ABSTRACT
In 1931, while Zhang Xueliang was in a Beijing hospital attempting to break his opium addiction, Japanese forces invaded Manchuria and established a puppet state of “Manchukuo” (installing the last Qing emperor, Puyi, on the throne). Chiang Kai-shek quickly appointed him to the post of Vice-Commander of Nanjing’s anti-Communist forces to defend northwestern city of Xi’an. On the evening of June 3, 1928, the warlord general of Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin, boarded his train in Beijing to make his way back to Shenyang. The League of Nations, as part of its investigation into China’s charges against Japan, asked Japan to provide statements explicating its presence in Manchuria. On February 24, 1933, the League of Nations Assembly adopted the Lytton Report on Manchuria, with Japan casting the only dissenting vote. Most damning was the Lytton Report’s conclusion that it was “indisputable that without any declaration of war a large part of Chinese territory has been forcibly seized and occupied by Japanese troops.
