Chiang resists Kwangtung Army in Manchuria from 1931 - Japan Climbs Down or Doubles Down on War?

[raharris1973]

Tokyo-based civilian and military officials opposed early Japanese
aggression in Asia, but did not enforce their policy preferences on
commanders in the field.

Instead, they allowed the forward commanders, especially in the
Kwangtung Army, to present them with a fait accompli. As these faits
accompli were successful, Tokyo's objections lessened, and the
prestige and boldness of aggressive militarists increased.

However, it seems Chiang judged that resisting Japan would be counter-
productive. In China, local commanders in Manchuria for instance felt
like Chiang Kaishek was deliberately sabotaging their attempts to
resist, and that he was certainly unsupportive. Apparently, regardless of whether Chiang saw Japan's moves as rogue, or centrally directed, he assumed that any reaction or resistance
would be more likely to escalate rather than quell Japanese
aggression.

What if Chiang Kai-shek instead calculated that the Kwangtung Army was
violating Tokyo's policy, and that what Tokyo needed to get control of
its forces was to have the costs and ineffectiveness of KA land-grabs
to be demonstrated, and this caused him to try to crush the incursion?

In the case, is the more likely result Tokyo pulling in
the horns of the Kwangtung Army or its Navy, or is it escalation to
fullscale war between Japan and China in the early 1930s?

 

[raharris1973]

OK, so it is 24 hours into the poll, and immediate escalation to war in 1931 is beating out Japanese restraint in 1931 by 5:1.

Do we similarly have more folks ready to champion and articulate their view that escalation is likely, in a post, than we have folks ready to say the Japanese might rein it in?

 

[raharris1973]

Looking at the alternative possibilities, I have not decided which extreme I think is more likely.

However, I can sketch out what an escalated war would look like with greater ease than I could sketch out a Japanese stand-down.

If Japan doubles down in the face of Chiang Kai-shek's defiance and resistance on the spot from Zhang Xueliang and others, the first step will be to reinforce the Japanese forces in southern Manchuria with troops from the Kwangtung Army, Korea Army and in some months the home army.

At the same time, fighting, as in OTL, would break out in Shanghai by 1932, and Chiang Kaishek will probably commit alot of central government forces on that front.

Chiang would benefit from a burst of nationalist enthusiasm and unity. The Soviets will quickly direct the Chinese Communists to pursue a United Front and provide assistance from their scattered base areas [at this time they have forces much closer to Shanghai and the South China Coast than to Manchuria] and stop calling for the overthrow of Chiang's regime. Chiang will have no choice but to accept their support.

Chiang's forces will have enthusiasm, and when combined with warlord forces, numbers, but they will be lacking in the weapons and tactical training they got from the Germans during the 1930s, which probably means an increase in unforced battlefield errors against the Japanese early on.

The Japanese, for their part, have a smaller Army and even military-industrial base to start with at the outset, and will take time to mobilize. Operationally, they will be forced to commit to the Shanghai front as well as Manchuria, leading to eventual operations up the Yangtze.

Since this general war is starting before Manchuria is completely and thoroughly occupied, Japanese forces may be occupying points around the Beijing-Tianjin corridor and Shandong before even finishing the subjugation of Manchuria. Japan should have no problem though surviving Chinese counterattacks and increasing their occupation zones on all fronts. As in OTL, they'll expand eventually to occupy the major rail-lines and cities of the coastal provinces.

Chiang will keep his regime based in the Yangtze, retreating upriver as he has to in order to survive.

The Japanese, since they are still escalating will probably still try to break off a separatist Manchukuo. But, since this morphs into general war throughout all China in short order, there is a small chance they do not, and instead their political strategy involves trying to set up an all-China puppet government. Even so, such a regime would be unlikely to have substantial Chinese support.

Since Japan is escalating and angry at the impudence of the Chinese in resisting, the safe bet is that they are going to be as atrocity-prone as in OTL's 1937-1945 war. However, subtle differences in Japan's political-military-cultural evolution at this early stage might mean their forces are less atrocity prone and retain some of their prior professional behavior toward civilians. There may be more vigorous parliamentary debate in Japan over the this early war than OTL's war, because liberals and peace advocates may not be as cowed as they were by the middle-late-1930s.

