English Contents and Abstracts

1.TheCPC’sResistanceagainstJapanintheOccupiedAreaofSouthernChinaduringtheWarofResistanceagainstJapan

ZuoShuangwen(4)

During the War of Resistance against Japan, the CPC in South China came to realize the importance of launching the resistance campaign in the occupied area, which was not only a result of implementing the instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the Southern Bureau of CPC, but also the result of local effort. In October 1938, the CPC-led resistance against Japan officially began after the fall of parts of Southern China. On one hand, the armed forces of the resistance against Japan were established and expanded through the guerrilla warfare in Baoan Dongguan, Shunde, Zhongshan, Zengcheng, Qiongya and other places. On the other hand, they gradually resumed work in cities in the occupied areas such as Guangzhou, sent competent personnel to the occupied areas for establishing strongholds and fighting against the Japanese puppet regimes and even planned to capture Guangzhou through cooperation with other armed forces. However, due to the rapid changes in the political situation, this plan failed to be realized.

2.TheFightandNegotiationbetweentheKMTandCPCintheCountyofLongdongduringtheWarofResistanceagainstJapan

LiuDejun(15)

The good faith of cooperation between the KMT and CPC had been eroded all the time by their disparity in power, the divergence of ideas, the conflicts of interests, the lack of trust and the emotional estrangement. The conflict between the CPC’s pursuit of development and the KMT’s desire to restrain CPC’s development eroded the cooperation between the two sides, and intensified their friction and battling for the county territory, which also tested the flexibility and endurance of the KMT-CPC cooperation. The Longdong Incident was the political struggle between KMT and CPC via the military forces during the war of resistance against Japan. The Longdong Office of the Kuomintang and the county government used the “administrative unification” as an excuse to restrict the Eight Route Army’s mass movement in the county territory of Longdong by means of the military friction and demarcation negotiations, attempting to expel the Eighth Route Army’s military presence in this area at the least political cost to achieve the final goal of restricting the CPC’s development, taking over the achievements of the mass movement by the Eighth Route Army, reducing the CPC’s Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border area and fundamentally negating the legitimacy of the Shaan-Gansu-Ningxia border area.

3.TheSaltIndustryDevelopmentandtheImprovementofPeople’sLivelihoodintheShaanxi-Gansu-NingxiaBorderAreaduringtheWarofResistanceagainstJapan

FuChao(34)

During the War of Resistance against Japan, the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Area took the development of salt industry as an important means and effective way to boost the economy and improve people’s livelihood. It mobilized the people to carry out a salt production movement, develop the transportation industry, transport and sell salt to the outside regions in exchange for supplies in need. In the meantime, the government closely linked the development of the salt industry with the improvement of people’s livelihood, continuously strengthened the management of salt production, transportation and sales, and actively promote the well-being of the people, which gathering together the people’s strength of all ethnic groups in the border area to participate in the war and promote the social progress.

4.SeveralCharacteristicsandFacetsoftheNationalGovernment’sTrialofJapaneseWarCriminalsaftertheVictoryoftheWarofResistanceagainstJapan

YanHaijian(43)

Unlike the Trial of Class-A war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the National Government’s trial of Japan’s Class-B and Class-C war criminals had a distinctive feature of “indigenization”. To hold a trial of war criminals in the place where they had committed the atrocities facilitated the participation of Chinese people as victims in all aspects of the trial, so that the victims’ claims for justice could be realized. The adherence to the centralism of evidence by the National Government in the trial of Japanese war criminals not only had the external binding force from the norms of international trial, but also reflected the self-discipline of the Chinese court. The National Government’s trial of Japanese war criminals was quite international. The impression and observation from the International community invisibly formed an external norm to ensure the court’s fairness. Meanwhile, since the trial of war criminals did not involve the compensation for damages in the sense of private law, the goal of people’s claims was simply limited to the symbolic justice rather than actual benefits, and hence the trial avoided becoming the revenge of disorder.

