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The was an international incident created by a blockade by the Imperial Japanese Army's Japanese Northern China Area Army of the British settlements in the north China treaty port of Tientsin (modern day Tianjin) in June 1939. Originating as a minor administrative dispute, it escalated into a major diplomatic incident. ==Background== Starting in 1931 with the seizure of Manchuria, Japan had a policy of attempting to reduce Chinese independence with the ultimate aim of placing all of China within the Japanese sphere of influence. Britain's relations with China had not been particularly warm or close before the mid-1930s, but the rise of Japan had improved relations between London and Nanking. The British historian Victor Rothwell wrote: "In the middle 1930s, if China had a Western friend it was Britain. In 1935-36 Britain gave China real help with its finances and showed real concern about Japanese encroachments in north China. Realising that the only hope of inducing Japan to moderate these activities lay in an Anglo-American joint front, Britain proposed that a number of times, but was always rebuffed by Washington."〔Rothwell, Victor ''The Origins of the Second World War'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 page 143.〕 In turn, improved Anglo-Japanese ties had strained relations between London and Tokyo. On July 30, 1937, Tientsin fell to the Empire of Japan as part of a military operation in the Second Sino-Japanese War, but was not entirely occupied, as the Japanese for the most part continued to respect the integrity and extraterritoriality foreign concessions in Tientsin until 1941. In December 1937, Japanese took Shanghai, China's business capital. This was a major blow to the government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek as 85% of all Chinese government revenue came from Shanghai.〔Rothwell, Victor ''The Origins of the Second World War'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 pages 140.〕 After the loss of Shanghai, the economic ability of China to continue to resist Japan was very much in doubt. Flush with a series of Japanese victories in China, in early January 1938, the Japanese Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoe announced a set of sweeping "non-negotiable" war aims that would have transformed China into a virtual protectorate of Japan's if implemented.〔Weinberg, Gerhard ''Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II'', New York: Enigma Books, 2013 page 419.〕 Since the beginning of the war in July 1937, the Japanese had taken much of northern China including the former capital of Beijing while in the Yangtze valley, they had taken Shanghai and China's capital, Nanking. After taking Nanking on 14 December 1937, the Japanese had perpetrated the infamous Rape of Nanking, where the Imperial Army had gone on a rampage of arson, looting, torture, rape and murder that destroyed Nanking and killed somewhere between 200, 000-300, 000 civilians.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 pages 334-335〕 After these victories, Konoe regarded the war as good as won. Ominously for the Chinese, Konoe spoke of the status of Manchukuo as the ideal basis for a Sino-Japanese peace. Sometimes Konoe went even further and mentioned the protectorate that the Japanese had imposed on Korea in 1905 (which had been followed up by Korea's annexation in 1910) as an ideal basis for peace. Whether Manchukuo or Korea was the model of new relationship with Japan, Konoe was quite open that the Chinese would have to accept a subordinate position to Japan if the war were ever to end to Japan's satisfaction. Konoe's terms for making peace were so extreme and harsh that even the Japanese military objected to them on the grounds that Chiang would never accept peace on such humiliating terms.〔 The German Foreign Minister, Baron Konstantin von Neurath-who was attempting to mediate a compromise peace between China and Japan as the ''Reich'', which had friendly relations with Japan and China did not wish to choose between the two-complained upon seeing Konoe's peace terms that these were so intentionally outrageous and humiliating demands that they seemed to be designed only to inspire rejection on Chiang's part.〔 Konoe's main demands were that China recognise Manchukuo, sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, allow Japanese officers to command the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, allow Japanese troops to remain indefinitely in all the areas of China they had occupied, and pay reparations to Japan.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 page 344.〕 In regards to the latter, China was not only to pay the entire costs of the war run up by Japan, but also a punitive amount so that the Chinese people might reflect on the folly of seeking to challenge the might of Japan. Konoe had deliberately chosen extreme war aims in order to sabotage any effort at a diplomatic compromise and thereby ensure that the war could end with Japan winning a total victory over China with the destruction of Chiang's government.〔 Because of Konoe's speech, for Japan to achieve anything less than his "non-negotiable" war aims would seem like a defeat. As Chiang immediately in a speech of his own rejected Konoe's war aims as the basis for making peace, Japan would had to win a decisive victory in China to see the Konoe programme implemented, which was Konoe's intention all the long.〔Weinberg, Gerhard ''Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II'', New York: Enigma Books, 2013 pages 419-420.〕 On 16 January 1938, Konoe gave a speech announcing once more his "unalterable" commitment to achieving his programme, and further announced that since Chiang had rejected his peace terms, the Japanese government was now committed to the destruction of Chiang's government.〔Weinberg, Gerhard ''Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II'', New York: Enigma Books, 2013 page 420.〕 On 18 January 1938 Konoe made another speech in which he frankly admitted to seeking unacceptable peace terms so that Japan might achieve his real goal of seeking to "eradicate" Chiang's government off the face of the earth.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 page 345〕 Japan would never make peace with a China led by Chiang, which meant a compromise peace was now impossible, and Japan would have to win a total victory over China.