Summary Modern Chinese History lectures 7-11 BA1 Chinastudies '19

Session 7: 25-03-2019
THEMES AND GUIDING QUESTIONS

1. Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
a. What factors led to Japanese expansion in China?
b. How did Japanese aggression in China affect its domestic politics?
2. The CCP in Yan’an (1937-1945)
a. What factors and events led the CCP to build its base in Yan’an?
b. How did the ideology and organization of the CCP change in this period?

KEY TERMS
Mukden Incident (18 Sept 1931); Manchukuo (1932); Marco Polo Bridge Incident (7 July 1937); Pacific
War (1941-1945); Nanjing Massacre (Dec 1937-Jan 1938); Chongqing; Xi’an Incident (1936) Second
United Front (1937-1941); Mao Zedong; Liu Shaoqi; Long March (1934-1935); Zunyi Conference
(1935); Rectification campaigns


First set of Japanese apologies in 1972  Mao said not to be sorry, because the war enabled the
Communists to seize power. How did Japanese aggression in 1937 enable the Chinese Communists to
seize power?

- First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) ended in Chinese defeat, with treaty of Shimonoseki
which made Taiwan a colony and brought influx of Japanese small business
owners/traders/industrialists to Chinese treaty ports.
- Russo-Japanese war 1904-1905
o Japan took over Russian leased territory in Liaodong
o Japanese formed south Manchuria Railway company to manage railway lines, mines
and harbour.
 1905 is thus another marker in Sino-Japanese relations in which the Japanese
already has influence on Chinese grounds.
- 1915 Shandong
o Twenty-one Demands 1915
o Chinese recognition of Japanese control of Shandong
o Enlarged Japanese role in Chinese economy
o Attempt to insert Japanese advisors in Chinese government and police
- Treaty of Versailles 1919
o Transferred German territory concessions in Shandong to Japan
o Returned Shandong in 1922
- 1931 Manchuria/Northeast China
o 18 September 1931; Japanese army invaded Manchuria (using Mukden Incident as
excuse)
o 18 February 1931: Founding of Manchukuo
 Japanese rule
 Formal autonomy with Puyi as Emperor
 Informal domination by Japanese
o Tanggu Truce 1933: Nationalist China and Japan created demilitarized zone near
Beijing and Tianjin.
- League of Nations founded that Japan occupied illegal, so Japan left the league lol.

,1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident

- 7 July 1937: fighting between Chinese and Japanese erupted at MP Bridge near Beijing
- Used this incident to invade the rest of China; Japanese army invaded Beijing and Tianjin
- Japanese army attacked Shanghai

Wartime Experience, 1937-1945

You could say diplomatic aggression predated 1937, starting at 1895 where Taiwan was taken away
by the Japanese or 1915 with Shandong.

Most historians say it started at 1931, they think the resistance in Manchuria should be added to the
8-year war, so 14-year long war.

Manchuria is a puppet state, but the people there mostly experience industrialization; billions of yen
went to steel/coal/railroads in Manchuria.

China proper experiences it totally different; violence and dislocation. Japanese aggression and acts
of resistance.




Japanese Occupied China

- Wang Jingwei appointed as head of collaborationist government in Nanjing;
- Japanese corporations took over all industrial enterprises;
- Inflation and black markets abound in cities;
- Three-all’s—”kill all, burn all, destroy all”—in rural North China.

Nanjing massacre 1937 good example of Japanese brutality

,How did Japanese aggression affect Chinese domestic politics? Dislocation and devastation

- Nationalist government from Nanjing to Wuhan to Chongqing 1937
- 30 million displaced from coastal areas to westward
- 1938 yellow river flood in central china to block Japanese advance
o Economic losses in Qu county alone totaled 142M yuan
o Half million deaths
o Famine in Henan 1941-1942
 Chiang Kai Shek government had grains in neighbouring provinces but didn’t
supply to stop japanese advances, millions deaths

Wartime nationalist government loss of domestic support due to:

- High taxes
- Forced conscription
- Loss of livelihood
- Malnutrition
- Dislocation
- Inflation, printed more money

Wartime mobilization

- Nationalization of heavy indiestries and transportantion to create wartime industrial
economy
- Domestic and international campaigns to sell war bonds

Communists’ survival and rejuvenation, 1931-1945

1927-1934 The Communists’ retreat

- Nationalists’ purge forced retreat from cities
- Nationalist troops diverted nortwards to respond to japanese invastion of manchuria in 1931
- CCP set up Jiangxi Soviet in 1931-1934 while Chiang was busy with the Japanese

Mao on the Peasant question (Marx says peasants are a sack of potatoes)

- Mao was in Hunan investigating the peasant movements, since founding of Party spent his
time among peasants associations etc.
- Made a strong case for mobilizing this demographic
In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred
million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that
no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. […] Every revolutionary party and every
revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There
are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them,
gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Calling for the party
to embrace the peasants as a force of revolution

, 1934-1934 The Long march

- Tanggu Truce (1933) allowed Nationalists to resume attack on CCP forces;
o The Long March was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the
Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade
the pursuit of the Guomintang (GMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) army.
- Defeat of Jiangxi Soviet in 1934;
- 1935 Zunyi Conference (during the Long March): Rise of Mao Zedong and leadership core
consisting of Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Deng Xiaoping et al;
- Established CCP base in Yan’an.

1936 Xi’an incident and the Second United Front

- Marshall Zhang Xueliang and his Manchurian soldiers kidnapped Chiang in Xi’an;
- Zhang’s motivation: Force Chiang to form alliance with Communists in fight against Japanese
forces;
- Outcome: Chiang agreed to form Second United Front and put Zhang under house arrest but
Chiang’s commitment to resistance questioned.
o Lasted 4 years, GMD killed 5000 to 7000 communist soldiers in the south. No war
because Japanese…
- Communist armies put under GMD leadership

Chinese communists in Yan’an

- Elevation of Mao as CCP ideological leader;
- Party discipline through
o Compulsory study of the writings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao
o Engaging in self-criticism
o Rectification campaigns
- Party dominated all aspects of life, from economy to art.
Liu Shaoqi on Party Discipline:
o “Our self-cultivation and steeling are for no other purpose than that of revolutionary
practice.”
o “At all times and on all questions, a Communist Party member should take into
account the interests of the party as a whole and place the party’s interest above his
personal problems and interests. It is the highest principle of our party members that
the Party’s interests are supreme.”
- Another concequence of elevation of Mao
o Sinification of Marxism
 Communism is not an alien thing, its about realising and adapting the theory.