Never Forget Mukden Incident of the 9/18

 

Source: China Times

 

September 18, 2014

 

The Japanese Kwantung Army detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a railway owned by Japan’s South Manchuria Railway near Shenyang, (瀋陽, Mukden in Manchurian language)  and staged the event by putting three Chinese bodies in uniforms of the Northeast China Army (東北軍) on September 18, 1931, as a pretext for invading Manchuria.  The Japanese Kwantung Army accused the Northeast China Army of attempting to destroy the railway, so they attacked the Northeast China Army and invaded Shenyang in what has come to be known as the Mukden Incident to the West.

 

After the Mukden Incident, Japanese militarists rose to the fore while the power of the Japanese Diet and Cabinet declined, so Japan intensified its conflicts with China.  Japan subsequently launched an all-out invasion against China.  The Northeast China Army and the National Government adopted a “nonresistance policy” (不抵抗政策) in the face of Japanese aggression.

 

Zhang Xueliang (張學良), known as the Young Marshal to the West, explained, after the war, that he never thought that Japanese troops would dare to launch an all-out invasion, so he had ordered his troops not to resist as it might be considered a military provocation and he hoped to resolve the conflict peacefully.  Hung Fang (洪鈁), a subordinate of Zhang, stated that on August 16, 1931, Chiang Kai-shek called Zhang and said that no matter how Japanese troops might attempt to provoke a military conflict, our troops should not take the bait so as to avoid conflicts with the Japanese troops.

 

The Northeast China Army did not fight back against the Japanese troops and the National Government stood by with folded arms, so Japanese troops launched an all-out invasion to annex Manchuria.  A Japanese force of more than ten thousand attacked the 140,000 troops in the Northeast China Army,  and the Japanese occupied Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo (滿洲國).  The Republic of China Government marked September 18 as a day of national humiliation and Zhang is known in history books as “the nonresistance general.”

 

Shenyang has been sounding a three-minute air-raid alarm on the night of September 18 every year since 1995 in order to remind people never to forget that ignominious day of national humiliation.  Currently, more than one hundred cities on the Mainland, including Harbin (哈爾濱), Changchun (長春), Kunming (昆明), Hefei (合肥), Hangzhou (杭州), Ürümqi (烏魯木齊), Nanchang (南昌), Qiqihar (齊齊哈爾), Jinhua (金華), Benxi (本溪), Taiyuan (太原), Xi'an (西安), sound an air-raid alarm on September 18 every year to memorialize the day of infamy.  Considering the historical precedent set by the Mukden Incident and how Japan now lays claims to the Diaoyutai Islands, how could the Chinese on both sides of the Strait fail to unite to protect our sovereignty over the islands? 

 

【Editor’s note: Northeast China measures 1,260,000 square kilometers, larger than the area of France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg combined, which measures 1,100,000 square kilometers.】