The Sino-Japanese war poses security threats but also provides economic and political opportunities to third parties.

The western powers are concerned about their concessions.

Japan will be upping its purchases of metals and POL from the US and others. I do not know enough specifics about the development of Japanese manufacturing between 1931 and 1937 to be sure, but with a war 6 years early there is a chance that Japan also might buy more finished weapons and aircraft abroad.

The Germans and others will find a market for their weapons in China of course, so the German training mission, which I think already existed in 1931, might expand faster. The Japanese attack will also lead to Soviet-Chinese rapprochement. The Soviets, while seeking to definitely avoid war themselves, will provide aid to the Chinese.

The demands of China and Japan to fuel their war efforts are going to mean more people in many places abroad making some money. I do not think enough to reverse the Depression, but for some countries, firms, individual the rock bottom of the Depression might not be quite so low as OTL.

Any thoughts on this scenario?

Or the opposing scenario, where Japan gets more cautious about poking the Chinese hornet's nest?

Checking in on the poll, as of now, the ratio of votes for escalation versus deescalation is now 3:1 instead of 5:1 in favor of escalation.

 

[Caucus-Ruso-Persian]

I picked the doubling down,
to put in my 2 cents really short and sweet,
earlier Rape of Nanking.

 

[Alanith]

So how bad for Japan is a 1935-1936 Pacific War?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Japan is as vulnerable in 1931 to economic sanctions, as in 1941. In 1905 the threat of the loss of credit in US banks helped persuade Japan to negotiate with the Russians. Either Roosevelt or Hoover could think economic pressure would work again.

 

[BobTheBarbarian]

I don't think the Japanese would permit an all-out war at that time (the Tanggu truce after the Manchuria invasion demonstrated the Emperor's worry about a full-blown conflict erupting, and they pulled back after the first battle of Shanghai in 1932).

 

[raharris1973]

I don't think the Japanese would permit an all-out war at that time (the Tanggu truce after the Manchuria invasion demonstrated the Emperor's worry about a full-blown conflict erupting, and they pulled back after the first battle of Shanghai in 1932

So can we flesh out how Japan deals with Chinese resistance in and on the border of Manchuria, aided and abetted by the Chinese central government, which is also running a nationwide boycott of the Japanese and frantically arming? What is happening in Japanese politics if Army officers feel patriotic soldiers are being hamstrung by the home government? Does the Emperor/Cabinet/service high command reestablish hierarchical obedience and discipline among the midranking officers and below?

Japan is as vulnerable in 1931 to economic sanctions, as in 1941. In 1905 the threat of the loss of credit in US banks helped persuade Japan to negotiate with the Russians. Either Roosevelt or Hoover could think economic pressure would work again.

Is Hoover going to do this while his economy is imploding in Depression? Is FDR going to make economic sanctions part of his "1st 100 Days"?

Even if so, in 1905 Japan may have reacted to financial limitations (& frankly military limitations) with compromise.

In 1941 Japan was certainly affected by economic sanctions, but not in the desired way. She struck out and widened her war instead of halting it or reversing it.

Assuming Hoover or Roosevelt do play the sanctions card in the 1931-1934, where will Japan's reaction fall on the spectrum between the two extremes of their 1905 restrained reaction and their 1941 reckless reaction?

So how bad for Japan is a 1935-1936 Pacific War?

If an all-out China war continues I wonder what would happen. I think Japan does not have the kind of temptation to attack all western possessions in 1935-36 like they did in 1941-42 because the western powers, and Soviet Union, are not tied down in occupation and war.

Within China itself, I would expect that if Japan is committing its full effort, Chiang has been pushed back to Chungking or beyond by this point and is considerably worn down. Meanwhile, Communist forces would have established additional bases behind Japanese lines (even if they too, have suffered many casualties). Even if the Communists are suffering many casualties, they have a decent presence in rural pockets of every populated region of China.

