Sesson 2: North China Front
Hongyun Wei, Nankai University,
PRC:
“Commerce in Jin Ji Lu Yu Anti-Japanese Base Area during the Anti-Japanese
War.”
Wei noted this year marked the 65th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge incident. (His paper summary could not be translated.)
Comments: Joseph Esherick said that for a long time the history of the economics of the Communist base areas had stressed their self-sufficiency, and the development of production campaigns in which the Communists tried to build up self-sufficient economies to survive during the war. He noted that much of Wei’s work, including the present paper, was essentially designed to show that that kind of self-sufficiency was neither possible nor sufficient – and that commerce with enemy areas was necessary (for example for salt, for medicines and for raw materials for industry.)
Esherick said there were two issues worth considering:
· The idea that it’s not useful to talk about the war in terms of China versus Japan or a three-sided struggle between the GMD, the Communists and the Japanese. Rather that one should think in terms of regional regimes—in the Southwest, surrounding Nanjing, the Communists in the North etc.—and move more towards a local understanding of what the war was about. Then, to build from that local understanding to an understanding of the process of the entire war. He suggested that perhaps even thinking about regional regimes or base areas is not sufficient, and that one has to go down to sub-base areas. Esherick pointed to the remarkable contribution of David Goodman, who goes down to the county level, revealing very different experiences in each. Esherick noted that Wei also goes down to even below the county level, with a lovely portrait of some towns. Esherick noted one particularly fascinating town which the Communists found almost impossible to control—it was full of smugglers, prostitutes, opium dens and counterfeiters—but absolutely necessary to them for commerce/economically.
· Also noteworthy in Wei’s paper were the very great changes that took place in the course of the war, Esherick said. At the beginning of the war, the Communists tried to block trade altogether and cut out links with the Japanese completely. In 1939 they realized they had to have some kind of trade and tried using co-ops (essentially purchasing units of units of the Eighth Route Army or various Party/government organizations). That didn’t work and in 1940, private traders with permits were allowed. That didn’t work that well either, so by 1941 the Communists moved to barter trade – exchanging mountain goods for the commercial goods of the plain. So it was really only in 1943 and after that the system really began to work smoothly and that the economy was in relatively good shape. Esherick noted other papers at the conference also showed the Japanese system crumbling markedly in 1944-5.
He also suggested that the general impression of the great success of the Communists during World War II is perhaps too much colored by the end of the war. For example, the Dixie Mission went to Yenan in 1944 and most journalist visits to Yenan took place in the latter part of the war. The result is that we tend to think that this period of successes was indicative of what the whole war was like – which it wasn’t. It was a much longer and more troublesome process to get to a relatively stable regime, Esherick said.
Diana Lary pointed to fact that when people talk about World War II in Asia, they miss the extraordinary length of the conflict in China, from at least 1937 to 1945. The conflict was much, much longer than anywhere else in the world.
Odoric Wou, Rutgers University: “Food Shortage and Japanese Grain Extraction Activities in Henan.”
Wou highlighted three issues raised by his paper:
· Domination and resistance theory: Wou said that in his paper he sought to look at the dominating capacity of Japan. What form did the domination take? Wou said he was strongly influenced by Susumu Tsukase’s paper on the penetration and influence of Manzhouguo rule in society in Northeast China. Wou compared that area with Henan, and suggested that in the case of Henan such domination was not as effective, for various reasons – fewer officials, less land. He suggested there should be a different term, like perhaps ‘submerged domination,’ to describe what was going on in Henan. Wou said he had also studied the issue of resistance, but there had been no room for it in the current paper.
· Spatial differences: Wou noted that Henan is unique in that it belongs partly to North China and partly to central China. In Henan, the warfare was longer and broader, as Henan saw the competing power of the GMD, the Japanese and the Chinese Communists. There was lots of wider destruction of this area, especially the economy. The first part of the paper showed the dramatic drop in the grain crop and also the short duration of Japanese control. Surprisingly, Communist documents survived even with all this warfare going on, while the GMD materials were buried and never recovered.
· Collective violence and the rise of the Chinese Communists: Wou said it was debatable whether there was more organized violence in this particular area because three parties were competing for power. The phrase ‘strategic area contested hotly by all strategists’ comes up a lot in Communist base area literature and when we look at the rise of the Communist Party, we should look especially at strategic locations, Wou suggested. Wou said a revisiting of Chalmers Johnson might be necessary: while Wou said he didn’t necessarily agree with Chalmers Johnson’s term ‘peasant nationalism,’ he did believe the Japanese played a very important role in the rise of the Communists. Especially when it comes to grain seizure it’s hard to make a clear distinction between nationalist appeal and economic appeal, Wou said.
Comments: Daqing Yang noted that in his 1941 New Year’s speech Chiang Kaishek called the war against Japan 70% economic and only 30% military.
