Negotiating China's Destiny explains how China developed from a country that hardly mattered internationally into the important world power it is today. Before World War II, China had suffered through five wars with European powers as well as American imperial policies resulting in economic, military, and political domination. This shifted dramatically during WWII, when alliances needed to be realigned, resulting in the evolution of China's relationships with the USSR, the U.S., Britain, France, India, and Japan. Based on key historical archives, memoirs, and periodicals from across East Asia and the West, this book explains how China was able to become one of the Allies with a seat on the Security Council, thus changing the course of its future.
Breaking with U.S.-centered analyses which stressed the incompetence of Chinese Nationalist diplomacy, Negotiating China's Destiny makes the first sustained use of the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek (which have only become available in the last few years) and who is revealed as instrumental in asserting China's claims at this pivotal point. Negotiating China's Destiny demonstrates that China's concerns were far broader than previously acknowledged and that despite the country's military weakness, it pursued its policy of enhancing its international stature, recovering control over borderlands it had lost to European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and becoming recognized as an important allied power with determination and success.
Negotiating China's Destiny explains how China developed from a country that hardly mattered internationally into the important world power it is today. Before World War II, China had suffered through five wars with European powers as well as American imperial policies resulting in economic, military, and political domination. This shifted dramatically during WWII, when alliances needed to be realigned, resulting in the evolution of China's relationships with the USSR, the U.S., Britain, France, India, and Japan. Based on key historical archives, memoirs, and periodicals from across East Asia and the West, this book explains how China was able to become one of the Allies with a seat on the Security Council, thus changing the course of its future.
Breaking with U.S.-centered analyses which stressed the incompetence of Chinese Nationalist diplomacy, Negotiating China's Destiny makes the first sustained use of the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek (which have only become available in the last few years) and who is revealed as instrumental in asserting China's claims at this pivotal point. Negotiating China's Destiny demonstrates that China's concerns were far broader than previously acknowledged and that despite the country's military weakness, it pursued its policy of enhancing its international stature, recovering control over borderlands it had lost to European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and becoming recognized as an important allied power with determination and success.
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Negotiating China's Destiny explains how China developed from a country that hardly mattered internationally into the important world power it is today. Before World War II, China had suffered through five wars with European powers as well as American imperial policies resulting in economic, military, and political domination. This shifted dramatically during WWII, when alliances needed to be realigned, resulting in the evolution of China's relationships with the USSR, the U.S., Britain, France, India, and Japan. Based on key historical archives, memoirs, and periodicals from across East Asia and the West, this book explains how China was able to become one of the Allies with a seat on the Security Council, thus changing the course of its future.
Breaking with U.S.-centered analyses which stressed the incompetence of Chinese Nationalist diplomacy, Negotiating China's Destiny makes the first sustained use of the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek (which have only become available in the last few years) and who is revealed as instrumental in asserting China's claims at this pivotal point. Negotiating China's Destiny demonstrates that China's concerns were far broader than previously acknowledged and that despite the country's military weakness, it pursued its policy of enhancing its international stature, recovering control over borderlands it had lost to European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and becoming recognized as an important allied power with determination and success.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780804793117 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/03/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II
By Hans van de Ven, Diana Lary, Stephen R. MacKinnon
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior UniversityAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-9311-7
CHAPTER 1
France's Deluded Quest for Allies
SAFEGUARDING TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY AND THE BALANCE OF POWER IN EAST ASIA, 1931–1945
MARIANNE BASTID-BRUGUIERE
A review of French involvement in East Asia during World War II does not recast existing master narratives of the conflict in that area, viewed from China, Japan, or the United States. It can, however, illuminate how far the disappearance of France in the war in East Asia was the outcome of its 1940 defeat in Europe and its subsequent neutrality. And it does not obscure the lingering weight of French Indochina in shaping military and strategic issues in the confrontation with Japanese expansionism.
