ABSTRACT
North China was central to Sino-Japanese interaction from the mid-1930s onwards. Matters affecting north China dominated Sino-Japanese discussions, from the re-establishment of some form of relationship with Manzhouguo, through the internal politics and finances of the northern provinces, to questions of security including responses to the CCP in the north. At first, this regional element of the relationship was generally treated as the territory of the Japanese armies in the north; but later it began to impinge on formal diplomacy. From 1935 onwards, every significant step in formal government-to-government exchanges provoked further changes in the regional relationship; and by the end of that year the aims and priorities associated with regional interactions were emerging in formal diplomatic discussions, and the gap between Japanese ‘civil’ and ‘military’ approaches to China policy was beginning to narrow.