On the economic side of the war, previous scholarship on the Japanese side has tended to focus on its connection with Japanese military operations and have tended to overlook the impact on Chinese society. On the other hand, recent Chinese works have tended to emphasize the brutal exploitation on the Japanese side.
Wou had chosen a very basic problem: in that food is not just a lifeline for the prosecution of the war, but also a problem that affects everyone—the military, civilians, the Japanese, the Chinese—and used the issue of food to understand the Japanese occupation’s sociology.
Yang also noted that shortage of food had had an enormous impact, throughout Chinese history, and pointed to the saying quoted in Wei Hongyun’s paper, that in times of famine one jin of coarse grain is the price of one girl.
Yang praised Wou’s paper for being rich in showing local variation in Henan. Wou made full use of Chinese sources on local history made available in recent years — with details at the county, sub-county and even individual level. Wou’s paper was good at giving the Chinese a voice, and at giving an indication of the complexities and variations of Japanese grain extraction, both legal operations (regular tax, allotment purchase, commodity exchange, granary fill-up) and illegal operations (mopping up operations, grain raids).
Questions:
· The Chinese sources that are the basis of Wou’s study are part of a trend in China to compile local historical sources. The quality is extremely high and it is done by professionals. But some testimonies are very emotional, and there may be some questions of reliability. For example, Wou cites Chinese forces that have been organized by the Japanese into a ‘Yellow Guerilla Squad.’ This seems a bizarre designation from the Japanese. How does one corroborate these local Chinese sources with the Japanese sources (which have their own problems and biases)?
· How did the Japanese come up with their different strategies/policies of food extraction? Wou explained the fundamental reason for the extraction was that Japanese control of North China was focused on the urban areas, which didn’t produce food. The rural areas were much more hotly contested. What was the goal of Japanese food extraction in North China? In addition to sustaining the military effort, there’s also the issue of Japanese self-sufficiency in food in North China. For example, according to Japanese sources, in 1941 there was a very low level of food self-sufficiency in North China – for wheat there was only 53% self-sufficiency, for millet 98%, for rice for the army only 20%. In some cases the Japanese had to get grain from other parts of China.
· Apart from natural causes such as bumper harvest/famine - what other factors led to changes in Japanese government policy? Lincoln Li’s study emphasizes troop levels in terms of the Japanese capacity to project control. The level of Japanese population in urban areas had a lot to do with demand for food. Also Japanese sources suggest that in 1941 the Japanese occupation authorities were busy formulating food emergency policies that led to new tactics. Finally the connection between military operations and food acquisition is another issue.
· The issue of the level of violence in achieving food acquisition. Wou concluded that the Japanese side used more organized violence and torture. Why was this the case? Was it always the case? Even though the CCP and GMD may have used the same level of violence the Japanese had less moral justification because they were the invaders, Wou suggests – did local people see it like this?
Wou: said he used the word ‘activities’ rather than ‘policy’ in his paper. Policy would be a different paper. It would suggest that he is dealing not just with Henan but with the whole of China. The Japanese changed policy a number of times, so it would take a lot more work to map that out.
As for the peasant perceptions of the Japanese, it’s very hard to get material on that. Wou said he was thinking of writing a book on Chinese propaganda. It seems that peasant perceptions changed after they politicization from the Chinese Communists. To a certain extent the peasants looked to the Japanese and GMD and the Communists all as types of ruler – more or less the same thing. But after a great deal of ‘political education’ the perception of the peasants towards the Japanese completely changes.
Diana Lary: One theme that keeps coming up is the degree to which not just policies, but the way they were implemented, changed during the course of the war. Also, the way both Chinese and Japanese policies varied in different parts of China.
Comments/questions from floor:
US: How come the Communist documents survived in Henan?
Wou: There was a system of sending documents to Yenan – and it was the Yenan documents that came back to Henan after they started writing Party history.
In talking about sources, Henan material is unique because the material didn’t just come from memories but three types of materials:
· CCP documents from the 1930’s and 1940’s.
· Newspaper material.
(The first thing they did when they tried to write Party history, which is unique in Henan, is that all the institutions in Henan came together and they made indexes of all the papers concerning Henan. I have the indexes at home.)
· Reminiscences.
In other words, only one-third of the sources used for the paper were personal accounts.
Japan: Comparing Henan and Manzhouguo: the control in Henan was much weaker and that’s because the Japanese didn’t have as strong an occupying force. To what extent were the Japanese able to send officials to Henan?
Wou: Intelligence reports from the North China Field Army are the main source for this. There were various kinds of villages, the baojia village, the liaison village, the tax-paying village. Only part of the villages were paying taxes, and were designated tax-paying villages. In other villages, baojia villages, the Japanese must have formed some kind of connection with the baozhang and jiazhang, and then in the liaison villages they have liaison persons dealing with local finance and local activities.