5.TheNationalGovernment’sEstablishment,AbolishmentandChangesoftheCourtfortheTrialofJapaneseWarCriminals

CaoLuxiao(55)

The National Government established 10 military courts after the War of Resistance against Japan to try Japanese war criminals. During the preparation and operation of the trials, the names and entities of these courts changed. The National Government originally planned to establish 15 military courts across the country. However, due to frequent setbacks in arresting war criminals, 5 courts were eventually cancelled. To improve the efficiency of handling war criminals in Northeast China, the National Government made two attempts to add Changchun Court, yet these attempts had to be dropped due to the civil war. Since the beginning of its establishment, the Shanghai Tribunal was sharing the work for the Military Tribunal of the Ministry of National Defense in Nanjing, and during this process, these two tribunals gradually had quite similar functions and finally merged into one. The establishment, abolishment and changes of military courts reduced the efficiency of trials, reflecting the National Government’s weakness and helplessness in dealing with postwar issues such as the trial of war criminals.

6.SelectedTranslationsofReportsaboutNanjingMassacreonBritishandAmericanPublications

ShiChengMaZhongling(65)

After Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out, the progress of the Sino’Japanese War became an important source of news for the western press. As the Capital of the Chinese National Government, Nanjing was the focus of attention. To cover the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, reporters from the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, Chicago Daily News and other Western media chose to stay and left Nanjing only a few days after its fall. More than a dozen Americans who stayed in Nanjing also passed on their diaries and letters to the outside world. American and British newspapers therefore had many reports on the Nanjing Massacre. The author selected three articles published on the Literary Digest, Ken and the Manchester Guardian for translation and introduction.

7.CommentsontheActivitiesoftheJapanChamberofCommerceandIndustryinNortheastChina

MengErzhuang(72)

After the Russo-Japanese War, the Chambers of Commerce and industry composed of Japanese industrialists and businessmen were successively set up in various parts of Northeast China. These chambers were nominally non-governmental economic organizations, yet they were strongly dependent on the Japanese government. With the funding and guidance of the Japanese government, the Chambers of Commerce and Industry continuously expanded Japan’s economic power in the Northeast China and served Japanese invasion and occupation. With the deepening of Japanese invasion into the Northeast China, the Chambers of Commerce and Industry continued to politicize economic issues and urged the Japanese government to make hard-line approach in this area. Especially during the Mukden Incident, it took the initiative to join the forces serving the Kwantung Army’s invasion of Northeast China, and became an accomplice of the Japanese invasion of China. Analyzing the establishment and activities of these Chambers of Commerce and Industry and their relationship with the Japanese government will reveal the essence of modern Japanese non-governmental economic organizations in China and understand modern Japan’s all-round and multi-domain preparation for the war of aggression against China, offering a new perspective to understand how Japanese non-governmental economic organizations and Japanese industrialists and businessmen participated in the Japanese invasion of China.

8.Japan’sPlunderingoftheSaltTaxinNortheastChinaaftertheMukdenIncidentandtheResponseofVariousParties

WengMin(83)

After the Mukden Incident, in order to maintain the huge war expenses and destroy the unification of China’s Salt administration, Japan violated the international public law and the treaty of the League of Nations, grabbed the salt tax and occupied the auditing organs for the salt affairs in Northeast China. Since the salt tax was a large amount of revenue for the finance in Northeast China and was also related to the guarantee of foreign debt, Japan’s plunder directly affected China’s debt servicing capacity and the implementation of the arrangement plan of foreign debt in 1929. The foreign economic rights was also harmed. Based on their own interests, the countries concerned urged Japan to remit part of the salt tax amortized for foreign debt to Shanghai as scheduled on one hand, and carried out the policy of appeasement on the other hand. The National Government in Nanjing also made all kinds of efforts such as submitting memorandum to the Inquiry Commission of the League of Nations, seeking for international intervention and negotiating with Japan, but failed to prevent the salt tax of Northeast China from completely falling into the hands of Japan and the puppet regime it supported, which however had become an important factor for the National Government to launch a new round of reform in salt administration and the rearrangement of foreign debts.

