Japan for her part considered that if she was to raise the standard of living of her large population and to remain a world power, she must bring into being her “Greater East Asia”, so as to have the needed raw material sources and export markets in the event of a collision with the Western powers; in addition to this, she needed a security girdle as extensive as possible in case of a conflict with Russia.  In any case, “Greater East Asia” must be secured before the European conflict should break out.

4 The Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945)

Accordingly, from 1933 onward Japan followed up her conquest of Manchuria by bringing her influence to bear in Inner Mongolia and in North China.  She succeeded first, by means of an immense system of smuggling, currency manipulation, and propaganda, in bringing a number of Mongol princes over to her side, and then (at the end of 1935) in establishing a semi-dependent government in North China.  Chiang Kai-shek took no action.

The signal for the outbreak of war was an “incident” by the Marco Polo Bridge, south of Peking (July 7th, 1937).  The Japanese government profited by a quite unimportant incident, undoubtedly provoked by the Japanese, in order to extend its dominion a little further.  China still hesitated; there were negotiations.  Japan brought up reinforcements and put forward demands which China could not be expected to be ready to fulfil.  Japan then occupied Peking and Tientsin and wide regions between them and south of them.  The Chinese soldiers stationed there withdrew almost without striking a blow, but formed up again and began to offer resistance.  In order to facilitate the planned occupation of North China, including the province of Shantung, Japan decided on a diversionary campaign against Shanghai.  The Nanking government sent its best troops to the new front, and held it for nearly three months against superior forces; but meanwhile the Japanese steadily advanced in North China.  On November 9th Nanking fell into their hands.  By the beginning of January 1938, the province of Shantung had also been conquered.

Chiang Kai-shek and his government fled to Ch’ung-k’ing (Chungking), the most important commercial and financial centre of the interior after Hankow, which was soon threatened by the Japanese fleet.  By means of a number of landings the Japanese soon conquered the whole coast of China, so cutting off all supplies to the country; against hard fighting in some places they pushed inland along the railways and conquered the whole eastern half of China, the richest and most highly developed part of the country.  Chiang Kai-shek had the support only of the agriculturally rich province of Szechwan, and of the scarcely developed provinces surrounding it.  Here there was as yet no industry.  Everything in the way of machinery and supplies that could be transported from the hastily dismantled factories was carried westward.  Students and professors went west with all the contents of their universities, and worked on in small villages under very difficult conditions—­one of the most memorable achievements of this war for China.  But all this was by no means enough for waging a defensive war against Japan.  Even the famous Burma Road could not save China.