Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2019

 

The North China Autonomy Movement and the Political Choices of Local Forces(Abstract)

 

He Jiangfeng

 

The North China autonomy movement was the combined product of internal affairs and foreign policy. It was not only an important step in Japan’s plan to nibble away North China and invade the whole country, but also the result of political disarray in North China and the intensification of conflict between the central and the local governments against the background of the Kuomintang government’s appeasement of Japan after He-Umezu Agreement. The local power-holders in North China faced twofold pressure, from the Japanese and from the Kuomintang government. In order to maintain their power, they agreed to appease Japan while retaining dissimilar attitudes toward the central government. Geopolitics became an important variable affecting the political choices of the different forces. In addition, Japanese encroachment and the Kuomintang government’s vacillation over its Japan policy intensified the structural contradictions between the central and the local governments amid the external pressure of Japanese aggression, forming a key factor that rendered it hard for the Kuomintang to assert its control of North China.