Chinese History
...r effective industrialization matched with a secured market. Manchuria was the fittest area to satisfy all these requirements of Japan. E. H. Carr points out that there had long been a rivalry in Japan between the civil and military authorities. Both were equally anxious to establish Japan as a Great Power. About this time, the military party had gained predominance and political power in Japan slipped from the hands of the Tokyo Government into those of the High Commands of Japanese army and navy. The military authority wanted to lead Japan to a path of military glory. In the summer of 1931, the murder of a Japanese officer in Manchuria by Chinese bandits was used to inflame opinion and in September, the army took the matter into its own hands. The Mukden incident of 18-19 September, 1931 only gave Japan the pretext to march her army into Manchuria. The moment chosen was, by accident or design one at which Great Britain was in the throes of a financial and a political crisis. This was the final consideration of Japanese conquest of Manchuria. By the treaty which ended Russia-Japanese war. Japan had acquired the right to maintain some 15,000 soldiers in Manchuria for the protection of the South Manchurian Railway. This railway line ran southward from Trans Siberian Railway to Port Arthur. These guards were confined to the railway zone, their headquarters being at Mukden. Japan was bound to protect the area under its patrol from any sabotage. On the night of September 18-19, 1931, a Japanese patrol near Mukden discovered, or it was alleged to have discovered, a detachment of Chinese soldiers attempting to blow up the main line. If the case was really so, Japan had to call out her guards in order to police the area effectively. Japan later gave out that she was duty bound to do this and she did it with right earnest. The Mukden incident had a very murky background. Chinese resistance to Japan in various forms had already taxed the minds of the military authorities in Japan and the military commanders were increasingly being guided by faith in forcible measures to be directed against the Chinese. The Japanese forward movement had been encouraged in 1929. That year, there was a conflict between the Chinese and the Russian authorities about the seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway and Japan became suspicious about Russian move in China. On August 17, the same year, Captain Nakamula was murdered. On 9th September by a shower of leaflets dropped from army aero planes, the army officers called on the nation to awaken to the danger threatening Japanese rights in Manchuria. Thus an extreme state of tension had gripped the psychology of the Japanese authorities and the Sino-Japanese relation was in throes. On September 6, the Chinese garrison in Mukden received a telegram from Marshall Chang-Hsuho-liang. It said “Our relations with Japan have become very delicate.” The Mukden incident was a culmination of the process in which delicate relations were ultimately placed to the predicament of force. Consequences The Japanese conquest of Manchuria had grave consequences for international relations. In the Pacific, it denoted the resumption of the struggle for power which had been suspended by the Washington Conference. “In the world at large, it heralded a return to ‘power politics’, which had been in abeyance at any rate in this naked form, since the end of the war.” (International Relations, Carr, p 171). For the first time since the Peace Settlement, war had been waged on an extensive scale and a vast territory had been annexed by a conqueror who went unpunished. For the League of Nations, whose covenant and whose ideals had been flouted, the consequences were incalculable. It marked the beginning of the end of the Collective Security System. The small members of the league lost confidence both on the League Covenant as well as on the promises of the great powers. It was clear that there was nothing to resist an act of aggression committed by a powerful and a well-armed state. The age of treaty breaking and deliberate aggressions began. Hartmann (The Relations of Nations, pp 254-256, give this in answer script) pointed out that from the point of view of international law, Japanese conquest remained an enigma. Until 1931 Japan was considered a highly reliable League member and it was difficult for a long time to be sure that clear aggression was being committed by her. Neither the Council nor the Assembly and not even the Lytton commission or the Assembly Committee was sure about that. By treaty, Japan had the right to use her forces in Manchuria to protect Japanese lives and properties. After all, says Hartmann, Japan had not overtly defied the League. On the contrary ...