In 1936 while theoretically Japan could be getting embargoed and desperately expanding the war, other things could be happening. Japanese could have driven Chinese forces from the field and taken the provincial capitals and be settling in for a long indeterminate counterinsurgency and military/naval recapitalization phase.

Or, by 1936, the process of the Japanese wrecking the Chinese could be really far along, but the Japanese have exhausted themselves doing it, and with the situation in Europe not quite critical yet, the Soviet Union might judge it is time to intervene at the expense of China and Japan.

 

[BobTheBarbarian]

So can we flesh out how Japan deals with Chinese resistance in and on the border of Manchuria, aided and abetted by the Chinese central government, which is also running a nationwide boycott of the Japanese and frantically arming? What is happening in Japanese politics if Army officers feel patriotic soldiers are being hamstrung by the home government? Does the Emperor/Cabinet/service high command reestablish hierarchical obedience and discipline among the midranking officers and below?

The Japanese didn't feel they were strong enough for a general war with China in 1931-33, so an offensive measure undertaken by mid-level officers hoping for ex post facto approval would be countermanded by IGHQ and possibly by the Emperor directly, both of whom would have to deal with the embarrassing political ramifications. An Imperial rebuke would probably be enough on its own to bring the Kwantung Army to heel, and may or may not lead to the perpetrators either being reassigned or quietly dismissed.

Now, if the Chiang Kai Shek government actively opened offensive operations against the Japanese, or provided large amounts of "combat advisers" to anti-IJA warlords in the north, then it would be difficult to justify not getting involved. A simmering guerrilla war along the Tanggu DMZ in which local forces bear the brunt of the fighting is probably the most the KMT can get away with while maintaining plausible deniability.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...



Is Hoover going to do this while his economy is imploding in Depression? Is FDR going to make economic sanctions part of his "1st 100 Days"?

The popularity of tariffs in some powerful quarters, the Smoot-Hawley Act, and growing anti foreigner/Asian sentiments would conspire to support economic sanctions. One of the things causing the economy to implode in that era was the fairly large number of people who thought economically destructive actions to actually benefit the US economy.

Even if so, in 1905 Japan may have reacted to financial limitations (& frankly military limitations) with compromise.

In 1941 Japan was certainly affected by economic sanctions, but not in the desired way. She struck out and widened her war instead of halting it or reversing it.

Assuming Hoover or Roosevelt do play the sanctions card in the 1931-1934, where will Japan's reaction fall on the spectrum between the two extremes of their 1905 restrained reaction and their 1941 reckless reaction?

This is really difficult to predict, I'm lacking far to many details on Japanese politics and the leaders of the era to make any guesses. If the Japanese see negotiation as a route to consolidate the present gains, and allow retrenchment for the next round in five or ten years, then they may respond as expected to sanctions. Otherwise they don't & a larger war draws closer.

A close look at the size and logistics capability of the IJA of 1931 is useful at this point. How capable would it have been in fighting the disparate armies of fragmented China of 1931?

 

[raharris1973]

Japan experts - ho! Anybody on the board have a good handle on the evolution of Japanese Army TO&E from 1931-1937?

I suspect the Naval OB is better known in most parts. Navally, Japan would be much weaker.

In the air, I am not sure if the Japanese had yet converted from biplanes to monoplanes.

 

[raharris1973]

Now, if the Chiang Kai Shek government actively opened offensive operations against the Japanese, or provided large amounts of "combat advisers" to anti-IJA warlords in the north, then it would be difficult to justify not getting involved. A simmering guerrilla war along the Tanggu DMZ in which local forces bear the brunt of the fighting is probably the most the KMT can get away with while maintaining plausible deniability.

But that is OTL, at least for the 1931-1933 era, and even at a low simmer in 35 & 36. So in the OP I intended it to be certainly combat advisors up the wazoo to any resisters in Manchuria, if not central army deployments, and vigorous counter-offensive reaction to any Japanese move on non-concession Chinese soil. (IE, I am not mandating Chiang orders the overrunning of the South Manchuria railway zone.

