{"id":2111,"date":"2011-08-31T03:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T07:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/?p=2111"},"modified":"2011-09-06T23:21:05","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T03:21:05","slug":"918-incident-and-the-start-of-wwii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2011\/08\/918-incident-and-the-start-of-wwii\/","title":{"rendered":"918 Incident and the Start of WWII"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the “918 Event” that marked the invasion of China by Japan on September 18, 1931 and triggered the 14-year (1931-1945) War of Resistance by China against the Japanese occupation of China. Many people also consider this date to be the beginning of WWII even though China did not officially declare war on Japan until many years later. The 14-year War of Resistance resulted in the killing of over 20 million Chinese and the additional wounding of over 10 million Chinese, and the many kinds of atrocities that Japan inflicted on China and many other countries in Southeast Asia. Since Japan has yet to acknowledge, apologize, and compensate to the victims of these atrocities, it is critically important for the world to remember this 918 date and incident so that this type of history will not be repeated in the future.<\/p>\n

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Early History<\/strong><\/p>\n

To understand the “918 Incident” that took place in the city of Mukden, Manchuria, China (currently known as the city of Shenyang, in Liaoning Province in northeast China), one needs to review the history of that part of the world from the 19th century and earlier. Dating back to several hundred years ago, historically Manchuria was the homeland of several nomadic tribes. In 1644, the dominant tribe at that time (the Jurchens) seized control of Beijing and overthrew the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Since the Manchus (as the people of Manchuria were called) had greatly acculturated the dominant Chinese (Han) culture and language, the Manchus and the Chinese were easily integrated. This gave rise to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). However, with a weakening Qing Dynasty, China was forced to cede to Russia part of Manchuria, north of the Amur River (or Heilong River, \u9ed1\u9f8d\u6c5f) and east of the Ussuri River, as the result of the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and the 1860 Treaty of Peking. Thus, Manchuria was divided into a Russian half known as “Outer Manchuria,” and a remaining Chinese half known as “Inner Manchuria.” In modern usage, Manchuria is usually referred to the “Inner Manchuria” or the Chinese half, and China usually refers to this region as China’s Northeast Region, or the Northeast Provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang (\u6771\u5317\u4e09\u7701).<\/p>\n

For about two centuries until 1853, Japan adopted a foreign policy of Sakoku (or “locked country,” \u9396\u570b) when except under certain allowed situations, no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. This policy ended when the American Commodore Matthew Perry and the American navy arrived in Japan in 1853 and forced the opening of Japan. This opened Japan’s eyes and made them realize that in many ways they were behind the West. This led to the Meiji Restoration (\u660e\u6cbb\u7dad\u65b0) in 1868 which restored the emperor system and also opened the gate for all kinds of Japanese to go abroad to learn from the West, especially the West’s science and technology and to modernize and strengthen Japan into a modern industrial state. With the opening of the country, Japan, being a small country with few natural resources, greedily lust over the territory and natural resources of its neighboring countries, especially Korea, China, and Russia. Thus, Japan also adopted the West’s expansion and imperialistic attitude.<\/p>\n

The First Sino-Japanese War<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first country of Japan’s expansion was its closest neighbor Korea, which traditionally had been a tributary state to China, and with large coal and iron ore deposits. Japan wanted to annex Korea, or at least make it an independent state with a pro-Japanese government. A series of conflicts, too long to be described in this article, led to the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) between China and Japan. This war was fought in Korea, Manchuria, and the Penghu Islands near the western coast of Taiwan. Japan won the war. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on 17 April 1895. As the loser, China (1) had to recognize the independence of Korea, (2) had to cede the Liaodong Peninsula (\u907c\u6771\u534a\u5cf6) to Japan, (3) had to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan, and (4) had to pay Japan 200 million Kuping taels of silver (or almost four times the Japanese government revenue), (5) had to sign a commercial treaty permitting Japanese ships to operate on the Yangtze River, to operate manufacturing factories in treaty ports and to open four more ports to foreign trade.<\/p>\n

However, the ceding of Liaodong Peninsula that includes the ice-free Port Arthur was immediately objected to by Russia, France, and Germany (known as The Triple Intervention) because these foreign powers had their own ambitions to carve up part of China. Facing such strong oppositions, Japan, being a relatively new emerging strong nation, agreed to give up the Liaodong Peninsula in exchange for another 30 million Kuping taels of silver that China had to pay Japan.<\/p>\n