9.TheBroadcastinChinesebytheDalianBroadcastingBureauofJapanduringJapaneseInvasionofChina

LiangDexueWangCuirong(93)

The “Dalian Broadcasting Bureau” is the first “official” broadcasting station set up in China by Japan and the latest one to go off the air. Its development process basically shows the complete broadcast history of Japan’s invasion of China. For over ten years before Japan launched its full-scale war of aggression against China, the broadcasting bureau basically ignored the Chinese audience and included only a small number of Chinese programs among the Japanese programs. Around the period when Japan launched its war of aggression, the broadcast contents of the broadcasting bureau had undergone structural changes, namely, instead of targeting the Japanese only, it also opened a broadcast program in Chinese for the Chinese people living in “Kwantung Leased Territory” to promote the enslaving education, propaganda and war mobilization. However, based on the actual listening rating , it seems that it only served as a recreational program to get the attention of Chinese listeners, which shows the “selective contact” or “selective attention” of Chinese listeners towards the contents promoted and manipulated by the colonial rulers. It also shows that due to the injustice of Japan’s colonial rule of “Kwantung Leased Territory” and the conscious or unconscious resistance of Chinese people out of the national sentiment, Japanese colonial broadcasting couldn’t fully exert its effect as expected.

10.ThePoliticalCeremony,NationalIdentityandMobilizationfortheWarofResistanceagainstJapan:AStudyCenteringonPeople’sFlagPresentinginNorthwesternChina(1938-1945)

ShangJifangXianJuanjuan(103)

During the total war of resistance against Japan, the government agencies and organizations across China organized delegations to present flags to the generals and KMT leaders for their resistance. Flag presenting has become a special symbolic act during the period of national calamity. It is an effective exercise and modern political ceremony to show the authoritarian system and national identity, strengthen the cohesiveness of the Chinese nation and mobilizes the war of resistance. KMT officials at all levels actively participated in the flag-presenting ceremony in order to strengthen their “party-governance” authority, shape the people’s personality cult of the "state leader" and effectively create a good wartime image of the people, government, head of state and the country, bringing an extensive social mobilization and publicity. The rear area in Northwest China of the war of resistance against Japan was an important strategic space to support the victory of the war. As an important part of the nationwide flag-presenting, the flag-presenting by the people in the Northwestern reflected their vigorous participation in the war of resistance and national salvation. It was a crucial representation of their national identity and attachment to the homeland, which played a positive role in uniting resistance against Japanese invasion of China and seeking the international aid.

11.Cheng-tingWang’sResignationandtheTransformationofPolicyforInternationalPublicity

GongYanyan(121)

After the Mukden Incident, Cheng-ting Wang, the Foreign Minister of National Government in Nanjing, misused the expression of “conflict between the two sides” in the letter of protest, which confused the Incident’s nature and responsibility and provided an excuse for Japan to slander China. The Chinese government and people were overwhelmed with the indignation by this diplomatic incident, which led to Cheng-ting Wang’s resignation. The problems exposed in this incident have prompted all sectors of society to attach greater importance to international publicity than ever before. Taking this as an opportunity, the National Government increased its efforts for international publicity and strengthened the construction of related organizations to lay a foundation for winning worldwide sympathy and support and enhancing its international status during the total war of resistance against Japan.

12.TheEducationthroughDrama:TheDramaReformCampaigninFujianProvinceduringtheTotalWarofResistanceAgainstJapan

ZhangFan(131)

When the War of Resistance against Japan entered the stage of stalemate, the National Government gradually realized the important role of drama in strengthening the publicity for the resistance against Japan and public education, therefore it launched a drama reform campaign in the Kuomintang-controlled areas, among which Fujian Province was an important place. The government strengthened the rectification and control of dramas via multiple measures such as setting up the agencies for censorship, intensifying the censorship procedures, organizing new types of drama groups, promulgating rules for drama performance and directing new dramas for the resistance against Japan. Drama reform achieved certain success in promoting the mobilization and public education. Relevant people also conducted some in-depth discussions and reflections in practice on how to balance the contradiction between the realistic needs for the publicity purpose and for its artistry. All parties concerned have made great efforts to reform drama, however, with the interference of insoluble social issues such as the inefficient censorship and corruptions, etc., only the limited success could be achieved, and it became increasingly hard to continue in the later period of the War of Resistance against Japan.