MVP ARCHIVE HISTORY | Manchurian Incident 1931–1933 / The Manchurian Incident - A Single Event That Changed the Course of a Nation
MVP ARCHIVE HISTORY > Manchurian Incident 1931–1933 / The Manchurian Incident - A Single Event That Changed the Course of a Nation
The Manchurian Incident - A Single Event That Changed the Course of a Nation
On September 18, 1931, the tracks of the South Manchuria Railway were blown up near Liutiaohu, on the outskirts of Mukden (present-day Shenyang) in Northeast China.
Japan's Kwantung Army initiated military action, claiming this was an attack by the Chinese side.
However, the bombing was planned and executed by the Kwantung Army itself, and the damage to the tracks was limited. Train operations were soon resumed.
Using this Liutiaohu Incident as a pretext, the Kwantung Army occupied Mukden and subsequently expanded its military operations into Northeast China.
In 1932, Manchukuo was established, and in 1933, Japan announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations.
The Manchurian Incident was a process in which local military forces acted beyond the policies of the Japanese government, the government was unable to stop the military-created fait accompli, and ultimately, national policy adapted to that reality.
Exceptional actions initiated in the field succeeded, and by having those results retroactively approved, the very decision-making process of the nation was transformed.
Japan's Interests in Manchuria
In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began between Japan and Russia.
Japan secured military superiority in the war, and through the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth it took over the leasehold of the southern Liaodong Peninsula, the railway south of Changchun, and related interests that Russia had obtained from China.
Based on this, the South Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu) was established in 1906.
In addition to railway transport, it developed extensive businesses including coal mines, ports, hotels, and research activities, and along the railway lines, Mantetsu-affiliated lands were formed where Japan held administrative and police authority.
Also, in the southern Liaodong Peninsula, there existed the Japanese leased territory of Kwantung Leased Territory.
The troops stationed to defend these interests were the later Kwantung Army.
In other words, even before 1931, Japan held significant economic, military, and political interests in Manchuria.
Changes in China
The Qing Dynasty collapsed due to the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, and the Republic of China was established.
However, warlord factions existed throughout the country, and political division continued.
By the 1920s, a unification movement centered on the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) progressed.
In 1928, after Zhang Zuolin was assassinated, his son Zhang Xueliang announced his alignment with the Nanjing Nationalist Government, and as Chinese unification progressed, criticism of the special interests held by foreign powers within China intensified.
On the Japanese side, a sense of crisis grew that the interests and security status held in Manchuria might not be maintainable in the future.
Friction between Japan and China over railways, land, and economic activities also expanded.
The Kwantung Army
The Kwantung Army existed as a military organization to defend Japan's
Manchurian interests.However, some Kwantung Army officers began to think that the Manchurian problem could not be solved by merely defending existing interests, and a plan was formed to separate Manchuria from China's political fluctuations and place it under Japanese influence.
Known as the central figures of this were Kanji Ishiwara and Seishiro Itagaki.
What is important is that this plan was not decided as an official national policy of the Japanese government, nor was it executed in accordance with its orders.
September 18, 1931 | The Liutiaohu Incident
On the night of September 18, 1931, the tracks of the South Manchuria Railway were blown up near Liutiaohu on the outskirts of Mukden, and the Kwantung Army began operations as a sabotage act by the Chinese military.
However, it is now clear that the bombing was planned by a portion of the Kwantung Army as a pretext to initiate military action.
The damage to the tracks from the explosion was minor, and trains passed through afterward.
Even so, the Kwantung Army began attacking nearby Chinese military units, Mukden was occupied in a short period, and the incident did not end as a local conflict along the railway line.
The government tried to stop the expansion
The Wakatsuki Reijiro cabinet in Tokyo adopted a policy of not escalating the situation.
However, the Kwantung Army continued its military operations on the ground, creating a significant distortion in Japan's decision-making process.
The expansion of a fait accompli
The Kwantung Army continued to expand its operations, advancing into Jilin and other areas, and by the end of 1931 and the beginning of 1932, it had extended its military actions to the Jinzhou area, bringing the main regions of Manchuria under its control in a short period. What is important here is not just the single point that
an act of insubordination occurred. It is the fact that
results were produced through actions that bypassed the chain of command, and those results were ultimately ratified by the stateことである。
1932 | Manchukuo
In March 1932, Manchukuo was established in the northeastern part of China.
Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, became the chief executive and later the emperor in 1934. The Japanese government recognized Manchukuo in September 1932 through the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol. Japan, and especially the Kwantung Army, held strong influence over key political, military, and administrative areas. The military action that began with the
Manchurian Incident
developed not just into an occupation, but into the formation of a new political system.
The League of Nations
The Chinese government appealed the Manchurian Incident to the League of Nations, and the League of Nations dispatched the Lytton Commission, led by Victor Bulwer-Lytton of the UK, to investigate the facts.
The commission visited Manchuria, China, and Japan, and submitted its report in 1932. The report acknowledged that Japan had special interests in Manchuria and that serious conflicts had existed between Japan and China even before the incident.
On the other hand, it could not accept the Japanese military's actions as legitimate self-defense, nor did it view Manchukuo as a state established through a spontaneous independence movement, so the League of Nations moved toward not recognizing Manchukuo.
1933 | Withdrawal from the League of Nations
In February 1933, the League of Nations General Assembly adopted recommendations based on the Lytton Report, and Japanese representative Yosuke Matsuoka walked out of the assembly hall. In March of the same year, the Japanese government formally notified its withdrawal from the
League of Nations, and after following the procedural steps of the covenant, it officially withdrew in 1935.
Why couldn't it be stopped?
The problem lies not only in the fact that a runaway action occurred, but that the action produced military results, those results were not retracted, and they were ultimately incorporated into national policy.
"Even if you bypass the chain of command, there is a possibility that you will be recognized if you produce results." Even if this is not a documented system, what an organization actually permits and what it ratifies influences subsequent actions.
Success weakens control
Through the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese military gained a track record of significantly changing the nation's international status, which resulted in increasing the military's social and political authority. When the success of the
Manchurian Incident was added to this, if one looks only at the result of having militarily seized a vast region in a short period, the Kwantung Army's judgment might even appear correct. However, for the nation as a whole, while military results were achieved, the government's ability to control the military gradually declined.
Local rationality
From the perspective of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, there was a unique rationality in acting before China's unification progressed and pressure on Japanese interests intensified. Viewed as a military organization, it also seems rational to eliminate potentially hostile forces and place railways and interests in a secure state.
However, a nation does not exist solely through military power. Diplomacy, finance, economy, international relations, domestic politics, and future war risks.
A rational judgment for one department is not necessarily rational for the nation as a whole was shown very clearly by the Manchurian Incident.
Deterioration of Japan-China Relations
Even after the establishment of Manchukuo, the conflict between Japan and China did not end.
In 1933, the Operation Rehe was carried out, and the Tanggu Truce was concluded.
However, opposition to Japan within China grew even stronger.
Meanwhile, in Japan, the maintenance of Manchukuo and policies toward northern China became new diplomatic and security issues, and by securing Manchuria,new problems arose in maintaining the secured Manchuria.
Toward the Second Sino-Japanese War
In July 1937, a clash between the Japanese military and the Chinese military occurred near the Marco Polo Bridge on the outskirts of Beijing.
This was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.Initially a localized military clash, the fighting expanded and developed into the Second Sino-Japanese War.
It was not the case that the developments after 1937 were predetermined as of 1931.
However, because of the
Manchurian Incident, the Japanese military's presence on the Chinese mainland, the political system of Manchukuo, the conflict between Japan and China, the relationship between Japan and the international community, and the decision-making structure of the military and government all changed.
Archive Point
The Manchurian Incidentis a series of events in which the Kwantung Army expanded its military operations into northeastern China, triggered by the Liutiaohu Incident on September 18, 1931, leading to the establishment of Manchukuo.
In the background, there were interests such as the South Manchuria Railway and the Kwantung Leased Territory that Japan had acquired through the Russo-Japanese War and the Treaty of Portsmouth, as well as political changes within China and the conflict between Japan and China, but there are other reasons why the Manchurian Incident became a major turning point in modern Japanese history.
Although the Japanese government initially indicated a policy of non-expansion, the Kwantung Army expanded its military operations, and once a fait accompli was formed through military success, the government could not stop the results and ultimately incorporated them into national policy.
Manchurian Incident, actions that appeared rational locally and produced results in the short term changed the entire national control structure and the conditions for subsequent choices.
Manchurian Incident is not only a history of war, but also a history that left behind the problem of how an organization handles 'successful exceptions'.
MVP ARCHIVE HISTORY > Manchurian Incident 1931–1933 / The Manchurian Incident - One Incident That Changed the Course of a Nation
