Ежегодник Япония (Dec 2021)
The Tianjin Incident: The “Far Eastern Munich”
Abstract
In early April 1939, in the territory of the British concession in Tianjin, in North China occupied by the Japanese army, an assassination of a customs inspector, who had collaborated with the invaders, brought already apprehensive relations between Tokyo and London to an unprecedented level of hostility. The Japanese military were enraged by the British authorities’ refusal to surrender the assassins. Often operating at its own discretion in China, the Kwantung Army blocked the concession with a clear intention to shut it down. The incident became a pretext for an effort to restrain the extraterritorial rights of Western countries throughout China. The members of the anti-Japanese resistance used foreign concessions in China as a refuge, and, in the case of Tianjin, to keep the pre-war China national currency in foreign banks. The British could hardly resist the psychological pressure since the Japanese Navy, by that time well-equipped, modern, and numerous, was powerful enough to make it impossible to hope for a successful operation with a small force. Under the blunt and ominous threats from Berlin and the impending war in Europe, London could not dare to redeploy larger forces to the Far East. Chamberlain hesitated in making a decision, not risking to be accused of repeating the Munich agreement, but ultimately sanctioned the actions of the British ambassador to Tokyo, who was strongly determined to appease the Japanese in order to preserve the concession rights. His “compromise” for resolving the conflict was in fact a defeatist formula. It included the recognition of the “force of circumstances” in China, which justified the right of the Japanese military to act in order to ensure its own security. London recognized as improper any actions harmful to the Japanese military and beneficial to its opponents. It was related not only to the Tianjin concession and to the territory around it, but to China as a whole. This formula looked like a “betrayal” of Chiang Kai-shek, defying his resistance to the Japanese. The Tianjin talks were heavily influenced by events in Europe, where Germany’s threats against Poland became increasingly overt, as well as by the stalled Anglo-French-Soviet talks in Moscow over a possible alliance against fascist states. The Soviet-Japanese armed clashes on the border of Mongolia and Manchuria (Nomonhan) were relevant too. At the end of July 1939, Washington’s sudden denunciation of the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan, signed more than 25 years prior, encouraged the British delegate and led to a stalemate in the Tokyo negotiations until the next blow to the Japanese plans to repeat “Munich” in the Far East — a “betrayal” by its ally, Germany. The Soviet-German non-aggression pact and the devastating defeat of Japan at Nomonhan added the final powerful touches to the picture of the Tianjin Incident, fitting into the canvas of world politics a few days before the start of the Second World War.
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