The French stakes in East Asia were seriously depleted by the First World War. The massive destruction and death toll at home, the heavy war debts, and the subsequent economic decline meant that French investment and power in the area, second only to Britain before 1914, fell. France's main stronghold in East Asia was Indochina, with a population of 20 million; in 1940, 46 percent of all French private assets in its colonial empire were concentrated there. Its assets in China and Japan, though diversified and not insignificant, were of direct concern only to a small lobby within the establishment, only some of whose members belonged to the larger coalition of interests involved in Indochina. In Korea, Thailand, and other parts of Southeast Asia, its vested interests were limited and linked to its nationals in Catholic missions and to the security of Indochina.
The fact that France's international role in East Asia rested primarily on its sovereignty over Indochina, which its military forces could not defend against any major aggression, induced France to base its policy in East Asia on safeguarding territorial sovereignty and the balance of power as conceived by the 1922 Washington conference. Though aware that Japanese expansionism threatened French dominion over Indochina, the French government was unable to win support for a consistent international stand against Japan after the coup in Manchuria in September 1931 (the Mukden Incident). It therefore decided after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937 to set aside French prejudice against the Nationalist government and to provide direct help to China by allowing arms and supplies to pass through Indochina en route to southern China. The Japanese took advantage of the French military collapse in Europe to impose on Indochina demands for logistical support for Japan and for cutting aid to China. In the face of a flat refusal of help from Britain and the United States, the Indochina authorities and the home government chose accommodation with Japan while staying on speaking terms with China and impeding as far as possible Japanese attacks on southern China from Indochina. This uneasy game lasted even after Chiang Kai-shek broke off relations with Vichy in August 1943. It ended only with the Japanese takeover of Indochina on March 9, 1945. Since 1941, local supporters of the Free French, led by General de Gaulle, had been trying desperately to get recognition and arms from China and its allies for their own resistance against the Japanese. De Gaulle's first emissaries arrived in Chongqing in December 1941. Only after Roosevelt had agreed to recognize de Gaulle's provisional government of the republic on October 23, 1944, did Chongqing take this step.
Neither in East Asia nor in Europe were the French able to impress any aspect of France's East Asian agenda on the minds of the Allies. In Indochina, the Japanese surrendered to the Chinese and British without a French representative present. The French chargé d'affaires was not invited to attend the Japanese capitulation in Beiping on September 14, although General Leclerc attended the formal surrender of Japan on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
The eclipse of French political power in East Asia after June 1940 can hardly be seen as enhancing the relative status of any of the Western Allies. The fact that none of the Allies came to the rescue of France at the end of the war suggests that such an eclipse suited them. The alternative options for a peace settlement embraced by the French were brushed aside. When, belatedly, in 1946, the British government and Ho Chi Minh gave them some thought, time had passed, and opportunities had been lost.
There were three different stages in the French shadow-play in East Asia. From 1931 to June 1940, the main themes ran from collective conciliation to a single partnership with China. June 1940 ushered in the confusion over Indochina's becoming a sanctuary. The last phase, from June to September 1945, saw the helpless abandonment of what the French had once called "the pearl of empire."
From the start, the French government did not have the slightest doubt about Japanese responsibility for the Mukden Incident. Reports of the local French consul and the French minister in Nanjing stated that although the coup had been engineered by Kwantung officers, without the knowledge or direct orders from the Japanese general staff or government, many in these two bodies endorsed it. Wilden, the French minister in Beiping, wrote that this affair was, for the Japanese military, "a fuse that would explode the gunpowder, long prepared." But he recommended extreme caution to the two officers he sent to Manchuria to gather intelligence, stressing that "it is important that neither China nor Japan get the impression that we favor one or the other side."
