Below are excerpts from a report on the Chinese Communists prepared by the War Department’s Military Intelligence Division in August 1945 and published in 1952 by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in its report on the loss of China:
Hmmmm... 1952. You mean when we were at the Height of McCarthyism Crazy and all seeing Communists under our beds? When people were all trying to save their careers by screaming, "We didn't screw this up?"
Hmm, I guess you didn't notice that the Military Intelligence Division's report was written in
August 1945. Truman's cronies had the report suppressed. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee published it as part of the committee's report on the loss of China. Do you only read every fourth or fifth word of replies?
So your response to all the massive evidence that government committees documented about the role of Communist agents and sympathizers in the loss of China--your response is just going to be to fall back on the liberal talking point about "McCarthyism" and the "paranoid 1950s"? Hmm, interesting. Are you ever going to address the evidence that was presented, which included the Venona decrypts and former Communists who defected and identified such FDR-Truman officials as Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, John Stewart Service, Owen Lattimore as Soviet agents or sympathizers, etc., etc.?
As I've documented, the Chinese Communists won because Truman and Marshall repeatedly sabotaged the Nationalists and saved the Communists from defeat when they were facing annihilation by the Nationalists. For all of their corruption and incompetence, the Nationalists were better than the Communists. China would have been far better off under Nationalist rule or under split Nationalist-Japanese rule than under Communist rule.
Anyway, mainly for the sake of others, let's deal with your repeated nonsense about Japan's presence and intervention in Manchuria and China. Let's take a look at what the League of Nations' Lytton Commission had to say about Japan's involvement in China and Manchuria as of 1931.
After describing the dominance of war lords in a large area of China, the Lytton Commission discussed the Communist state that existed in China as of 1931, the fact that Japan had suffered more than any other foreign nation from the lawless conditions that prevailed over most of China, and the fact that Japan was not the only nation that was not prepared to relinquish her treaty-granted special powers and privileges until law and order and stability had been established in China:
Communism in China not only means, as in most countries other than the U.S.S.R., either a political doctrine held by certain members of existing parties, or the organization of a special party to compete for power with other political parties. It has become an actual rival of the National Government. It possesses its own law, army, and government, and its own territorial sphere of action. For this state of affairs there is no parallel in any other country. . . .
So far as Japan is China’s nearest neighbor and largest customer, she has suffered more than any other Power from the lawless conditions described in this chapter. Over two-thirds of the foreign residents in China are Japanese, and the number of Koreans in Manchuria is estimated at about 800,000. She has more nationals, therefore, than any other Power, who would suffer if they were made amenable to Chinese law, justice, and taxation under present conditions.
Japan felt it impossible to satisfy Chinese aspirations so long as satisfactory safeguards to take the place of her Treaty rights could not be hoped for. Her interests in China, and more especially in Manchuria, began to be more prominently asserted as those of the other major Powers receded into the background. Japan’s anxiety to safeguard the life and property of her subjects in China caused her to intervene repeatedly in times of civil war or of local disturbances. . . .
This issue, however, though affecting Japan to a greater extent than other Powers, is not a Sino-Japanese issue alone. China demands immediately the surrender of certain exceptional powers and privileges because they are felt to be derogatory to her national dignity and sovereignty. The foreign Powers have hesitated to meet these wishes as long as conditions in China did not ensure adequate protection of their nationals, whose interests depend on the security afforded by the enjoyment of special Treaty rights. (pp. 22-23)
The Lytton Commission also provided a useful review of the history of Manchuria and the involvement of foreign powers there, including the relations between China and Manchuria and the wars between the Nationalists and Manchuria’s war lord. The commission’s review is sanitized and incomplete, but it contains enough factual information to be useful. Here is an excerpt from it:
Manchuria, so largely dependent on cooperation, was destined, for reasons already indicated, to become a region of conflict: at first between Russian and Japan, later between China and her two powerful neighbors. . . . Exceptional treaty rights were acquired in the first instance by Russia at the expense of China. Those which concerned South Manchuria were transferred to Japan. The use of these privileges so acquired became more and more instrumental in furthering the economic development of South Manchuria. (p. 24)
Although Marshal Chang Tso-lin and the Kuomintang had been allies in the wars against Win Pei-fu, the former himself did not accept the doctrines of the Kuomintang. He did not approve of the constitution as desired by Dr. Sun [the first Nationalist leader]. . . .
In 1928, he [Chang Tso-lin] suffered defeat at the hands of the Kuomintang Army in their Northern Expedition referred to in Chapter I, and was advised by Japan to withdraw his armies into Manchuria before it was too late. The declared object of Japan was to save Manchuria from the evils of civil war which would have resulted from the entry of a defeated army pursued by its victors. . . .
