Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II by Hans van de Ven Diana Lary Stephen MacKinnon

Author:Hans van de Ven, Diana Lary, Stephen MacKinnon [Hans van de Ven, Diana Lary, Stephen MacKinnon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Asian, China
ISBN: 9780804793117
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2014-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

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Northeast China in Chongqing Politics

THE INFLUENCE OF “RECOVER THE NORTHEAST” ON DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

NISHIMURA SHIGEO

During the first half of the twentieth century, China’s political landscape changed dramatically. Within this process of change, the Northeast Factor, that is, the ultimate fate of China’s northeastern provinces, was tightly connected to both Sino-Japanese relations and to global political developments. In this essay, I suggest that while the Northeast Factor was concerned with one particular location, it was also deeply intertwined with Chinese regional politics, central government politics, East Asian regional politics, and global politics. The Guomindang (GMD) government invested so much of its political capital in the recovery of the Northeast that the issue could never be abandoned, nor could others be allowed to question whether the Northeast was an inalienable part of China.

In order to understand the position that the Northeast Factor occupied in central Chinese politics and in global politics, we must begin our search in 1941–1942 and continue it to the December 1, 1943, release of the Cairo Declaration. This document gave full Allied support for the Chinese war aim of recovering sovereignty over its northeastern provinces, which had been occupied by Japan (under the guise of the puppet state of Manchukuo) since 1931. But although the Cairo Declaration marked the full internationalization of the Northeast Factor, the path to this point was marked by conflict and disagreement. Thus, it is necessary to look at the contradictory phenomena of the time to analyze the creation of this new path. This article will trace the existence of the Northeast Factor in central and global politics, as well as analyze its political function from the standpoint of regional politics. I draw mainly on articles published in the Chongqing journal Fangong banyuekan (Counterattack bimonthly) as a source to analyze the role of the political discourse of “recover the Northeast” in China’s wartime capital during the years before the 1943 Cairo Declaration.

The desire of the Republic of China to recover sovereignty over the Northeast was clearly recorded in May 1936, when the text of the Republic’s draft constitution listed the four provinces of the Northeast as Chinese territory. Other state actions after the advent of full-scale war between Japan and China in the wake of the July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident provide further evidence of this desire. In May 1940, the Chinese government reorganized the local governments of the four northeastern provinces and appointed new provincial governors. In March 1942, the GMD held a meeting of high-level party cadres from the four northeastern provinces, and, in May 1942, it merged various popular organizations devoted to recovering the Northeast into one another.

During this series of political developments, particularly the reorganization and recombination of the various popular groups, there were many conflicts at the upper levels of the GMD leadership. Historian Chen Liwen has already revealed the origins of these conflicts.1 However, I believe that a further look at the issue is needed, especially with regard to the role of popular groups. For example,

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