The number of Japanese officials is very low, we’re talking about 40 counties, and 60 Japanese officials in these counties, so less than 2 per county. The Japanese material has a chart on the number of people in the New Citizens Associations, these were on average less than 30% Japanese, and more than 40% Chinese. So I think lot of work will have to go into the connection between the Japanese and the baozhang and jiazhang. The sense I get is that these baozhang/jiazhang were more or less coerced into helping the Japanese.
US: The papers suggest one should think about the war above all as a struggle for grain or a struggle for grain and for bodies/allegiance between different forces. It’s a wonderful thing for the direction to go ever more towards a local/lower level. But a central problem is how to move from the localities to a larger picture and determine what that larger picture should be. Perhaps the most fruitful way is to look at what light the localities cast on the larger issue of the differences between the three major parties – the GMD/Japan/the Communists.
The expectation is that the Japanese used a higher degree of coercion to extract grain and that probably holds up in the contested areas – but then we have to bring this back to a place like Manzhouguo, and other regions that were closely under Japanese control. There it seems likely that more regular systems were in place to enable the Japanese to extract grain and to win the allegiance of local elites to run their government. This seems a fruitful direction for discussion.
Canada: The issue of famine is an incredibly interesting one to look at from the point of view of the war period as a whole. Because almost simultaneously with the Henan famine there was the massive famine in Bengal, well documented and analyzed mainly by Amartya Sen. And during the war elsewhere there were huge problems with food shortage and food procurement. So maybe in that area we could be moving towards world history.
US: In terms of food, there is one area where this very careful data collection reaches its limits. My understanding of how Japanese provided their troops with food on the march is that much of the food foraging by troops in the field was done on an ad hoc basis. Troops got a couple of days rations and then had to get food for themselves, often leading to massive struggles at the village level. If that’s so, almost none of it appears, perhaps, in the carefully compiled data that you’re working with here and that other historians have.
Wou: There were two types. Foraging was one type. The second type, in the case of Henan, was simple taxation. In Henan the ‘reach of the state’ was very shallow. Even for normal taxation they had to go out and raid the countryside.
US: In terms of collective memory it’s worth exploring how peasants really remember this period. In terms of individual memories, wartime may or may not have been the worst period in terms of food. I was talking to one Chinese historian about Nanjing under occupation and he mentioned that some people interviewed actually said that during that period things weren’t that bad (though he noted that this was not a particularly politically correct thing to say!). Famine has recurred throughout Chinese history, and it may be worth putting this period in that kind of context.
Japan: In terms of the procurement of food, there was tremendous tension between people/military/society/state and it didn’t just have to do with the Japanese invasion. It was true for the GMD in Chongqing as well. Some thorough research is going on in Japan on this – especially in the rural areas of Sichuan, as part of the Chongqing history project. Ajioka’s research [presented in Session 1] is part of this as well. It’s looking at changes of the relationship between the state and other parties.
Another point: In terms of self-sufficiency of the bases, this is something else Japanese scholars are also investigating: Japanese research is also pointing out that the Communist bases were not self-sufficient.
China: In terms of grain procurement those areas ruled by the GMD (Chongqing) and those ruled by the Japanese should be differentiated. If we start mixing these up, it will be difficult to clarify.
Manzhouguo and North and Central China should also be differentiated. In Manchuria, getting grain was an issue of administrative power. In North and Central China Japanese occupied areas, the means of getting grain was dependent on existing commodity organizations – such as grain shops in urban areas. The Japanese made use of commercial establishments to get grain.
In areas that were not occupied by the Japanese, or the border areas, the Japanese were mainly dependent on grain raids, particularly in the latter stages of the war. The main reason for military raids was to get grain or to get anything – including basic necessities and bedding. The ways and means of the Japanese were very different.
US: Talking of forms of domination that the Japanese used, I was struck by the use of the co-operative. It seemed to be very successful in Henan.
Question: the Japanese inherited the system from the Nationalists, but I know the Japanese long had a tradition of rural co-operatives. In making decisions did the Japanese draw on their own experience with the co-operative or just take co-ops the Chinese had and expand their functions?
Wou: The Japanese documents use the word infiltration/penetration. I don’t think they actually dominated that much and it wasn’t that effective. It is comprehensive – they really built up the structure there, and I simply try to describe that very elaborate structure. But building up a structure and actually penetrating and dominating isn’t necessarily the same thing. Also, when it comes to dominating, when the Japanese sources talk about a certain area, or a certain village, and say they dominate it 60%: that’s the extent to which the Japanese claim they dominated/infiltrated – whether what they claim is the real situation is another matter.
In terms of co-ops I think they simply just made use of the pre-existing GMD bodies. Many Japanese institutions (especially the legal, the regular ways of extracting grain), those institutional mechanisms came from the GMD. It’s only for the illegal means that the Japanese came up with their own methods.
China: How grain acquisition took place varied with time and place. For example, before the Pacific War, and after the Pacific War the situation was different – later there was very strict control on export of grain out of areas. All trade in grain had to be approved by the Japanese. Huge numbers of troops were amassed to carry out grain raids.