In the view of the French government, the best response was to bring into play the principle of collective security that had so far maintained peace in Europe. Japan had accepted the principle by signing the Briand-Kellogg Pact in August 1928. With the help of the nations that had signed the Nine-Power Treaty (1922), conciliation could be achieved between China and Japan. Given the growth of militarism in Japan, this meant a cautious and conciliatory attitude toward Japan in order not to jeopardize the position of its moderates. This was the policy of Aristide Briand, foreign minister in the government of Pierre Laval. His personal sympathy was with China, while the French press and Laval himself put part of the blame on China's disarray. Briand's cautiousness has to be understood in the context of the prevailing opinion that the brutal lesson of the Japanese army would cool Chinese nationalist zeal against France. Vietnamese insurgents had received asylum in China after the 1930 Yen Bay uprising, and a violent anti-French campaign had been launched in March 1931.
Collective action for a peaceful settlement was the watchword of the French position. At the meeting of the Council of the League of Nations on September 22, 1931, the French delegate, Massigli, called for urgent intervention through an appeal to China and Japan to stop any action that could further impair peace and security and to implement an immediate troop withdrawal.
The following day in Tokyo, the French minister, de Martel, participated in the joint appeal of the ambassadors of League members to Japan to stop further military action by the Kwantung Army. He added a warning against any movement of Japanese troops in Tianjin that could threaten the security of the foreign concessions. However, France did not join the British in asking Washington to warn Japan to abide by the recommendations of the League. De Martel advised that France not join concerted action directed only at Tokyo because it could "hurt Japanese self-esteem and make a settlement more difficult." The result of this prudence was that the Japanese press claimed that France was siding with Japan.
Further aggressive moves by Japan and growing outrage in Chinese public opinion threatened full-scale war. France agreed with Britain and the United States to separately urge Japan to implement the League of Nations resolution. De Martel visited Vice Foreign Minister Nagai on October 7 and got assurances on the retreat of Japanese troops by October 14. After new Japanese provocations and the bombing of Jinzhou on October 8, France hastened to join Britain in warning Japan that its actions might push the League to actions that would favor China. In China, the call for moderation was met with open disappointment.
On October 13, Briand assumed the presidency of the League Council. The meeting was held in Paris because of his poor health. Briand's plan was to bolster the authority of the League by enlisting American cooperation. Through his personal prestige and persuasiveness, his suggestion was endorsed by the Council, against Japanese opposition, and was accepted by the US government.
Although he was attacked in the press and by some senior officials in the Foreign Ministry for his "anti-Japanese stand," Briand tried to limit the Chinese response by refusing to declare Japan the aggressor. He had the Council dodge the issue of a deadline for the evacuation of Japanese troops. Chinese diplomats understood his tactics and agreed on November 25 to withdraw Chinese troops to Shanhaiguan and to establish a neutral zone in Jinzhou. He backed the establishment of an investigative commission, agreed to by the Council on December 10.
While critics in government circles argued that direct negotiation between the two protagonists would achieve better results than the League's slow procedures, Briand worried that Japan might withdraw from the League. Exhausted by his fruitless efforts and his illness, Briand was pessimistic over the prospect of lasting peace. Laval dismissed him from the cabinet on January 13, 1932, and he died soon after. His levelheadedness had prevented escalation to full war, but he failed to obtain a return to the status quo ante.
Laval himself took over the Foreign Ministry. He had no special interest or knowledge of East Asia, but he sought, through bilateral relations and through the League, to focus on an international agreement on disarmament, for which France needed Japanese support. Consequently, France chose not to join British and American protests against the January 28 Japanese attack in Shanghai. Berthelot, the Foreign Ministry's secretary-general, argued that a joint protest would be reminiscent of past imperialist meddling in East Asian affairs; he warned that "China does not like conspicuous protectors." The ambassador in Tokyo made a modest verbal protest to Foreign Minister Yoshizawa, stressing that "the French government attaches great importance to the international character of Shanghai and to its defense." As fighting came closer to the French Concession in February, Wilden was worried, but he got only small reinforcements of troops and arms from Paris.
