No.1, 2023

1.WrittenConversation:TheMoralStrengthintheDarkAges—JohnRabeandHisfriendsduringtheNanjingMassacre

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Editor’snote: On October 18, 2022, the academic forum “The Power of Morality: John Rabe and his friends during the Nanjing Massacre” was held at Nanjing University, co-sponsored by the Harvard Center Shanghai and the Center for the History of Republican China at Nanjing University. Experts and scholars from Harvard University, Nanjing University, Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences, Jiangsu Academy of Governance, and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders and other research organizations reviewed the history together with the descendants of John Rabe and the Massacre survivors, recalled John Rabe’s deeds with emotion and discussed the historical enlightenment of the moral strength. This written conversations are selected from this meeting.

2.IssuesandMethods:theWritingofNanjingMassacre-themedLiteraryintheNewCentury

ZhangYan(13)

Since 1937, there have been phased differences in the motivation, narrative perspective, and ethical stance of Nanjing Massacre-themed novels. Among them, the narrative structure and techniques of Nanjing Massacre literature since the new century have changed, but these changes are not conducive to the literary representation of this theme. As an important work in the history of Nanjing Massacre literature,TheBloodSacrificeofNanjinghas a forward-looking and inspiring creative technique. The work uses an emotion-driven non-fictional witness narrative technique to show the historical reality of the war from multiple perspectives, with poetic language expression and non-fictional narrative forms. It retrospectively examines the national trauma, recreates historical memory, and calls for indomitable resistance, integrating disaster narratives and victory narratives. These features should become a model for writing Nanjing Massacre-themed literature in the new era.

3.TribalismandEcologicalDisasters:The“FundamentalSolution”duringtheJapanese-OccupiedNortheastChinaPeriod

WangXiliang(24)

After the establishment of the Manchukuo puppet state created by the Japanese invaders, various forms of Northeastern people’s anti-Manchu and anti-Japanese armed uprisings emerged one after another, and the flames of struggle burned more and more vigorously. To eradicate those armed forces，the Japanese and puppet authorities adopted a dual approach of “treating the symptoms” and “treating the root cause”, mobilizing a large amount of military power to brutally suppress the anti-Japanese armed forces in Northeast China, and at the same time implementing a series of “fundamental solution” policies. Among them, the system of group tribes is one of the most savage, brutal and inhuman measure. It relocated Northeastern people in so-called “bandit area” or “semi-bandit area” to the group tribes, which were easy to monitor and control, so as to completely cut off the connection between the anti-Japanese armed forces and the people, sever all materials sources of anti-Japanese armed activities and their survival, and fundamentally strangle the survival of anti-Japanese armed forces. As a result of the implementation of this group tribe system, a large number of innocent people were killed, and a lot of homes and residences were burned, and a large area of cultivated land was abandoned, triggering a chain of social and ecological disasters.

4.TheAnti-Die-hardsStruggleoftheNewFourthArmy’sHenanandHubeiForwardDetachmentin1940

GuoYang(33)

The CCP’s “Developing Central China” strategy underwent significant changes in early 1940. The Nationalist government realized the strategic intention of the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army to join forces and therefore created the friction in East Anhui. The New Fourth Army’s Henan and Hubei Forward Detachment was not initially included in the CCP’s plan for “Developing Central China”. But through practical action in support of the anti-die-hards struggle in East Anhui, it became an important part of the implementation of the strategy. The contribution of the New Fourth Army’s Henan and Hubei Forward Detachment has been overlooked in previous research. Its anti-die-hards struggle in 1940 also made the Nationalist government aware of a new CCP armed force that could not be ignored in the jurisdiction of the Fifth War Zone.

5.People,CeremoniesandGhosts:AStudyofPoliticalRitualsintheManchukuoPuppetState

YangXiuyun(42)

After the establishment of the Manchukuo puppet regime, political rituals became an important means of establishing political order and constructing political identity. In political ceremonies held on various memorial days, the people played the role of “spectators”. Political rituals featuring the puppet emperor, Puyi, directly showcased the attachment, puppetry, and deception of the Manchukuo political order and power structure to the people. The regime attempted to seek political identification by organizing various activities, such as memorial services and shrine visits. However, due to the colonial and puppet-like nature of the Manchukuo regime, any political ceremony was nothing more than a self-deceptive farce, unable to truly integrate society and consolidate popular support.