The Russo-Japanese War<\/strong><\/p>\n

With its victory over China on the First Sino-Japanese War and the establishment of a pro-Japan government in Korea, Japan had its eyes on expanding further north and west into Manchuria. Russia already controlled Outer Manchuria and would love to own the ice-free port of Port Arthur in Inner Manchuria beyond leasing it from China. The port of Port Arthur, unlike the port of Vladivostok, can be used year round even during the winter months. That was precisely the reason for the Triple Intervention mentioned in the previous paragraph, to keep Russia from gaining this strategic military strength. This mutual imperial interest in Manchuria, was part of the conflict between Russia and Japan. Russia was an established imperial power, while Japan was just an emerging power. Since the British imperial power also wanted to keep Russia from competing with them as a naval power in the Pacific, Britain was willing to side with Japan, which appeared to be a weaker power. So in 1902 Britain and Japan signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This alliance meant that if any nation allied itself with Russia during any war with Japan, then Britain would enter the war on Japan’s side. This also meant that Russia could no longer count on receiving help from either Germany or France in a war with Japan, because of the danger of British involvement in the war. With such an alliance, Japan felt bold enough to commence hostilities with Russia even when the two countries were negotiating a treaty to try to recognize and protect Japan’s primary interests in Korea and Russia’s primary interest in Manchuria. Japan declared war on Russia on February 8, 1904. Even before the war declaration was received by the Russian Government, the Imperial Japanese Navy already attacked the Russian Far East Fleet at Port Arthur.<\/p>\n

To the surprise of Russia and everyone else, Japan easily won this war, defeating both the Russian navy and army. This greatly diminished Russia’s prestige, and greatly elevated Japan’s statue as a modern power, and fanned its appetite for more imperialistic expansions. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5, 1905. Among other things, Russia recognized Korea as part of the Japanese sphere of influence [1], and agreed to evacuate Manchuria and to sign over to Japan its 25-year leasehold rights to Port Arthur, including the naval base and the peninsula around it. [2]<\/p>\n

With two major military victories (first against China in 1895 and then against Russia in 1905) in a short span of only 10 years, Japan became even more aggressive and hungrily eyed all of China and other countries in Asia. In the absence of Russian competition and with European nations occupied with World War I, combined with the Great Depression which followed, the Japanese military set about to dominate China and the rest of Asia, thus eventually leading to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.<\/p>\n

Germany’s Sphere of Influence in Shandong Province and Japan’s Twenty One Demands<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Qing Dynasty was incompetent and weak.\u00a0 Almost all of the world powers carved out many kinds of concessions and spheres of influence over various parts of China.\u00a0 The 1842 Treaty of Nanking that ended the First Opium War between Great Britain and China was one of many unequal treaties that China was forced to sign.\u00a0 For this treaty, among other concessions, China ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain as a crown colony.\u00a0 In the case of Germany, the concession was in the Shandong Province , in particular in 1898 the Jiaozhou Bay (\u81a0\u5dde\u7063) near the port city of Qingdao was transferred to Germany on a 99-year lease, and Qingdao became a German colony, and it was the base for the Imperial German Navy’s Far East Squadron.\u00a0 During WWI, Japan joined forces with Great Britain and attacked this German colony.\u00a0 After a month-long seige, Qingdao fell in late 1914 and was occupied by Japanese and British forces.<\/p>\n

China declared war on Germany on 14 August 1917.\u00a0 As an ally of the victors, China expected that the former German colony would be returned to China.\u00a0 However, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the main treaty from the Paris Peace Conference ending WWI, assigned all confiscated German Pacific territories and islands north of the equator to Japan, including Jiaozhou Bay.\u00a0 This resulted in major China-wide protests known as the May Fourth Movement, initially organized by students and quickly spread to all segments of the Chinese population.\u00a0 As a result, the Chinese government refused to sign the Treaty, and the “Shandong Problem” was not resolved until February 1922 when its sovereignty returned to China.<\/p>\n

Also during the time of WWI, in January 1915 Japan issued to China the infamous “21 Demands” which among other concessions:<\/p>\n