Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II

Herausgeber: de Ven, Hans van; Mackinnon, Stephen; Lary, Diana

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Negotiating China's Destiny explains how China developed from a country that hardly mattered internationally into the important world power it is today. Before World War II, China had suffered through five wars with European powers as well as American imperial policies resulting in economic, military, and political domination. This shifted dramatically during WWII, when alliances needed to be realigned, resulting in the evolution of China's relationships with the USSR, the U.S., Britain, France, India, and Japan. Based on key historical archives, memoirs, and periodicals from across East Asia and the West, this book explains how China was able to become one of the Allies with a seat on the Security Council, thus changing the course of its future. Breaking with U.S.-centered analyses which stressed the incompetence of Chinese Nationalist diplomacy, Negotiating China's Destiny makes the first sustained use of the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek (which have only become available in the last few years) and who is revealed as instrumental in asserting China's claims at this pivotal point. Negotiating China's Destiny demonstrates that China's concerns were far broader than previously acknowledged and that despite the country's military weakness, it pursued its policy of enhancing its international stature, recovering control over borderlands it had lost to European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and becoming recognized as an important allied power with determination and success.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 336
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. Dezember 2014
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 241mm x 161mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 604g
• ISBN-13: 9780804789660
• ISBN-10: 0804789665
• Artikelnr.: 41121778

