ABSTRACT
Despite the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, Chiang Kai-shek until December 1936 pursued a policy of attempting to keep the Japanese at arm's length while concentrating his military and political energies on suppressing his domestic enemies, chiefly the Chinese communists. The anti-communist strategy was spectacularly successful. The blockhouse strategy used in the fifth campaign of encirclement and annihilation uprooted the communist base areas and forced the Red Army on to the Long March, during which most of the Red soldiers perished or deserted. Pursuing the Red Army on the Long March, Chiang's troops diminished or destroyed warlord autonomy in the provinces they traversed. The Tangku truce ended the Manchurian crisis in the immediate sense, giving Chiang Kai-shek the breathing space he needed to launch the well-planned and successful fifth encirclement campaign. Nanking's efforts at military modernization were only slightly successful, but even much greater success would not have permitted China to challenge Japan.