France offered its good offices to Nanjing on February 3 to broker animmediate cease-fire. The proposal was readily accepted by China but rejected by Japan. Despite insistence by the Francophile Li Shizeng and by the Shanghai mayor that France was the only possible mediator, Wilden stressed that mediation could only be unofficial and coordinated with his British and American colleagues; unilateral intervention might antagonize one or the other belligerent.
On February 5, Tardieu, war minister and French delegate to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, presented a bold and detailed plan to enact France's long-standing view that the organization of collective security must precede arms limitation. The League would control a new international military force, made up of contingents from various countries. The plan was supported by Japan and China, among others, but vigorously opposed by the United States, especially President Hoover, and by Britain, not to mention Germany. Though it was not rejected outright, it was put on the back burner. To French policy makers it was clear that every effort had to be made to regain Anglo-American goodwill. In June France finally agreed at the Lausanne Conference to abrogate German reparations.
Since the attempt to check the development of the Sino-Japanese crisis through an international peace plan appeared to be deadlocked, Wilden was instructed to join any unofficial conciliatory steps with his foreign colleagues. A French proposal for the settlement of the Shanghai Incident was submitted to the League Council, accepted by China and Japan, and served as the basis for the agreement of May 5, 1932.
Japan now tried to abort the growing international consensus to curb its ambitions. Since France was the main proponent of consensus and had the least vested interest in China, Japan tried to lure it away from the other powers. The attempt started with rumors of a "secret Franco-Japanese entente" that were spread in early February 1932 in the American, British, and Chinese press. US secretary of state Stimson believed them so readily that Paris had to take great pains to counter them. Repeated official and private denials succeeded in stopping the press campaign and in placating the State Department but not in removing the prejudice over Paris's alleged sympathy with Japan, which lingered in American and British leading circles until the end of the war, producing unwarranted and obnoxious outbursts.
Enticing France into some kind of agreement and stoking Anglo-American prejudice against it through leaks about "secret deals" seemed good tactics to Japanese officers; many of them were French trained and had useful connections with the French establishment. A Japanese counselor in Warsaw suggested in March that as Japan was isolated in Asia, France was isolated in Europe; the two countries would benefit from a political alliance following a trade agreement. On April 20, the Vice Minister of War Hata asked de Martel for a loan, which Paris quickly refused on the grounds that France could not finance war in China. A new diplomatic offensive started in July 1932. On July 7 in Tokyo, the vice minister of war, General Koiso, asked again for a loan, which Foreign Minister Herriot refused "politely," on the grounds that the French money market was so tight that its resources had to be kept for domestic purposes. On July 9 in Geneva, Colonel Kobayashi, military counselor of the Japanese delegation at the League, proposed an alliance with Japan, arguing that it would "protect France against Russia and Indochina against Communism," and he requested that General Claudel, the French member of the Lytton Commission, be instructed to favor Japan. The French delegate, Massigli, explained that the requests ran counter to the principles of French diplomacy. He refused to transmit them to Paris but did report on them. Secretary-General Léger instructed Massigli by telephone that this was "unacceptable; any reply should be avoided." At the end of July, the French consul in Harbin was offered a large sum for French interests in the Chinese Eastern Railway and privileged investment opportunities in Manchuria. Again, in early September, War Minister Araki urged an alliance in a private talk with the admiral of the French Far Eastern naval forces, and Matsudaira, a close associate of the minister of foreign affairs visited the French chargé d'affaires for the same reason.
On August 19, 1932, Yoshida, then ambassador to Italy, proposed to Herriot a formal alliance, but he was met with a firm refusal. Japanese military attachés and diplomats spread extravagant rumors that France supported Japan and that if the French alliance failed, Japan would get German support. In the foreign press, the devastating image of a pro-Japanese France lingered, despite Herriot's strenuous efforts to kill it with official denials.
France's resolute stance against an alliance with, or leaning toward, Japan was reiterated many times to the Japanese government in the months before the publication of the Lytton Report. In September 1932, Stimson traded the American position on German claims to equal rights at the coming disarmament conference for French endorsement of the United States' position on Manchukuo and Japan. Soon after the Japanese recognition of Manchukuo (August 24), Herriot took steps to block loans floated for Japan or Manchukuo by small French banks.