 

[BobTheBarbarian]

But that is OTL, at least for the 1931-1933 era, and even at a low simmer in 35 & 36. So in the OP I intended it to be certainly combat advisors up the wazoo to any resisters in Manchuria, if not central army deployments, and vigorous counter-offensive reaction to any Japanese move on non-concession Chinese soil. (IE, I am not mandating Chiang orders the overrunning of the South Manchuria railway zone.

The original takeover of Manchuria happened quickly and came as a surprise to the Chinese. Large-scale KMT operations there probably were not possible. More vigorous opposition to subsequent IJA nibbling was more feasible militarily but not politically: At that time Chiang's main power base was in Central and Southern China, and it took the all-out Japanese invasion in 1937, with its wave of atrocities including the sack of the capital Nanjing, for the country to finally become unified.

 

[David T]

Japan is as vulnerable in 1931 to economic sanctions, as in 1941. In 1905 the threat of the loss of credit in US banks helped persuade Japan to negotiate with the Russians. Either Roosevelt or Hoover could think economic pressure would work again.

Hoover was quite firmly against economic sanctions. He was willing to cooperate with the League in "moral pressure" (and even that was going further than the US had gone before--there was a time during the Harding administration when the US didn't even answer correspondence from the League!) but that was all. As he explained it:

"The whole transaction is immoral. The offense against the comity of nations and the affront to the United States is outrageous. But the Nine-Power Treaty and the Kellogg Pact are solely moral instruments based upon the hope that peace in the world can be held by the rectitude of nations and enforced solely by the moral reprobation of the world. We are not parties to the League of Nations, the covenant of which has also been violated.

"The problem lies in three parts:

"First, this is primarily a controversy between China and Japan. The United States has never set out to preserve peace among other nations by force and so far as this part is concerned we shall confine ourselves to friendly counsel. In this connection we must remember some essentials of Asiatic life. Time moves more slowly there ; political movements are measured in decades or centuries not in days or in months ; that while Japan has the military ascendancy today and no doubt could take over parts or all of China, yet the Chinese people possess transcendent cultural resistance ; that the mores of the race have carried through a dozen foreign dynasties over three thousand years ; that the Chinese are ten to one in population. No matter what Japan does, in time they will not Japanify China, and if they stay long enough they will be absorbed or expelled by the Chinese. For America to undertake this on behalf of China might expedite it but would not make it more inevitable.

"There is something on the side of Japan. Ours has been a long and deep-seated friendship with her and we should in friendship consider her side also. Suppose Japan had come out boldly and said:

" *We can no longer endure these treaties and we must give notice that China has failed to establish the internal order these treaties contemplated. Half her area is Bolshevist and co-operating with Russia, the government of Manchuria is in the hands of a military adventurer who ignores the Chinese Government, and China makes no effort to assert her will. That territory is in a state of anarchy that is intolerable. The whole living of our people depends upon expanding the sales of our manufactures in China and securing of raw materials from her. We are today almost economically prostrate because there is no order in China. Beyond this with Bolshevist Russia to the north and a possible Bolshevist China on our flank, our independence is in jeopardy. Either the signatories of the Nine-Power Pact must join with us to restore order in China or we must do it as an act of self -preservation. If you do not join we consider we cannot hold to an obligation around which the whole environment has changed."

"America certainly would not join in such a proposal and we could not raise much objection.

"Second, our whole policy in connection with controversies is to exhaust the processes of peaceful negotiation. But in contemplating these we must make up our minds whether we consider war as the ultimate if these efforts fail. Neither our obligations to China, nor our own interest, nor our dignity require us to go to war over these questions.

"These acts do not imperil the freedom of the American people, the economic or moral future of our people. I do not propose ever to sacrifice American life for anything short of this. If that were not enough reason, to go to war means a long struggle at a time when civilization is already weak enough. To win such a war is not solely a naval operation. We must arm and train Chinese. We would find ourselves involved in China in a fashion that would excite the suspicions of the whole world.

