Xi'an Incident | |||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 西安事變 | ||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 西安事变 | ||||||||
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The Xi'an Incident [lower-alpha 1] was a major Chinese political crisis from 12 to 26 December 1936. Chiang Kai-shek,leader of the Nationalist government of China,was placed under house arrest in the city of Xi'an by a Nationalist army he was there to review. Chiang's captors hoped to end the Chinese Civil War and confront Japanese imperial expansion into Chinese territory. After two weeks of intense negotiations between Chiang,his captors,and representatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),Chiang was released with a verbal promise to end the civil war and put up a firmer resistance to Japan.
Before the incident,Chiang Kai-shek had followed a strategy of "first internal pacification,then external resistance" that entailed eliminating the CCP before confronting Japanese aggression. This strategy was deeply unpopular among many groups in China,including the Northeastern Army tasked with suppressing the main Communist base in Yan'an. The Northeastern Army was mainly composed of troops exiled from Manchuria after that region was invaded by Japan in 1931. Northeastern Army soldiers and officers had also begun to fraternize with the Communists and were convinced of the need for a united Nationalist-Communist front against Japan.
The commanders of the Northeastern Army,Generals Chang Hsüeh-liang and Yang Hucheng,decided to kidnap Chiang after the latter refused repeated entreaties to change his policies. Chang invited Chiang to come review the Northeastern Army,and after Chiang arrived,had him placed under house arrest at the Huaqing Pool complex. Some radical army officers wanted Chiang executed,but both Chang and the CCP strongly opposed such a move. They wanted to pressure Chiang into changing his policies instead. Zhou Enlai led the Communist negotiating team,which after two weeks agreed to release Chiang. Although Chiang publicly repudiated the verbal promises he made in Xi'an,a ceasefire was declared and talks with Zhou continued. The rapprochement between the Communists and Nationalists outraged the Japanese,and eventually helped lead to the Second Sino-Japanese War. The full-scale Japanese invasion hastened the formal joining of the two Chinese factions in the Second United Front.
In 1931,the Empire of Japan escalated its aggression against China through the Mukden Incident. Japanese troops then occupied Northeast China. General Chang Hsüeh-liang,who had succeeded his father as head of the Fengtian clique and Northeastern Army in that region,was widely criticized for this loss of territory. In response,Chang temporarily resigned from his position and went on a tour of Europe. [1]
Chang's father had been assassinated by Japan in 1928. [2] : 32 Over time,Chang came to view Chiang as ignoring the threat of Japan because of Chiang's focus on opposing the Communists. [2] : 32
In the aftermath of the Northern Expedition in 1928,China was nominally unified under the authority of the Nationalist government in Nanjing. Simultaneously,the Nationalist government enacted the Shanghai massacre and purged members of the CCP in the Kuomintang,effectively ending the alliance between the two parties. [3] Beginning in the 1930s,the Nationalist government launched a series of campaigns against the CCP. In the meanwhile,the impending war against Japan led to nationwide unrest and surge of Chinese nationalism. [4] Consequently,the campaigns against the Communist Party were becoming increasingly unpopular. Chiang,fearing the loss of Kuomintang leadership in China,continued the civil war against the CCP despite lacking popular support. [5]
By late 1935 the Communists had narrowly avoided destruction on their Long March and had begun to establish themselves in a new base area on the border between Gansu and Ningxia provinces. They were besieged by a number of nationalist armies,including the Northwestern Army under Yang and the Northeastern Army,to which Chang was re-assigned as commander after his return from a tour of Europe. [6] [7] The Nationalist armies initially gave no notice to the Communist exhortations for war against Japan,but this began to change because of the Red Army's "eastern expedition" from February to April 1936. The Communists declared that they were sending a detachment through Shanxi to fight the Japanese in Rehe and Hubei. Letting the Red Army through would have broken the encirclement,so Yan Xishan stopped them by force. Although defeated militarily,the Red Army had convinced the Shanxi peasantry of their patriotism and gained 8,000 new recruits on their retreat. Chang was likewise impressed and began to see them as potential allies rather than foes. When Mao announced on March 14 that the Communists were willing to conclude a truce,Chang covertly agreed. [8] He proposed to Chiang Kai-shek that he reverse the Nationalist policy of prioritizing the purge of Communists,and instead focusing on military preparation against Japanese aggression. [9] After Chiang refused,Chang began to plot a coup in "great secrecy". [10] By June 1936,the secret agreement between Chang and the CCP had been successfully settled. [11]