After the death of Marshal Chang Tso-lin, his son, Chang Hsueh-liang, became the ruler of Manchuria. He shared many of the national aspirations of the younger generation, and desired to stop civil warfare and assist the Kuomintang in its policy of unification. As Japan had already experience with the policy and tendencies of the Kuomintang, she did not welcome the prospect of such influence penetrating into Manchuria. The young Marshal was advised accordingly. (p. 29)
But the Young Marshal decided to become an ally of the Nationalists (the Kuomintang) in 1928. The Lytton Commission, to its credit, noted that his union with the Kuomintang was only partial and purely voluntary, and that the Manchurian government routinely ignored any Nationalist law or policy that it didn’t like. (Indeed, later on, the Young Marshal betrayed Chiang to the Communists and allowed them to capture him.) Said the commission,
As regards domestic affairs, the Manchurian authorities had retained all the power they wanted, and they had no objection to following administrative rules and methods adopted by the Central Government so long as the essentials of power were not affected. (p. 31)
But after the Young Marshal entered into his tenuous, nominal union with the Kuomintang in 1928, Nationalist operatives flooded Manchuria with anti-Japanese propaganda and began various measures to persecute Japanese citizens and subjects (Koreans) living in Manchuria, such as pressuring Chinese landlords in Manchuria to raise rents on Japanese tenants and even to refuse to renew their rental contracts. Said the commission,
However, after the union, Manchuria was opened to well-organized and systematic Kuomintang propaganda. In its official party publications and numerous affiliated organs, it never ceased to insist on the primary importance of the recovery of lost sovereign rights, the abolition of unequal treaties, and the wickedness of imperialism. . . . They [the Nationalists] stimulated and intensified the nationalist sentiment and carried on anti-Japanese agitation. Pressure was brought to bear on Chinese house-owners and landlords to raise the rents of Japanese and Korean tenants, or to refuse renewal of rent contracts. . . . Korean settlers were subjected to systematic persecution. Various orders and instructions of an anti-Japanese nature were issued. Cases of friction accumulated and dangerous tension developed. (p. 30)
Keep in mind that at the time, Korea was part of Japan. With the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910, and with the consent of England and America, Korea became a territory of Japan. So “Koreans” were Japanese subjects, many of whom considered themselves Japanese and aspired to attain full Japanese citizenship.
Also, note that this Nationalist persecution of Japanese citizens and subjects in Manchuria occurred years before a single Japanese soldier entered China without treaty authorization. The only Japanese soldiers in China at this time were there by internationally recognized treaty right to protect Japanese holdings, citizens, and subjects living in China, especially in Shanghai. America, England, Germany, and France likewise had contingents of troops in China to protect their interests and citizens there.
The Lytton Commission, again to its credit, provided a fairly decent explanation of Japan’s fear of Russian Communist (Soviet) intervention in Manchuria and China and of why Manchuria was historically and strategically important to Japan:
The Russian Revolution of 1917, followed by the declarations of the Soviet Government of July 25th, 1919, and of October 27th, 1920. regarding its policy towards the Chinese people and, later, by the Sino-Soviet Agreements of May 31st, 1924, and September 20, 1924, shattered the basis of Russo-Japanese understanding and co-operation in Manchuria. This fundamental reversal of policy radically changed the relations of the three Powers in the Far East. Moreover, the Allied intervention (1918–1920). with its aftermath of friction between the Japanese and Soviet forces in Siberia (1920–1922), had accentuated the change in the relations between Japan and Russia. The attitude of the Soviet Government gave a strong impetus to China's nationalistic aspirations. As the Soviet Government and the Third international had adopted a policy opposed to all imperialist Powers which maintained relations with China on the basis of the existing treaties, it seemed probable that they would support China in the struggle for the recovery of sovereign rights. This development revived all the old anxieties and suspicions of Japan towards her Russian neighbor.
This country. with which she had once been at war, had, during the years which followed that war. become. a friend and ally. Now this relationship was changed. and the possibility of a danger from across the North-Manchurian border again became a matter of concern to Japan. The likelihood of an alliance between the Communist doctrines in the North and the anti-Japanese propaganda of the Kuomintang in the South made the desire to impose between the two a Manchuria which should be free from both increasingly felt in Japan. Japanese misgivings have been still further increased in the last few years by the predominant influence acquired by the U.S.S.R. in Outer Mongolia and the growth of Communism in China. (pp. 36-37)
Japanese interests in Manchuria differ both in character and degree from those of any other foreign country. Deep in the mind of every Japanese is the memory of their country's great struggle with Russia in 1901–05, fought on the plains of Manchuria, at Mukden and Liaoyang, along the line of the South Manchuria Railway, at the Yalu River, and in the Liaotung Peninsula. To the Japanese the war with Russia will ever be remembered as a life-and-death struggle fought in self-defense against the menace of Russian encroachments. The facts that a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers died in this war and that two billon gold yen were expended have created in Japanese minds a determination that these sacrifices shall not have been made in vain.