〔 As the Chinese government retreated deep into the interior of China, this posed major logistical problems for the Japanese Army, who simply could not project the sort of power into the interior of China to win the "total victory" that Konoe programme required. The Japanese Army, which understood the logistical problems of attempting to conquer such a vast country as China far better than Konoe ever did, had objected to the Konoe programme for precisely that reason; it committed Japan to winning a total victory over China that Japan did not have the power to achieve while at the same time making anything less than the achievement of the Konoe programme seem like a defeat for Japan.〔 In July 1938, Japan launched an offensive intended to capture Wuhan, and finally win the war.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 page 348〕 The summer offensive of 1938 succeeded in taking Wuhan, but the Japanese failed to destroy the core of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, who retreated further up the Yangtze.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 pages 348-349〕 After the Wuhan offensive, the Imperial Army informed Tokyo that the troops in the central Yangtze valley were at the end of a long, tenuous and very overstretched supply line, and no further advances up the Yangtze were at present possible.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 page 349〕 Unable to win the final victory on the battlefield, the Japanese turned to bombing as an alternative, launching an all-out bombing campaign intended to raze the temporary capital of Chongqing to the ground.〔Fenby, Jonathan ''Chiang Kai-Shek Chiana's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost'', New York: Carroll and Graf, 2004 pages 350-354〕 Japanese bombing destroyed Chongqing while killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but failed to break the Chinese will to resist.〔 Another alternative Japanese approach to victory in China was the establishment in November 1938 of a puppet government under Wang Jingwei, the leader of the Kuomintang's left-wing who had lost out to Chiang in the succession struggle following the death of Dr. Sun Yat-sen out of the hope this would lead to an exodus of Kuomintang leaders to Wang's government and thereby cause the collapse of Chiang's government.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 page 347〕 However, the refusal of the Japanese to give Wang any real power discredited his government as a puppet regime in the eyes of the vast majority of the Chinese people.〔 At the same, time, Dai Li, the much feared chief of the Chinese secret police had began a policy of sending undercover operatives into the areas of China occupied by the Japanese to assassinate collaborators and Japanese officials.〔Fenby, Jonathan ''Chiang Kai-Shek Chiana's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost'', New York: Carroll and Graf, 2004 page 348.〕 Sometimes working closely with Triad gangsters (Dai was a close friend and business partner of the crime lord Du Yuesheng aka "Big Eared Du", the leader of the Green Gang triad), Dai's men were responsible for hundreds of assassinations during the Sino-Japanese war.〔 Between August 1937-October 1941, Juntong agents were responsible for about 150 assassinations of Chinese collaborators plus 40 Japanese officers in Shanghai alone (Chinese collaborators who lived amongst the Chinese population were much easier to kill than Japanese officers who tended to stick to their barracks).〔Wen-hsin Yeh "Dai Li and the Liu Geqing Affair: Heroism in the Chinese Secret Service During the War of Resistance" pages 545-562 from ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', Volume 48, Issue #3 August 1989 page 552.〕 Undercover Juntong agents tended to be young men who graduated from provincial schools rather than universities (the ultra-conservative Dai was contemptuous of intellectuals whom he felt were exposed to too much Western influence for their own good) and were usually skilled in martial arts; above, Juntong agents were expected to be unconditionally loyal and willing to die for the cause at all times.〔Wen-hsin Yeh "Dai Li and the Liu Geqing Affair: Heroism in the Chinese Secret Service During the War of Resistance" pages 545-562 from ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', Volume 48, Issue #3 August 1989 pages 547-548 & 550.〕 With the war stalemated and Japan unable to win a decisive victory in China, Tokyo increasingly placed its hopes for victory on the economic disintegration of Chiang's government. This was not an unreasonable hope, given that the western regions in the upper Yangtze river valley around Chongqing were one of the most poorest and backward regions in China, and thus incapable of providing the necessary economic base for sustaining the huge costs needed to fight a modern war.〔 Furthermore, Japanese atrocities, most infamously the Rape of Nanking in December 1937 had sent 12 million Chinese civilians fleeing up the Yangtze river valley in the largest movement of refugees yet seen in world history to escape the Japanese. All of these people required shelter, food and often medical treatment. By 1938, the Chinese government was caught in a "scissors crisis" between the enormous expenditure required to fight the war, and a rapidly plummeting tax base.〔 Between 1937-39, Chinese government spending rose by a third while tax revenue fell by two thirds.〔 Faced with a lack of funds to continue the war, Chiang started to engage in increasing desperate measures to raise revenue such as organising sales of opium via Hong Kong and Macau in an operation overseen by Dai and Du.〔 That the Kuomintang government was prepared to run the risk that the opium shipments via Macau and Hong Kong be intercepted by the either ''Policia de Segurança Pública de Macau'' or Hong Kong police-thereby running the risk of a public relations disaster-reflected the need for money. The Chinese Finance Minister H. H. Kung simply printed more and more money, leading a spiral of hyper-inflation, leading to the worse case of hyper-inflation yet seen in the world.〔 The inflation seriously undermined the Chinese war effort as Chinese soldiers and civil servants were paid in worthless yuan.〔 It was at this point that Britain made a series of loans to China intended to stabilize the ''yuan''. The British government subscribed to what one might call a 1930s version of the "domino theory", where if Japan took control of China, then inevitably Japan would follow that up with attacking Britain's Asian colonies and the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand.〔Rothwell, Victor ''The Origins of the Second World War'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 pages 142-143〕 As such, the Chamberlain government while unwilling to go to war with Japan, was not prepared to accept a Japanese victory over China either.〔Rothwell, Victor ''The Origins of the Second World War'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 page 141〕 From the viewpoint of London, it was much preferable that Japan remain embroiled in China rather attacking Australia, New Zealand or any of the British possessions in the Far East. The British Ambassador in China, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr reported to London that unless Britain gave China loans to continue the war, then the economic collapse of Nationalist China that the Japanese were banking on might very well occur. Starting in late 1938, Britain made a series of loans to China, to allow Chiang to continue the war.〔 By 1939, the Chinese government had received loans worth £500, 000 pound sterling from Britain, which provided Chiang with some badly needed money to continue the war.〔 Furthermore, starting in March 1939 the British government began to an effort to stabilize the yuan by offering government guarantees to British banks who made loans to Kuomintang China and who took in Chinese silver as collateral.〔Lee, Bradford ''Britain and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1939: A Study in the Dilemmas of British Decline'', Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 1973 pages 163-164〕 Thanks to the guarantees, British banks lent China some £5 million, a step which the Japanese government publicly denounced as a "frontal attack" on the "New Order" in Asia that the Imperial government was attempting to build.〔Lee, Bradford ''Britain and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1939: A Study in the Dilemmas of British Decline'', Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 1973 pages 165〕 The British loans to China greatly offended the Japanese, who believed if only the British would cease their financial support of China, they would finally win the war.〔Bix, Herbert ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', New York: Perenial, 2001 page 352〕 In Japanese eyes, it was the British effort to stabilize China's currency and thereby preventing the complete economic collapse of China was the only thing standing between them and the total victory required by the Konoe programme.〔 Since the loans to China were guaranteed by the British government, the Chinese silver as collateral was not strictly necessary from economic point of view, but it was felt from a public relations point of view that it was necessary for the Chinese to put up collateral as the British people might otherwise disapprove of their government guaranteeing loans to a country with chaotic finances like China. At the same, both the United States and the Soviet Union also made loans to the Kuomintang government, again with the aim of keeping Japan embroiled in China. The Americans lent China some $45 million starting in December 1938 while the Soviet Union lent a sum of rubles equivalent to $250 million US.〔Rothwell, Victor ''The Origins of the Second World War'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 page 141.〕 In order to persuade the Soviets not to supporting China, the Japanese began a border war with the Soviet Union in 1938-1939 that was to end with the Japanese being badly defeated by the Red Army at the battle of Nomonhan in August 1939.〔 ==The Assassination of Cheng Hsi-keng== In the summer of 1939, a major crisis in Anglo-Japanese relations occurred with the Tientsin Incident. On April 9, 1939 Cheng Hsi-keng, the manager of the Japanese-owned Federal Reserve Bank of North China was assassinated by Chinese nationalists at Tientsin's Grand Theatre.〔Watt, D.C. ''How War Came'', New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 page 351〕 The bomb attack that killed Cheng also killed several innocent bystanders who had the misfortune to be sitting close to him in the theatre.〔 The Japanese accused six Chinese men living in the British concession of being involved in the assassination.〔Watt, D.C. ''How War Came'', New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 page 352〕 The local British police force arrested four of the six, and handed them over to the Japanese with promises that they would not be tortured and would be returned to British custody within the next five days.〔 Under torture, two of the four confessed to being involved in the assassination.〔 Although the confessions were obtained by torture, the local British police concluded that the accused were involved in the assassination.〔 Once the four men returned to British custody, Madame Soong Mei-ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek admitted to the British Ambassador in Chongqing, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr that the accused assassins were Chinese operatives involved in resistance work, and lobbied Clark-Kerr to prevent the accused being returned and executed by the Japanese.〔 The local British consul, Mr. Jamieson, had not kept London well-informed on the details of the case, especially the fact that he had promised the Japanese that he would hand over the accused assassins.〔Watt, D.C. ''How War Came'', New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 page 353〕 The British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, hearing that the confessions had been obtained by torture, ordered that the accused assassins should not be handed back to the Japanese.〔 The commander of the Japanese North China Army, General Masaharu Homma, was regarded as friendly by the British, but his Chief of Staff, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, was known to be a believer in abolishing all the Western concessions in China.〔Watt, D.C. ''How War Came'', New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 pages 351 & 353–354〕 Since early 1939, General Yamashita had advocated ending the British concession in Tientsin, and he used the British refusal to turn over the alleged assassins to convince his superiors in Tokyo to order a blockade of the concession.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tientsin incident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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