In November 1936,Chang asked Chiang to come to Xi'an to raise the morale of troops unwilling to fight the Communists. [12] After Chiang agreed,Chang informed Mao Zedong,who called the plan "a masterpiece". At Xi'an,Chiang stayed in his resort headquarters at the Huaqing Pool complex. [13] On 12 December 1936,bodyguards of Chang and Yang stormed the cabin where Chiang was sleeping. Chiang was able to escape but suffered an injury in the process. He was eventually detained by Chang's troops in the morning. [12] [14]
As conflicting reports of the events reached the capital,the Nationalist government was sent into disarray. [9] The response to the coup from high-level officials was divided. The Military Affairs Commission led by He Yingqin recommended a military campaign against Xi'an,and immediately send a regiment to capture Tongguan. [15] Soong Mei-ling and Kong Xiangxi were strongly in favor of negotiating a settlement to ensure the safety of Chiang. [16]
A faction of the army led by Yang Hucheng and the radical young officers of the "Anti-Japanese Comrade Society" wanted to execute Chiang,but Chang and the Communists insisted that he be kept alive in order to maintain the possibility of a united front. [17] [18] They argued that an alliance with Chiang was their best chance to combat the Japanese,while killing him would only provoke retaliation from the Nanjing Government. [10] The Northeastern Army sent a telegram to Nanjing explaining to the Chinese public why they had arrested Chiang and the 8 demands they had for his release. These included an immediate end to civil war against the CCP,expulsion of pro-Japanese factions from the Nationalist government,and the adoption of an active anti-Japanese military stance. They attempted to broadcast these demands publicly,but Nationalist censorship prevented their publication outside the Communist-held areas. [19] [20]
On 16 December,Zhou Enlai and Lin Boqu arrived in Xi'an to represent the CCP in negotiations. At first,Chiang was opposed to negotiating with a CCP delegate,but withdrew his opposition when it became clear that his life and freedom were largely dependent on Communist goodwill towards him. [19] [20] Influencing his decision was also the arrival of Madame Chiang on 22 December,who had travelled to Xi'an hoping to secure his speedy release,fearing military intervention from factions within the Kuomintang. On 24 December,Chiang received Zhou for a meeting,the first time the two had seen each other since Zhou had left Whampoa Military Academy over ten years earlier. Zhou began the conversation by saying:"In the ten years since we have met,you seem to have aged very little." Chiang nodded and said:"Enlai,you were my subordinate. You should do what I say." Zhou replied that if Chiang would halt the civil war and resist the Japanese instead,the Red Army would willingly accept Chiang's command. By the end of the meeting,Chiang promised to end the civil war,to resist the Japanese together,and to invite Zhou to Nanjing for further talks. [19] Chiang was released on 26 December and returned to Nanjing with Chang Hsüeh-liang. [21]
After Chiang returned to Nanjing,he announced a cease fire in the civil war. However,he also repudiated any promises that he had made in Xi'an. He had Chang imprisoned and charged with treason. [22] : 53 Chiang then sent 37 army divisions north to surround the Northeastern Army and force them to stand down. The army was deeply divided on the appropriate response. Yang Hucheng and the Anti-Japanese Comrade Society wanted to stand and fight if the KMT army attacked,and refuse to negotiate until Chang was released. The Communist representatives strongly disagreed and cautioned that civil war would,in the words of Zhou Enlai,"make China into another Spain". [21] Negotiations between the CCP and Nanjing continued. However,when a conference of Northeastern officers in January 1937 overwhelmingly resolved not to surrender peacefully,the CCP reluctantly decided that they could not abandon their allies and pledged to fight alongside them if the KMT attacked. The situation was again reversed when the five most senior Northeastern generals met separately and decided to surrender. The radical officers were enraged and assassinated one of the generals on 2 February,but this only turned the majority of the soldiers against the plan to stand and fight. [23] The Northeastern Army peacefully surrendered to advancing KMT forces and was divided into new units,which were sent to Hebei,Hunan,and Anhui. [24] Yang Hucheng,however,was arrested and eventually executed, [25] while the leaders of the Anti-Japanese Comrade Society defected to the Red Army. Chang was kept under house arrest for over 50 years before emigrating to Hawaii in 1993. [26]
The rapprochement between the Communists and Nationalists outraged the Japanese,and eventually helped lead to the Second Sino-Japanese War. [27] This in turn hastened the two Chinese factions into formalizing their alliance as the Second United Front. [26]
The Xi'an Incident was a turning point for the CCP. Chiang's leadership over political and military affairs in China was affirmed,while the CCP was able to expand its own strength under the new united front,which played a role in the Chinese Communist Revolution. [28]
Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader. He was the head of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party, General of the National Revolutionary Army, known as Generalissimo, and the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) in mainland China from 1928 until 1949. After being defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, he led the ROC on the island of Taiwan until his death in 1975.