6.WomenandDailyLifeintheAlliedPrisonerofWarCampinWeixianCounty

LuoRui(50)

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, more than 2,000 Allied nationals were detained in the Ledao Camp in Weixian County, Shandong Province, China, where women accounted for more than half of the detainees, including a considerable number of female professionals such as missionaries, teachers, and medical staff. These women continued their pre-war roles in caring for others’ daily lives, educating eligible children, and actively participating in medical treatment while breaking through the existing gender division of labor in the camp’s public services. They also recorded their own suffering through diary writing, cookbook compiling, and painting, relieving their own spiritual pressure in the meantime. Thanks to the large number of women, the detainees in the Weixian camp could maintain a certain degree of family life, public services, and social activities, making their daily life relatively “normal”. Regardless of improving the living environment or expressing themselves through writing, these women’s efforts to “normalize” life in the camp demonstrated their resilience in survival.

7.“BusinessPeopleintheInterstices”:AStudyoftheChineseMerchantCommunityintheTerritoriesAffiliatedwiththeSouthManchurianRailwayCompany(1907—1937)

WangChanghuan(62)

Under the management of Japanese aggressors, the territories affiliated with the South Manchurian Railway Company (SMR) served as a “vanguard battlefield” for plundering the rights and interests in Northeast China. Its well-developed commercial facilities, convenient transportation, and low taxation attracted Chinese merchants to flock to the area. In the early years, the Chinese merchant community in the SMR territories was supported by external Chinese capital and led the development of the SMR territories. SMR suppressed and co-opted Chinese merchants on the three levels of specialty product trading systems, capital, and taxes to promote Japanese business power. Against this backdrop, the Chinese merchant community in the SMR territories demonstrated a unique development trajectory in the 1920s. However, by the early 1930s, the united movement of Chinese merchants along the SMR was met with opposition in Japan and failed. The rise and fall of the Chinese merchant community in the SMR territories over the past thirty years reflects the complexity of modern merchants and is also a microcosm of Japan’s aggression towards China.

8.TheIntelligenceActivitiesofthe“WeihaiweiOccupationArmy”inChina

LiuYujie(71)

After the First Sino-Japanese War, in accordance with Article 8 of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan began to dispatch the so-called “occupation army” to Weihaiwei. In the new layout of the Japanese army’s intelligence activities in China, the occupation army became an important intelligence channel in addition to the military attaches and intelligence officers stationed in China. Various types of intelligence activities of the Japanese army, from stealing maps to conducting military reconnaissance under the guise of inspection or travel, also to using Chinese spies to gather various types of intelligence, were concentrated in the occupation army. After the Jiaozhou Bay Incident, the occupation army timely adjusted its focus and shifted its intelligence activities to other powers in China. Compared with military attaches or intelligence officers stationed in China, the occupation army had a more hierarchical type of intelligence activities, and due to its geographical location, it was more sensitive to intelligence in the North and Northeast regions of China. Therefore, although the occupation army did not exist for a long time, it still had a place in the Japanese army’s intelligence activities in China.

9.TheJapaneseAttackonHainanIslandwiththeSouthChinaSeaAmbition

WenXiaoping(83)

In Japan’s modern foreign aggression and expansion, the South China Sea became a necessary passage for its “southward advance” and a lifeline for strategic material “southern support”. The Japanese army planned a South China Sea ambition centered on Hainan Island, occupied Hainan Island, and integrated it as a key part of its “southern overseas colonies” with the Dongsha, Xisha, and Nansha Islands under its jurisdiction. In the process of implementing this plan, Japan took a series of exploratory actions to evaluate the attitudes of all parties involved in the South China Sea and the forces in the region at the time. The National Government had a relatively clear understanding of this, but it did not receive attention from countries such as the United States, Britain, and France, and they even indulged in its behavior, further fueling Japan’s ambitions to occupy Hainan Island and the South China Sea islands. After occupying Hainan Island and the South China Sea islands, the Japanese army actively promoted the construction of bases as a forward base for the “Imperial Southern Policy”, and further demonstrated its control over the South China Sea through military exercises and other methods. After the war, the Chinese government regained Hainan Island and the South China Sea islands occupied by the Japanese.