The United States did not demand French approval of the Lytton Report. The rejection was in line with the principled refusal to recognize Manchukuo, reiterated by French leaders and officials since February 1932. Keeping to that position was not to please the United States but to please the Soviet Union; France signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union on November 29, 1932, and wanted the Soviet Union as a member of the League.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II by Hans van de Ven, Diana Lary, Stephen R. MacKinnon. Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission of STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Contents and Abstracts1France's Deluded Quest for Allies chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on France's efforts to maintain a role in East Asian affairs and protect its control of French Indo-China. The chapter traces the decline of French influence to WWI, examines France's efforts to maintain a collective security approach before the outbreak of war, and analyzes how France tried to hold on to Indo-China during the war by following a policy of accommodating Japan while not alienating China – an impossibility.
2British Diplomacy and Changing Views of Chinese Governmental Capability across the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945 chapter abstractMitter traces an important change in UK Foreign Office attitudes during WWII. If before the war the British official mind was contemptuous of China, by the end of the war British Foreign Officials had developed a grudging respect for China and had accepted its status as one of the Big Five Powers. The war with Japan caused official Britain to accept British decline and move on to the unwinding of its imperial role.
3An Imperial Envoy chapter abstractChina's relations with Tibet have been, and are, a frequent source of difficulty. During WWII, they achieved a nadir, leading the Nationalists to appoint a high level representative who set out, with some success, to improve relations and push back againt growing British influence. Shen Zonglian was successful, but not to the degree that after the end of WWII Tibetan representatives accepted full incorporation into the Nationalist body politic.
4The Evolution of the Relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the Comintern during the Sino-Japanese War chapter abstractDuring WWII, Stalin's policy in East Asia aimed at drawing Japan into a quagmire in China so as to avoid fighting a war on two fronts. This meant supporting the Nationalists in China, the only force capable of providing serious resistance to the Japanese. However, the Soviets naturally also maintained relations with the Chinese Communists. Yang Kuisong analyzes how the CCP managed the frequently difficult relationship with the Soviets and how Mao Zedong was able to maintain a delicate balance between preserving the interest of the Chinese Communists and accommodating Soviet wishes.
5Canada-China Relations in Wartime China chapter abstractMost scholarship on China's foreign relations during WWII has focused on US-China relations. While this volume breaks fundamentally with that tradition, Diana Lary demonstrates that even a small country such as Canada had a role to play. Individual Canadians such as Norman Bethune were at work in China during WWII, as did missionaries, diplomats, and journalists, while Chinese living in Canada, such as Quan Louie became significant public figures there. In developing a China policy, Canada also moved away from Britain.
6Declaring War as an Issue in Chinese Wartime Diplomacy chapter abstractChina declared war on Japan only after Pearl Harbor, while Japan never followed suit. Tsuchido Akio demonstrates that contrary to generally held opinion, China did not decline to declare war on Japan after 1937 because it feared triggering the provisions of the USA's neutrality laws. Domestic political factors were far more important. By discussing the debates about this contentious issue within Chinese politics, 'Declaring War' provides important insight into the making of Nationalist foreign policy, demonstrating that Chiang Kaishek regularly listened and accepted the advice of his foreign policy advisors and Chinese diplomats.
7Chiang Kai-shek and Jawaharlal Nehru chapter abstractDuring WWII, Chiang Kai-shek and Nehru visited each other while India and China began to think through what a post-imperialist Asia might look like. While the strengthening Indian independence movement was a concern for Britain, Chiang Kai-shek worried that the British refusal to accept India independence demands would weaken the Allied position in South and Southeast Asia. Yang Tianshi analyzes the Nationalist policy of expressing support for Indian aspirations for independence while maintain workable relations with the British. He also demonstrates how early enthusiasms on both sides gave way to tensions. WWII did not end with amity between China and India.
8Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin chapter abstractUsing official sources, rather than memoirs or diaries, Li Yuzhen reconstructs attempts by Chiang Kaishek to secure the direct participation of Soviet forces in China. Chiang appealed to Stalin to order his forces into China on three occasions at moments of great crisis. Although Stalin rejected Chiang's requests, Li Yuzhen concludes that the limited cooperation that the two established, which was based on the national interest of the countries Stalin and Chiang led, nonetheless was important to the defeat of Japan and for WWII in general, making possible the grand alliance between China, the USSR, Britain, and the USA.
9Reshaping China chapter abstractMost historians of the Sino-US relationship have focused on such issues as the Stilwell Incident, the Dixie Mission, and Lend-Lease. Liu Xiaoyuan demonstrates that in US foreign policy to China, China's ethnic frontiers was an important issue, just as much as the future of China's former dependencies or tributary states. He also shows that the future of China as a multinational and unified country was important US State Department concern. He thus shows that US strategy was far more sophisticated and comprehensive than earlier analyses have allowed us to conclude.
10Northeast China in Chongqing Politics chapter abstractChina's Northeast (formerly known as Manchuria) was contested territory since the late 19th century, fought for by Russia, Japan, and China. It became a Japanese client state in 1932. Until WWII, it was by no means clear that China would end up controlling the area. Nishimura demonstrates how Northeasterners mobilized support in Chongqing for their struggle against the Japanese and how the Nationalists came to invest so much political capital in the area that they could not abandon it after the war, although their military and governmental weakness possibly made that the better option.
11The Nationalist Government's Attitude toward Postwar Japan chapter abstractWu Sufeng demonstrates that the policy of the Nationalists toward post-war Japan was based on the principle of 'repaying aggression with kindness', in stark contrast to US and British approaches. Wu argues that in pursuit of this policy, Chiang Kaishek encountered many setbacks and had to put up with dismissive attitudes of his two major Allies which resulted in China's exclusion from major Allied conferences in the last year of WWII. Chiang Kaishek even had to plead for the inclusion of China as one of the three countries demanding Japan's unconditional surrender in the Potsdam declaration. However, on such key issues as the position of the Japanese emperor and wartime reparations, Chiang's views were nonetheless influential. His careful manouevering also ensured that China did emerge out of WWII as one of the victorious Allies.
12Postwar Sino-French Negotiations about Vietnam, 1945–1946 chapter abstractYang Weizhen's examination of Sino-French negotiations about Vietnam complement Bastid-Bruguiere's account of the fading French influence in East Asian international relations. After Japan's surrender, Chinese troops entered Vietnam; Japanese commanders handed over to Chinese officials. However, the Chinese retreated quickly from Vietnam, in part because they did not have the forces to occupy Vietnam and were already overextended. Conflicts between the central government and local powerholders in south China meant that it was in the interest of the central government to halt China's engagement in Vietnamese affairs. Moreover, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had maintained good relations from 1944 with the Free French of Charles de Gaulle, whom Chiang Kaishek had assured that China had no interests in Vietnam. Chiang needed his collaboration in securing the ending of French privileges in China. And so, France ended the war in Vietnam, although Ho Chi Minh had already achieved major succeses.
13The 1952 Treaty of Peace between China and Japan chapter abstractVan de Ven argues that the 1952 Peace Treaty between the Republic of China and Japan was less a peace treaty than one of a series of US-inspired treaties to contain communism in East Asia. It was important because it meant that the Nationalists would be regarded as one of the victorious allies; because it turned Japan away from concluding an agreement with the PRC and steered it toward Taiwan and other states in South and Southeast Asia; and, finally, because it would form a cornerstone of a political order in East Asia which remaind in place today. Van de Ven demonstrates that many issues that bedevil interstate relations in East Asia, such as the status of Taiwan, have their origins in the negotations leading up to this treaty.