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‘A Picturesque but Hopeless Resistance’:1 Rehe in 1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

RICHARD T. PHILLIPS
RICHARD T. PHILLIPS*
Affiliation:
School of Asian Studies, The University of Auckland, New Zealand Email: rt.phillips@auckland.ac.nz
*
The author can be contacted at rt.phillips@auckland.ac.nz
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Abstract

The Japanese invasion of Rehe in 1933 proved to be a walkover, despite the intense rhetoric of resistance which had characterised statements by leaders in north China in early 1933. This article looks at the local context of the governorship of Tang Yulin, at the role of Zhang Xueliang and regional leaders, and at the central government's involvement, principally through Song Ziwen (T.V. Soong), in order to understand China's failure in Rehe. This failure strongly influenced the subsequent Tanggu truce and affected the careers of Song and Zhang in the short term, but did not deter Jiang Jieshi from continuing his anti-communist encirclement campaigns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , July 2008 , pp. 733 - 750
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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Footnotes

1

North China Herald (hereafter NCH), 1/3/33, p. 321. All names in NCH quotes have been converted into pinyin.

References

2 On nationalism in China see, for example, Unger, Jonathan (ed.), Chinese Nationalism (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1996)Google Scholar; George Wei, C. X. and Liu, Xiaoyuan (eds), Chinese Nationalism in Perspective: Historical and Recent Cases (Westport: Greenwood, 2001)Google Scholar.

3 Rehe, literally ‘hot river’, was then known in Western atlases as Jehol.

4 Despite its title, the recent book by Dryburgh, Marjorie, North China and Japanese Expansion 1933–1937: Regional Power and the National Interest (Richmond: Curzon, 2000)Google Scholar, barely touches on 1933 and 1934.

5 The state that Japan created in north-east China in 1932 was then known in the West as Manchukuo and in Japan as Manshūkoku. Its Japanese garrison, the Kantōgun, was originally created by Japan in 1905 to protect the Japanese-leased territory in Guandong, then known as Kwantung, and the South Manchurian Railway Zone.

6 Crossley, Pamela & Rawski, Evelyn, ‘A profile of the Manchu language in Ch'ing history’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 53, 1 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p.95n suggests 1821 as the last year, but 1820, when the Jiaqing Emperor died in Rehe, seems more accurate, for the Daoguang Emperor no longer went there. See Hummel, Arthur (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943–4), vol.1, p. 574Google Scholar.

7 Hedin, Sven, trans. Nash, E.G., Jehol: City of Emperors (London: Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1932), pp. 17–22Google Scholar, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edn (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1974), vol.3, p.167.

8 Lattimore, Owen, Manchuria, Cradle of Conflict (New York: Macmillan, 1932), pp. 276, 282Google Scholar.

9 Boorman, Howard L. (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967–71), vol.1, p. 63Google Scholar.

10 Snow, Edgar, Far Eastern Front (London: Jarrolds, 1934), p. 242Google Scholar.

11 Who's Who in China: Supplement (Shanghai, 1933, reprinted Hong Kong: Chinese Materials Center, 1982), p.100 gives his birthplace as Chaoyang in Rehe, while other sources suggest Liaoning. Snow, Far Eastern Front, p.243; Dongbei renwu da cidian [Large dictionary of personalities of the Northeast] (Shenyang: Liaoning Renmin Chubanshe, 1992), p. 734.

12 Snow, Far Eastern Front, 243; Dongbei renwu, p.734. Mukden, the principal inland city of southern Manchuria, is now known as Shenyang.

13 Xiting, Shen (ed.), Dongbei Ya yanjiu: Dongbei jindaishi yanjiu [Research on Northeast Asia: research on the modern history of the Northeast] (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1994), pp. 136–7Google Scholar.

14 Shen, Dongbei Ya yanjiu, p. 137.

15 Snow, Far Eastern Front, p. 243; Boorman, Biographical, vol. 3, p. 358.

16 Shen, Dongbei Ya yanjiu, p. 137; Snow, Far Eastern Front, pp. 243–4; Hedin, Jehol, p.16.

17 See, for example, Ogata, Sadako, Defiance in Manchuria: The Making of Japanese Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964)Google Scholar and Coble, Parks, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931–1937 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Shen, Dongbei Ya yanjiu, p. 137.

19 Wei Manzhouguo dashiji [Chronicle of events in puppet Manzhouguo] (Dalian: Dalian Chubanshe, 1990), p.11; Hongwen, Li & Benzheng, Zhang (eds), Dongbei dashiji [Chronicle of events in the Northeast] (Changchun: Jilin Wenshi Chubanshe, 1987), vol.2, p. 750Google Scholar. Manzhouguo was officially inaugurated on 1 March 1932.

