the same time compelled the Chinese to retreat into
the interior from the Japanese, so that by 1943 the
country was more firmly held by the Chinese government
than it had been for seventy years. After the
creation of the People’s Democracy mass immigration
into Sinkiang began, in connection with the development
of oil fields and of many new industries in the border
area between Sinkiang and China proper. Roads
and air communications opened Sinkiang. Yet, the
differences between immigrant Chinese and local, Muslim
Turks, continue to play a role.
9 Collision with Japan; further Capitulations
The reign of Wen Tsung (reign name Hsien-feng 1851-1861)
was marked throughout by the T’ai P’ing
and other rebellions and by wars with the Europeans,
and that of Mu Tsung (reign name T’ung-chih:
1862-1874) by the great Mohammedan disturbances.
There began also a conflict with Japan which lasted
until 1945. Mu Tsung came to the throne as a child
of five, and never played a part of his own.
It had been the general rule for princes to serve
as regents for minors on the imperial throne, but
this time the princes concerned won such notoriety
through their intrigues that the Peking court circles
decided to entrust the regency to two concubines of
the late emperor. One of these, called Tz[)u]
Hsi (born 1835), of the Manchu tribe of the Yehe-Nara,
quickly gained the upper hand. The empress Tz[)u]
Hsi was one of the strongest personalities of the
later nineteenth century who played an active part
in Chinese political life. She played a more active
part than any emperor had played for many decades.
Meanwhile great changes had taken place in Japan.
The restoration of the Meiji had ended the age of
feudalism, at least on the surface. Japan rapidly
became Westernized, and at the same time entered on
an imperialist policy. Her aims from 1868 onward
were clear, and remained unaltered until the end of
the second World War: she was to be surrounded
by a wide girdle of territories under Japanese domination,
in order to prevent the approach of any enemy to the
Japanese homeland. This girdle was divided into
several zones—(1) the inner zone with the
Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, Korea, the Ryukyu archipelago,
and Formosa; (2) the outer zone with the Marianne,
Philippine, and Caroline Islands, eastern China, Manchuria,
and eastern Siberia; (3) the third zone, not clearly
defined, including especially the Netherlands Indies,
Indo-China, and the whole of China, a zone of undefined
extent. The outward form of this subjugated region
was to be that of the Greater Japanese Empire, described
as the Imperium of the Yellow Race (the main ideas
were contained in the Tanaka Memorandum 1927 and in
the Tada Interview of 1936). Round Japan, moreover,
a girdle was to be created of producers of raw materials
and purchasers of manufactures, to provide Japanese
industry with a market. Japan had sent a delegation
of amity to China as early as 1869, and a first Sino-Japanese
