line with the actions of other countries) in May 1935 continued in existence through to the end of the war in 1945. Of course, the accreditation was from March 1940 to the Reformed Government of the Republic of China under Wang Ching-wei (Wang Jingwei). The first ambassador to the new regime was General Abe Nobuyuki, the former prime minister. A very large diplomatic staff worked in China to deal with the multitude of problems of the occupied territory. There was also the embassy in Manchukuo with consulates-general in Changchun and Haerbin and three separate consulates. When Shigemitsu Ma- moru took over as ambassador to China in 1942, it was expedient to decentralize and create separate "embassy offices" (taishikan jimu- sho), including Shanghai, Beijing and Canton.

The Japanese by their military operations were primarily intent on forcing the submission of the KMT Government, and later crushing it. Government-to-government relations had in effect terminated with the Kokumin seifu aite ni sezu ("have no truck with the Nationalist Government") declaration of January 1938. But the wisdom of this policy was soon questioned. It was possible for the Japanese to try to use go-betweens such as the Germans, Trautmann and Dirksen, or the British or the Chinese Maritime Customs. A complex network of relationships developed almost naturally. There were many Japanese who thought that the extension of the China campaign was un- desirable and that a negotiated settlement was essential. Some were to be found in the army itself. Others included Ishii Itaro, who was influential as chief of the East Asia Bureau of the Foreign Ministry. He

620 The China Quarterly

proposed in 1938 that there should not be further escalation of the conflict and that strict limits should be imposed on the sending of expeditionary forces to China. Foreign Minister Ugaki (1938) was sympathetic to this.28 After the European war had started without relations with China improving, Foreign Minister Nomura toyed with the possibility of drawing Oh the goodwill of the United States and thereby working out some conciliatory settlement. But it was not to be.

Although China and Japan were at war and diplomatic relations, strictly speaking, did not exist between the governments of Chongqing and Tokyo, relations of an informal kind persisted throughout the war. Much valuable research into these secret contacts is being undertaken. Among Japanese scholars Professor Tobe Ryoichi and among foreign scholars, J.H. Boyle and G.F. Bunker have pioneered studies in this field.29 Both sides were probably looking for a negotiated settlement which would still allow them to pull out with dignity. The network of relationships enabled the two sides to probe each other's position. All that need be said here is that they came to nothing because of the negative responses that ultimately emanated from the Chiang Kai-shek Government at Chongqing which found it expedient to "soldier on" alone. That this dialogue, however insubstantial, was taking place was not readily recognized by contemporaries because of the propaganda which was being trum- peted from side to side. Apart from the military campaigns, there was a propaganda war in progress. From the Japanese side the unilateral pronouncements on the New Order in East Asia (1938) and the Great(er) East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere ( 1941 ) drowned the calls for negotiation.

Caught in the crossfire between Chongqing and Tokyo was the Wang Ching-wei Government established in Nanjing in March 1940. While both the Japanese and Wang supporters were united in their hostility to communism, in expelling imperialist powers from Asia and in getting rid of foreign extraterritorial privileges in China, it could not be said that there was anything approaching an identity of interest between them. Wang was looking to Japan for aid, seeking collaboration without political interference and trying to secure the widest measure of independence possible. Many Japanese, however, regarded Wang as a puppet who need not be taken seriously, the last in a line which extended through "autonomous regimes" in Manchukuo and North China. Thus, the Japanese did not give advance warning to Wang of their intentions about risking a war with the United States with whom he had optimistic hopes of peace talks. Despite the new

28. D. Borg and S. Okamoto (eds.) Pearl Harbor as History, pp. 139-l41. 29. Tobe Ryoichi, "Nikka Jihen ni okeru 'peace feelers"' ("Peace feelers in relation

to the China Incident") in Kokusai Seiji (International Politics), No. 75 (1983), pp. 30-48; J.H. Boyle, China and Japan at War, 1937-45 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972); G.F. Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy: Wang Ching-Xrei and the China War, 1937-45 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1972).

