The China White Paper 1949(XII)

In June 1928 KMT forces took Peking and formally united China after destroying the power of the Northern warlords. As for the Chinese Communists, after the were purged from the cities they concentrated in a small area in Kiangsi which was basically an agrarian region. The Communists shifted their tactic and began working with the peasants there. According to The White Paper, this was the forerunner of later Communist expansion and success. It was during this period that Mao Tse-tung's faction which favoured the interest of the farmer, triumphed over Li Li-san's faction which favoured a urban policy. In the five years from 1930 to 1935, Chiang Kai-shek mounted five military campaigns for the purpose of exterminating the Communist forces in China but without much success. However in the fifth attempt, the Communists were forced to leave their bases in southern China and fled to a Communist base in northwest in 1935, and settled down there as a much reduced force, waiting for the opportunity to rise up again. Meanwhile Chiang Kai-shek had the opportunity to consolidate China. In early 1930s when the KMT was busily engaging the Communist, Japan started its encroachment on China, starting with the occupation of Manchuria in 1931 that eventually led to the Marco Polo Bridge incident happened on July 7th, 1937, and the subsequently full scale Sino-Japanese War that ended in 1945. (to be continued)


Reference:
United States, Department of State. The China White Paper-August 1949. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1967, pages 44-5