10.Japan’sExpansionandBritain’sResponse—CenteringonJapan’sOccupationoftheNanshaIslands

CaiZi(91)

After Japan launched the full-scale invasion of China, Britain became worried that Japan would take over the Nansha Islands in China and continue their “southward advance”. Faced with concerns about the strategic dilemma of the “three-line war”, Britain decided to adopt a joint strategy with Western powers, especially France, to prevent Japan from occupying the Nansha Islands. On March 31, 1939, after Japan announced the annexation of the Nansha Islands, Britain, adhering to the principle of “Mediterranean first, Far East second,” implemented a “l(fā)imited alliance with France to restrain Japan” policy. Diplomatically, Britain joined forces with France to compete against Japan, seeing France as being primarily responsible for confronting Japan in the Nansha Islands, rather than directly resorting to military and economic means. From the second half of 1939 to the spring of 1941, Britain, struggling in a precarious situation, gradually gave up the “l(fā)imited alliance with France to restrain Japan” policy, and allowed Japan to strengthen its control over the Nansha Islands, but did not announce giving up its “rightful claims” to Nansha Islands and Scarborough Shoal, nor did it recognize the legitimacy of Japan’s annexation of the Nansha Islands. The British decision-making and responses regarding the Nansha Islands from 1937 to 1941 reflect the game between Britain and Japan over the Nansha Islands issue after the outbreak of the full-scale invasion of China.

11.“Guidance”or“Command”:TheMilitaryCommittee’sStaffStationedinYunnanfortheBurmaCampaign

LiuChuanji(103)

In the eve of the Pacific War in 1941, the Military Committee of the National Government dispatched a staff team to Yunnan, led by Lin Wei, the deputy chief of the General Staff Department, to assist Kunming’s military camps in strengthening the defense of southern Yunnan and Kunming, as well as supervising the defense construction in western Yunnan. After the Japanese invaded Burma, the staff team followed the Chinese Expeditionary Force to Burma for combat, and became a staff organization that directly served as the chief of staff of the Chinese war zone, Stilwell. After the defeat in the Burma Campaign, the staff team returned to Yunnan to assist Kunming’s military camps in deploying operations in western Yunnan and summarizing the experience and lessons of the Burma Campaign. There were different opinions on the role played by the staff team in the battle when the Expeditionary Force first entered Burma and its responsibility for the combat failure. According to various historical facts, although the staff team was ordered to command troops to directly resist the Japanese army when Lashio was in a critical situation, its main task was to undertake military liaison and combat guidance, and its responsibility for the battle failure should not be overemphasized.

12.MakingChina’sVoiceHeard”:AStudyofthelettersfromtheNanjingNationalGovernmenttotheCommissionofInquiryoftheLeagueofNations

SongSuqiang(115)

After the September 18th Incident, the Nanjing National Government formulated and submitted a large number of letters to respond to the Commission of Inquiry of the League of Nations’ visit to China. These letters, numerous in quantity, rich in content, and powerful in argument, became an important channel for the Chinese side to expose the truth of the Sino-Japanese problem and explain China’s position and views to the Commission of Inquiry and the international community. They formed an important link in the chain of evidence for the Commission of Inquiry’s report on the September 18th Incident and the Sino-Japanese conflict, helped the Commission of Inquiry form a comprehensive understanding of the Sino-Japanese dispute, and made relatively objective and fair conclusions on key issues. However, based on practical factors and considerations of various interests, the Commission of Inquiry’s report eventually proposed a solution for autonomy in Northeast China under international intervention. Diplomacy of weak nations can only seek opportunities in the gaps of great power games. This was the constraint that the Nanjing National Government’s letters to the Commission of Inquiry and its dependency on the League of Nations diplomatic strategy could not break through under the historical circumstances of that time.

13.MaterialWarandProtractedWar:StudyonJapan’sMaterialControloverWuhanduringtheWarofResistanceAgainstJapan

LuJiazhen(126)

With the formation and development of the protracted war situation, the significance of the economic war between China and Japan, especially the material war, continued to be highlighted. The Japanese military government utilized Wuhan’s economic characteristics to develop and implement corresponding material control policies based on “self-sufficiency on the spot” as a core element in Japan’s military aggression towards China. Japan’s material war launched in Wuhan mainly relied on requisitioning of civilian materials. To save military expenses, the Japanese army forcibly purchased Wuhan’s materials at low prices, implemented restrictions on material transportation, disrupted the normal flow of materials, resulting in the increasingly scarce supply of materials in Wuhan and the hardships of people’s lives. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, with the development and growth of anti-Japanese base areas, the material war launched by the Japanese military government gradually led to failure.

【English abstracts translated by Cai Dandan】