Overview of Relations, 1895- 1945 621

demands on Nanjing which followed the declaration of war on the United States and Great Britain, Wang felt that his hand had been forced and decided to declare war alongside Japan, though it was a long time before Tokyo acceded to this policy In the final analysisS Wang was desperately disappointed with the collapse of his high expectations from the Japanese while the Japanese treated Wang as less than an ally in whom they could place great confidence. In 1943 the Nanjing National Government entered into a treaty of alliance with Japan. At the Great East Asia Conference of November 1943 intended as the great symbolic occasion to demonstrate East Asian solidarity, Wang attended as the representative of China (excluding Manchukuo). But he was to die in a Nagoya hospital in the following year, a disillusioned man, unable to find in the Japanese the compromising spirit which he - and his spiritual mentor, Sun Yat- sen, before him - had sought.30

If Wang had a sense of failure and disillusion, so also did the Japanese for their China campaign. For some it was best described as Japan's China ulcer, thus employing the medical metaphor of Napoleon's Spanish campaign. For others like the authors of Japan 's Road to the Pacific War, it was "the China Quagmire": Japan's field armies, special service agenciesn and navy task forces, backed by supporters in Tokyo, attempted to mobilize China's manpower and resources in the service of the Empire, only to bog down in a welter of enemies who would not surrender and collaborators who could not govern*31

It was not only the enemy in the form of the Generalissimo who held aloof i-n Chongqing. The guerrilla warfare which had started in Manchuria during 1931 and continued in high intensity during the visit of the Lytton Commission in 1932, did not lapse for the next decade despite a variety of pacification activitiesa as Chong-sik Lee has shown in his monograph ';Counterinsurgency in Manchuria: the Japanese experience, 1931-40."32 The Nomonhan battle in the summer of 1939 if it was hardly part of Sino-Japanese relationsS nevertheless reminded the Japanese how vulnerable their greatly extended lines of communication were, how out-of-date some of their technology and how deficient some of their commanders. They could not relax along ';the unending frontier" and had difficulties in dealing with problems behind the lines.

Yet7 looked at from the standpoint of the Japanese leadership, they had achieved much in the 1930s. Despite international hostility they had detached the Three Eastern Provinces from China and followed similar tactics in North China herself. They had dislodged Chinese

30. Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy pp. 272-280. 31. J.W. Morley (ed.), The China Quagmire: Japczn's Exparlsion on the Asian

Continent, 1933-41 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), p. xiii. 32. Chong-sik Lee, "Counterinsurgency in Manchuria: the Japanese experience

1931-40," RAND Corporation, Santa Monica) Memorandum RM-S0 1 2-ARPA, January 1967. (I am grateful to Professor Marius Jansen for this reference.)

622 The China Quarterly troops from Shanghai, Nanjing and Hankou. They had entered a new area for Japanese expansion in Canton. Yet behind the sweetness of victory, there was always the bitter awareness that the peace that they sought on their terms was not forthcoming and that the trade benefits fell short of expectations.

Reflections In this article I have given a conventional account of Japan's

relations with China in the 20th century which can only be described as one of Japan's unremitting pressure on the heartland of China with only minor interruptions. To some degree this was due to the kidnapping of China policy-making by an army with a special vision of Japan's destiny on the Asian continent. Starting with the period of the war(s) over Korea when there is only limited pressure on China herself, it spread through war with Russia to southern and central Manchuria. The capture of the German sphere of influence in Shandong led to the 1915 treaties where Japan's appetite was extended to central China. The dynamic force in the next phase was the insubordinate Kwantung army. The assassination of Chang Tso- lin in 1928 and the railway plot in 1931 led to the creation of "Manchukuo" which was generally popular. This popularity under- mined any will there might have been in the political parties, the cabinets or the court to control the army effectively in its continental adventures.

Few, if any, periods of sustained friendship can be detected. Japanese scholars have observed some. Thus, Eto Shinkichi writes of "a short period of amicable relations between Japan and China that had emerged after the war of 1894-5."33 I am not convinced of this. Baba Akira writes of various periods of non-interference in China's domestic affairs under Terauchi and again under Shidehara as foreign minister.34 But, however much Japanese thought - and spoke - in terms of co-existence and co-prosperity, it is not evident that China thought in similar terms or reciprocated. There was always some degree of illusion or self-deception in the more benign policies which some Japanese tried to apply to China. For me, the picture is one of uninterrupted tension, which occasionally escalated into sudden crlsls.