20 Snow, Far Eastern Front, pp. 243–4.

21 Li & Zhang, Dongbei dashiji, vol. 2, p. 769.

22 Bangzhu, Sun (ed.), Jiu yi ba shibian [The September 18 incident] (Changchun: Jilin Renmin Chubanshe, 1993), pp. 753–4Google Scholar, quoting Wang Ruilin, Beipiao lunxian de jingguo [The process of the occupation of Beipiao].

23 This railway was controlled by the USSR, as heir to the concession granted by the Sino-Russian treaty of 1896.

24 Snow, Far Eastern Front, pp. 238–40.

25 NCH, 4/1/33, p. 6.

26 Coble, Facing Japan, 91; He Zhuguo, Shanhaiguan zhi zhan ji Rehe lunxian qianhou, pp. 101–3, in Bang, Sun (ed.), Wei Man Junshi [Military affairs in puppet Manzhouguo] (Changchun: Jilin Renmin Chubanshe, 1993)Google Scholar.

27 Tianjin Dagongbao of 28/12/32, quoted in Guowen Zhoubao (hereafter GWZB) 10.2 (9/1/33) Lunping xuanji [Selection of editorials] p. 2.

28 GWZB 10.3 (16/1/33) Dashi shuping [Review of events], p. 1.

29 GWZB 10.6 (13/2/33) Dashi shuping, p. 1.

30 GWZB 10.6 (13.2.33) Dashi shuping, p. 2.

31 Li, Zhang et al. (eds), Zhang Xueliang yanjiu [Research on Zhang Xueliang] vol. 1, (Changchun: Jilin Wenshi Chubanshe, 2002), p. 227Google Scholar.

32 Coble, Facing Japan, p. 92; Boorman, Biographical, vol. 4, pp. 3–4.

33 GWZB 10.6 (13/2/33) Dashi shuping, p. 2.

34 Often known as T. V. Soong.

35 Fung, Edmund S.K., In Search of Chinese Democracy: Civil Opposition in Nationalist China 1929–49 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boorman, Biographical, vol. 3, p. 373.

36 GWZB 10.8 (27/2/33) Dashi shuping, p. 1.

37 GWZB 10.8 (27/2/33) Dashi shuping, p. 1; Coble, Facing Japan, p. 92.

38 GWZB 10.8 (27/2/33) after the contents page; Snow, Far Eastern Front, opposite p. 120 has a photo of Song, Tang and Zhang Xueliang.

39 Coble, Facing Japan, p. 92.

40 NCH 1/3/33, p. 323.

41 GWZB 10.8 (27/2/33) Dashi shuping, pp. 2–3, NCH 1/3/33, p. 323.

42 GWZB 10.8 (27/2/33) Dashi riji [Diary of events], p. 1.

43 GWZB 10.8 (27/2/33) Dashi shuping p. 3.

44 See, for example, Jordan, Donald A., China's Trial by Fire: The Shanghai War of 1932 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Israel, John, Student Nationalism in China, 1927–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966)Google Scholar.

45 Fung, In Search, p. 83.

46 Fung, In Search, p. 84.

47 Snow, Far Eastern Front, p. 249; Coble, Facing Japan, p. 93.

48 Dongbei renwu da cidian, pp. 712–3.

49 Coble, Facing China, p. 94.

50 Who's who in China, 5th edn, 1936, pp. 15–16.

51 Coble, Facing Japan, pp. 94–5.

52 NCH 9/3/33, p. 367 and 369.

53 NCH 1/3/33, p. 328.

54 Snow, Far Eastern Front, p.346; NCH 22/3/33, p. 446.

55 NCH 1/3/33, p.328; Snow, Far Eastern Front, p. 245.

56 NCH 8/3/33, pp. 367–9.

57 NCH 8/3/33, p. 364.

58 NCH 8/3/33, p. 363.

59 NCH 15/3/99, p. 409.

60 NCH 8/3/33, p. 367, reporting Chinese sources.

61 NCH 8/3/33, p. 367, 369, 15/3/33, p.402.

62 NCH 8/3/33, p. 367, with reference to Yang Yingpo.

63 Snow, Far Eastern Front, pp. 248–9.

64 Dongbei renwu da cidian, p. 734; Shen, Dongbei Ya yanjiu, p. 138.

65 Zhang Xueliang yanjiu, vol.1, p. 227.

66 NCH, 15.3.33, p. 403.

67 Boorman, Biographical, vol. 3, p. 151; James C. Thomson, While China Faced West: American Reformers in Nationalist China, 1928–37 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), pp. 27, 59.

68 Boorman, Biographical, vol.3, p. 373; Wei Manzhouguo, pp. 33–5.

69 GWZB 10.2 (9/1/33), Luping xuanji, pp. 7–8, citing the Tianjin Yishibao.

70 NCH 15/3/33, p. 409.