Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

232 • SINO–JAPANESE WAR
fighting against each other and declared war on each other. Fighting
took place primarily in Korea and in the Manchurian province of
China. Japan’s modernized forces defeated China’s ill-equipped
forces. With the Shimonoseki Treaty, China was forced to pay a large
indemnity, cede Taiwan to Japan, and allow several other Japanese
economic and military concessions. With the Triple Intervention of
Russia, Germany, and France, Japan was forced to give up one of the
major gains from the Shimonoseki Treaty, the Liaotung Peninsula. See
also ITO, HIROBUMI; MEIJI ERA; RUSSO–JAPANESE WAR.
SINO–JAPANESE WAR (1937–1945). The China Incident (Sino–
Japanese War) raged for eight years, from 1937 until 1945. It started
with a small skirmish on the Marco Polo Bridge (just west of Peking)
on 7 July 1937. In the immediate aftermath of this skirmish, the cabinet
of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe was confronted with a choice: it
could seek to force an armistice agreement by militarily chastising the
Chinese, or it could adopt a conciliatory policy toward the Chinese and
in so doing smooth Japan’s relations with the great powers. Konoe’s
cabinet chose the former course, in the apparent belief that Chinese
leader Chiang Kai-shek would back down if confronted by a preponderance
of force. This was the first in a litany of disastrous policy options
that characterized Japanese efforts to end the China Incident.
By the end of 1938 most major cities in China had fallen into
Japanese hands. Even so, Chiang Kai-shek’s refusal to surrender confronted
Japan with a quandary of mammoth proportions. There was
no conceivable end to the war, and Japan’s national strength was
draining away in the quagmire. All the while, Japan’s reliance on the
United States for precious resources—particularly oil—was increasing.
Washington offered a timely reminder of this fact when, in July
1939, it announced its intention to abrogate the U.S.–JAPAN
TREATY OF COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.
In the hope of bringing an end to the China Incident, in March 1940,
Japan helped establish a collaborationist regime in Nanjing. Headed by
Wang Ching-wei, a prominent government official who had parted
company with Chiang Kai-shek and had chosen instead the path of cooperation
with the Japanese, the establishment of the Nanjing regime
did little to extricate Japan from China. Fighting continued, as did
guerilla attacks within those regions under Japanese control. Japan’s re-