Not that individuals were not working to establish a more rational and peaceful relationship, in both China and Japan. In both countries there were what might be called mainstream and anti-mainstream groups. In China, there was the paradox that so many of the KMT leaders had had direct experience of one sort or another of Japan (while so few of the later communist leadership had experienced

33. Eto Shinkichi in J.W. Morley (ed.), Japan's Foreigsl Policy, 1868-1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 242.

34. Baba Akira, "Tai-ka kyoson kyoei shugi no hatan," pp. 136-38.

Overview of Relations, 1 895 -1 945

623 Japan). Liang Chi-chao, Sun Yat-sen (whence it passed to Wang Ching-wei), Chiang Kai-shek and Chang Chun (Zhang Jun), even Lu Shun (Lu Xun) - they had all had contacts with Japan, while studying or merely living there. They developed a respect for Japan which influenced them later. In the case of Chiang, it made him reluctant to fight it out with the Japanese, not because he was pro-Japanese but because as a military man he did not think China could ever stand up to Japan. In the case of Lu Shun, it led him to become the leader of the most anti-Japanese intellectual movement, yet he had many Japanese friends and sometimes wrote favourably about the country. There is of course no direct correlation between an individual's contact with Japan and his friendship for it. But the point is worth making that the policies that emerged from these leaders were based on knowledge rather than ignorance, on a realistic assessment rather than an idealist perception.

On the Japanese side also, the personal factor was important. In each generation there were those who felt that "official policy" was unsympathetic towards China and that the Japanese should remem- ber that a policy of friendship to China would serve its needs best. This could be heard from time to time from Ito Hirobumi and Yamagata Aritomo. Later it was to be heard from those like Yoshino Sakuzo and Ishibashi Tanzan and the researchers at the Research Division of the South Manchurian Railway. At the other extreme, there were those who meddled in Chinese affairs: the Shina Ronin at the time of the 191 1 Revolution; trouble-makers of a later generation like Colonel Doihara; and the Manchukuo men like Matsuoka Yosuke. This meant that policy-making was always a tussle and that a consensus was often difficult to find. The formulation of"China policy," whether in the Manchurian crisis or in 1937, required a strong and steady hand at the centre of government. This Japanese institutions were unable to provide.

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Issue Table of ContentsThe China Quarterly, No. 124, China and Japan: History, Trends and Prospects (Dec., 1990), pp. 599-784+i-xivVolume Information [pp. i - xiv]Front MatterForeword [pp. 599 - 600]An Overview of Relations between China and Japan, 1895-1945 [pp. 601 - 623]Chinese-Japanese Relations, 1945-90 [pp. 624 - 638]Sino-Japanese Controversy since the 1972 Diplomatic Normalization [pp. 639 - 661]China, Japan and Economic Interdependence in the Asia Pacific Region [pp. 662 - 693]Plant and Technology Contracts and the Changing Pattern of Economic Interdependence between China and Japan [pp. 694 - 713]The Sino-Japanese Relationship and East Asian Security: Patterns and Implications [pp. 714 - 729]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 730 - 731]untitled [p. 731]untitled [pp. 731 - 732]untitled [pp. 732 - 734]untitled [pp. 734 - 735]untitled [pp. 735 - 736]untitled [p. 737]untitled [pp. 737 - 738]untitled [pp. 738 - 739]untitled [pp. 739 - 740]untitled [pp. 740 - 741]untitled [pp. 741 - 743]untitled [pp. 743 - 744]untitled [pp. 744 - 745]untitled [pp. 745 - 746]untitled [pp. 746 - 748]untitled [p. 748]untitled [p. 749]untitled [p. 750]untitled [p. 751]untitled [pp. 751 - 752]untitled [pp. 752 - 753]

Book Notes [pp. 754 - 755]Books Received (July-September 1990) [pp. 756 - 759]Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation [pp. 760 - 781]Back Matter [pp. 782 - 784]