Chang Hsueh-liang, also romanized as Zhang Xueliang and known later in life as Peter H. L. Chang, was a Chinese warlord who ruled Manchuria from 1928 to 1936 and the commander-in-chief of the Northeastern Army after the assassination of his father, Zhang Zuolin. A reformer who was sympathetic to nationalist ideas, he completed the official reunification of China at the end of the Warlord Era by pledging loyalty to the Nationalist government in Nanjing. He nonetheless retained Manchuria's de facto autonomy until the Empire of Japan invaded and occupied the region in 1931. He was frustrated by Chiang Kai-shek's policy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance" and helped plan and lead the 1936 Xi'an Incident. Northeastern soldiers under Chang's command arrested Chiang to force him to negotiate a Second United Front with the Chinese Communist Party against Japan. Chiang eventually agreed, but upon his release he had Chang arrested and sentenced to 50 years of house arrest, first in mainland China and then in Taiwan. Although never personally a communist, Chang is regarded by the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China as a patriotic hero for his role in ending the encirclement campaigns and beginning the war of resistance against Japan.
Zhou Enlai was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and aided the Communist Party in rising to power, later helping consolidate its control, form its foreign policy, and develop the Chinese economy.
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party, with armed conflict continuing intermittently from 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949, resulting in a Communist victory and control of mainland China in the Chinese Communist Revolution.
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The Northeastern Army, also known as the Fengtian Army, was a Chinese army that existed from 1911 to 1937. It was created by General Zhang Zuolin and his "Fengtian Clique", who controlled Northeastern China (Manchuria) during China's Warlord Era. The Northeastern Army participated in many of the Warlord Era's conflicts and by the mid-1920s had become the dominant force in north China. However, the Kuomintang defeated the Northeastern Army and Zhang's allies during the Northern Expedition. In 1928, Zhang Zuolin was assassinated and succeeded by his son Zhang Xueliang. Xueliang pledged loyalty to the Kuomintang, bringing almost all of China under the same national government for the first time since 1917.
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The Shanghai massacre of 12 April 1927, the April 12 Purge or the April 12 Incident as it is commonly known in China, was the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations and leftist elements in Shanghai by forces supporting General Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions in the Kuomintang. Following the incident, conservative KMT elements carried out a full-scale purge of communists in all areas under their control, and violent suppression occurred in Guangzhou and Changsha. The purge led to an open split between left-wing and right-wing factions in the KMT, with Chiang Kai-shek establishing himself as the leader of the right-wing faction based in Nanjing, in opposition to the original left-wing KMT government based in Wuhan, which was led by Wang Jingwei. By 15 July 1927, the Wuhan regime had expelled the Communists in its ranks, effectively ending the First United Front, a working alliance of both the KMT and CCP under the tutelage of Comintern agents. For the rest of 1927, the CCP would fight to regain power, beginning the Autumn Harvest Uprising. With the failure and the crushing of the Guangzhou Uprising at Guangzhou however, the power of the Communists was largely diminished, unable to launch another major urban offensive.
Li Kenong was a Chinese general and politician, one of the creators of the security and intelligence apparatus of both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army. Notably, he served as Director of the Central Investigation Department, Deputy Chief of the PLA General Staff Department and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and was awarded the rank of General in 1955.
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The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social and political revolution that culminated in the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. For the preceding century, China had faced escalating social, economic, and political problems as a result of Western imperialism, Japanese imperialism, and the decline of the Qing dynasty. Cyclical famines and an oppressive landlord system kept the large mass of rural peasantry poor and politically disenfranchised. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed in 1921 by young urban intellectuals inspired by European socialist ideas and the success of the October Revolution in Russia. The CCP originally allied itself with the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party against the warlords and foreign imperialist forces, but the 1927 massacre of Communists in Shanghai ordered by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek forced them into the Chinese Civil War, which would last more than two decades.
The Xi'an Incident is a 1981 Chinese historical drama film directed by Cheng Yin (成荫), starring Jin Ange, Wang Tiecheng and Sun Feihu. It was produced by the Xi’an Film Studio (西安电影制片厂) and seeks to be a historically accurate representation of the 1936 Xi'an Incident.
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