"Third, we have a moral obligation to use every influence short of war to have the treaties upheld or terminated by mutual agreement. We should co-operate with the rest of the world ; we should do so as long as that co-operation remains in the field of moral pressures. As the League of Nations has already taken up the subject, we should co-operate with them in every field of negotiation or conciliation. But that is the limit. We will not go along on war or any of the sanctions either economic or military, for those are the roads to war." https://archive.org/stream/foreignpolicieso011105mbp/foreignpolicieso011105mbp_djvu.txt

Could Hoover have gone further than "moral pressure" and non-recognition? Secretary of State Stimson wanted him to--but I really doubt that public opinion would have allowed it. The US was preoccupied with the deepening Depression, and the Hearst press headline probably summed up American attitudes toward the Far East crisis: "WE SYMPATHIZE. BUT IT IS NOT OUR CONCERN." https://books.google.com/books?id=Kig4DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA213 As Richard Hofstadter once observed, if Hoover had taken a belligerent stand against Japan, critics would be quick to say that he was trying to distract public attention from his failures in dealing with the Depression.

And besides, US sanctions alone would probably have little effect unless joined by other nations. Sir John Simon sure didn't sound like he was anxious to confront Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon,_1st_Viscount_Simon

 

[raharris1973]

Hearst was quite the ill timed jackass on this one. I think his papers had all been into Japan war scares from 1906 to 1913, but when Japan was actually distinguishing itself with aggression in the 1930s, his papers were suspicious of intervention.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hoover was quite firmly against economic sanctions. He was willing to cooperate with the League in "moral pressure" (and even that was going further than the US had gone before--there was a time during the Harding administration when the US didn't even answer correspondence from the League!) but that was all. As he explained it:

...

Could Hoover have gone further than "moral pressure" and non-recognition? Secretary of State Stimson wanted him to--but I really doubt that public opinion would have allowed it. The US was preoccupied with the deepening Depression, and the Hearst press headline probably summed up American attitudes toward the Far East crisis: "WE SYMPATHIZE. BUT IT IS NOT OUR CONCERN." https://books.google.com/books?id=Kig4DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA213 As Richard Hofstadter once observed, if Hoover had taken a belligerent stand against Japan, critics would be quick to say that he was trying to distract public attention from his failures in dealing with the Depression.

And besides, US sanctions alone would probably have little effect unless joined by other nations. Sir John Simon sure didn't sound like he was anxious to confront Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon,_1st_Viscount_Simon

Thanks for that. It illustrates in part the confused foreign policy thinking of the US at large in the interwar years. While Japanese intrusion into China ramped up, with negative economic implications for the US Hoover continued with deployment of US military in Latin America, and kept both US Army and Marine regiments stationed in China, along with a robust Asiatic naval squadron. I don't think the China lobby of 1931 had the same sort of growth and traction as the warhawks of 1940, but Japan has half the vote in this, having the potential to make their China Incident of 1931 such that it can't be ignored or waived away.

 

[raharris1973]

US Hoover continued with deployment of US military in Latin America

To be fair, he did start the drawdown from Latin America that later flowered into FDR's "Good Neighbor" policy of minimizing direct intervention in the region.

 

[Anti-GrammarNazi]

I think you need a POD where China get more German trained divisions to give a bloody nose to Japan, enough to cause a Tokyo reign in.

OTL China simply was not in a position to make Japan reconsider by military might, you need to make China stronger.

 

[Vae Victus]

Gotta agree with the Nazi

Yea an earlier 1920s Western European military mission is needed methinks for KMT China to be strong enough to have their version of Khalkin Gol.

Maybe more unemployed military vets setting off to the Far East to make their fortunes ala Meiji Period Japan. Various warlords or KMT itself, hiring batches of em in order to up the quality of their levies. Thus setting off arms sale race among Western nations to see who gets to be the main supplier of arms for the country.

Then by 1931 when shenanigans start the initial probing moves get blunted.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...
Maybe more unemployed military vets setting off to the Far East to make their fortunes ala Meiji Period Japan. Various warlords or KMT itself, hiring batches of em in order to up the quality of their levies. Thus setting off arms sale race among Western nations to see who gets to be the main supplier of arms for the country.

...

There were actually quite a few of those. ...and most of them were not very good. China was littered with White Russian Army officers in that era. All desperate for a income. The Warlords and their generals used some of them, but were largely jealous of their position and discouraged their patrons from hiring many of them.