Autorenporträt

Stephen MacKinnon is Professor of History and former Director of the Center for Asian Studies at Arizona State University.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1France's Deluded Quest for Allies
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on France's efforts to maintain a role in East Asian
affairs and protect its control of French Indo-China. The chapter traces
the decline of French influence to WWI, examines France's efforts to
maintain a collective security approach before the outbreak of war, and
analyzes how France tried to hold on to Indo-China during the war by
following a policy of accommodating Japan while not alienating China - an
impossibility.
2British Diplomacy and Changing Views of Chinese Governmental Capability
across the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945
chapter abstract
Mitter traces an important change in UK Foreign Office attitudes during
WWII. If before the war the British official mind was contemptuous of
China, by the end of the war British Foreign Officials had developed a
grudging respect for China and had accepted its status as one of the Big
Five Powers. The war with Japan caused official Britain to accept British
decline and move on to the unwinding of its imperial role.
3An Imperial Envoy
chapter abstract
China's relations with Tibet have been, and are, a frequent source of
difficulty. During WWII, they achieved a nadir, leading the Nationalists to
appoint a high level representative who set out, with some success, to
improve relations and push back againt growing British influence. Shen
Zonglian was successful, but not to the degree that after the end of WWII
Tibetan representatives accepted full incorporation into the Nationalist
body politic.
4The Evolution of the Relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and
the Comintern during the Sino-Japanese War
chapter abstract
During WWII, Stalin's policy in East Asia aimed at drawing Japan into a
quagmire in China so as to avoid fighting a war on two fronts. This meant
supporting the Nationalists in China, the only force capable of providing
serious resistance to the Japanese. However, the Soviets naturally also
maintained relations with the Chinese Communists. Yang Kuisong analyzes how
the CCP managed the frequently difficult relationship with the Soviets and
how Mao Zedong was able to maintain a delicate balance between preserving
the interest of the Chinese Communists and accommodating Soviet wishes.
5Canada-China Relations in Wartime China
chapter abstract
Most scholarship on China's foreign relations during WWII has focused on
US-China relations. While this volume breaks fundamentally with that
tradition, Diana Lary demonstrates that even a small country such as Canada
had a role to play. Individual Canadians such as Norman Bethune were at
work in China during WWII, as did missionaries, diplomats, and journalists,
while Chinese living in Canada, such as Quan Louie became significant
public figures there. In developing a China policy, Canada also moved away
from Britain.
6Declaring War as an Issue in Chinese Wartime Diplomacy
chapter abstract
China declared war on Japan only after Pearl Harbor, while Japan never
followed suit. Tsuchido Akio demonstrates that contrary to generally held
opinion, China did not decline to declare war on Japan after 1937 because
it feared triggering the provisions of the USA's neutrality laws. Domestic
political factors were far more important. By discussing the debates about
this contentious issue within Chinese politics, 'Declaring War' provides
important insight into the making of Nationalist foreign policy,
demonstrating that Chiang Kaishek regularly listened and accepted the
advice of his foreign policy advisors and Chinese diplomats.
7Chiang Kai-shek and Jawaharlal Nehru
chapter abstract
During WWII, Chiang Kai-shek and Nehru visited each other while India and
China began to think through what a post-imperialist Asia might look like.
While the strengthening Indian independence movement was a concern for
Britain, Chiang Kai-shek worried that the British refusal to accept India
independence demands would weaken the Allied position in South and
Southeast Asia. Yang Tianshi analyzes the Nationalist policy of expressing
support for Indian aspirations for independence while maintain workable
relations with the British. He also demonstrates how early enthusiasms on
both sides gave way to tensions. WWII did not end with amity between China
and India.
8Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin
chapter abstract
Using official sources, rather than memoirs or diaries, Li Yuzhen
reconstructs attempts by Chiang Kaishek to secure the direct participation
of Soviet forces in China. Chiang appealed to Stalin to order his forces
into China on three occasions at moments of great crisis. Although Stalin
rejected Chiang's requests, Li Yuzhen concludes that the limited
cooperation that the two established, which was based on the national
interest of the countries Stalin and Chiang led, nonetheless was important
to the defeat of Japan and for WWII in general, making possible the grand
alliance between China, the USSR, Britain, and the USA.
9Reshaping China
chapter abstract
Most historians of the Sino-US relationship have focused on such issues as
the Stilwell Incident, the Dixie Mission, and Lend-Lease. Liu Xiaoyuan
demonstrates that in US foreign policy to China, China's ethnic frontiers
was an important issue, just as much as the future of China's former
dependencies or tributary states. He also shows that the future of China as
a multinational and unified country was important US State Department
concern. He thus shows that US strategy was far more sophisticated and
comprehensive than earlier analyses have allowed us to conclude.
10Northeast China in Chongqing Politics
chapter abstract
China's Northeast (formerly known as Manchuria) was contested territory
since the late 19th century, fought for by Russia, Japan, and China. It
became a Japanese client state in 1932. Until WWII, it was by no means
clear that China would end up controlling the area. Nishimura demonstrates
how Northeasterners mobilized support in Chongqing for their struggle
against the Japanese and how the Nationalists came to invest so much
political capital in the area that they could not abandon it after the war,
although their military and governmental weakness possibly made that the
better option.
11The Nationalist Government's Attitude toward Postwar Japan
chapter abstract
Wu Sufeng demonstrates that the policy of the Nationalists toward post-war
Japan was based on the principle of 'repaying aggression with kindness', in
stark contrast to US and British approaches. Wu argues that in pursuit of
this policy, Chiang Kaishek encountered many setbacks and had to put up
with dismissive attitudes of his two major Allies which resulted in China's
exclusion from major Allied conferences in the last year of WWII. Chiang
Kaishek even had to plead for the inclusion of China as one of the three
countries demanding Japan's unconditional surrender in the Potsdam
declaration. However, on such key issues as the position of the Japanese
emperor and wartime reparations, Chiang's views were nonetheless
influential. His careful manouevering also ensured that China did emerge
out of WWII as one of the victorious Allies.
12Postwar Sino-French Negotiations about Vietnam, 1945-1946
chapter abstract
Yang Weizhen's examination of Sino-French negotiations about Vietnam
complement Bastid-Bruguiere's account of the fading French influence in
East Asian international relations. After Japan's surrender, Chinese troops
entered Vietnam; Japanese commanders handed over to Chinese officials.
However, the Chinese retreated quickly from Vietnam, in part because they
did not have the forces to occupy Vietnam and were already overextended.
Conflicts between the central government and local powerholders in south
China meant that it was in the interest of the central government to halt
China's engagement in Vietnamese affairs. Moreover, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry had maintained good relations from 1944 with the Free French of
Charles de Gaulle, whom Chiang Kaishek had assured that China had no
interests in Vietnam. Chiang needed his collaboration in securing the
ending of French privileges in China. And so, France ended the war in
Vietnam, although Ho Chi Minh had already achieved major succeses.
13The 1952 Treaty of Peace between China and Japan
chapter abstract
Van de Ven argues that the 1952 Peace Treaty between the Republic of China
and Japan was less a peace treaty than one of a series of US-inspired
treaties to contain communism in East Asia. It was important because it
meant that the Nationalists would be regarded as one of the victorious
allies; because it turned Japan away from concluding an agreement with the
PRC and steered it toward Taiwan and other states in South and Southeast
Asia; and, finally, because it would form a cornerstone of a political
order in East Asia which remaind in place today. Van de Ven demonstrates
that many issues that bedevil interstate relations in East Asia, such as
the status of Taiwan, have their origins in the negotations leading up to
this treaty.