Japanese interest in Manchuria, however, began ten years before that war. The war with China, in 1894–95, principally over Korea, was largely fought at Port Arthur and on the plains of Manchuria; and the Treaty of Peace signed at Shimonoseki ceded to Japan in full sovereignty the Liaotung Peninsula. To the Japanese, the fact that Russia. France and Germany forced them to renounce this cession does not affect their conviction that Japan obtained this part of Manchuria as the result of a successful war and thereby acquired a moral right to it which still exists.
Manchuria has been frequently referred to as the "life-line" of Japan. Manchuria adjoins Korea, now Japanese territory. The vision of a China, united, strong and hostile, a nation of four hundred millions, dominant in Manchuria and in Eastern Asia, is disturbing to many Japanese. But to the greater number, when they speak of menace to their national existence and of the necessity for self-defense, they have in mind Russia rather than China. Fundamental, therefore, among the interests of Japan in Manchuria is the strategic importance of this territory.
There are those in Japan who think that she should entrench herself firmly in Manchuria against the possibility of attack from the U.S.S.R. They have an ever-present anxiety lest Korean malcontents in league with Russian Communists in the nearby Maritime Province might in future invite, or co-operate with, some new military advance from the North. They regard Manchuria as a buffer region against both the U.S.S.R, and the rest of China. Especially in the minds of Japanese military men, the right claimed, under agreements with Russia and China, to station a few thousand railway guards along the South Manchuria Railway is small recompense for the enormous sacrifices of their country in the Russo-Japanese War, and a meagre security against the possibility of attack from that direction. (p. 39)
Until the events of September 1931, the various Japanese Cabinets, since 1905, appeared to have the same general aims in Manchuria, but they differed as to the policies best suited to achieve these aims. They also differed somewhat as to the extent of the responsibility which Japan should assume for the maintenance of peace and order.
The general aims for which they worked in Manchuria were to maintain and develop Japan's vested interests, to foster the expansion of Japanese enterprise, and to obtain adequate protection for Japanese lives and property. In the policies adopted for realizing these aims there was one cardinal feature which may be said to have been common to them all. This feature has been the tendency to regard Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia as distinct from the rest of China. It resulted naturally from the Japanese conception of their country's "special position" in Manchuria. Whatever differences may have been observable between the specific policies advocated by the various Cabinets in Japan—as, for example, between the so-called "friendship policy" of Baron Shidehara and the so-called "positive policy" of the late General Baron Tanaka—they have always had this feature in common. (p. 40)
The Lytton Commission acknowledged that Japan was concerned that the fighting between the Nationalists and Manchuria’s war lord would spill over into Manchuria and that the Japanese, understandably enough, wanted to avoid this:
In the spring of 1928, when the Nationalist armies of China were marching on Peking in an effort to drive out the forces of [Manchuria’s war lord] Chang Tso-lin, the Japanese Government, under the premiership of Baron Tanaka, issued a declaration that, on account of her "special position" in Manchuria, Japan would maintain peace and order in that region. When it seemed possible that the Nationalist armies might carry the civil war north of the Great Wall, the Japanese Government, on May 28th, sent to the leading Chinese generals a communication which said:
"The Japanese Government attaches the utmost importance to the maintenance of peace and order in Manchuria, and is prepared to do all it can to prevent the occurrence of any such state of affairs as may disturb that peace and order, or constitute the probable cause of such a disturbance.
"In these circumstances, should disturbances develop further in the direction of Peking and Tientsin, and the situation become so menacing as to threaten the peace and order of Manchuria, Japan may possibly be constrained to take appropriate effective steps for the maintenance of peace and order in Manchuria."
At the same time, Baron Tanaka issued a more definite statement, that the Japanese Government would prevent "defeated troops or those in pursuit of them" from entering Manchuria. (pp. 41-42)
These frequent clashes between the Nationalists and the Manchurians and the instability and tensions caused by Nationalist anti-Japanese activities in Manchuria were the reason that the Japanese decided that they needed to establish a state in Manchuria and that they needed a buffer zone between Manchuria and China.
