Introduction

In the China of the 1930s, the quest for national unity and integration dominated domestic politics, and relations with Japan dominated China’s foreign affairs. These two challenges combined to shape the predicament of north China, a region alienated from the centre and threatened by further Japanese expansion. Here, domestic and foreign affairs were not discrete spheres of activity and concern: the relationship between regional officials and the central authorities largely governed regional responses to Japanese activity, and political and military pressure from the Japanese armies on regional officials strained their relations with the centre. It is a truism that the Chinese nation was forged under the pressure of Japanese aggression, and that external pressure forced the Chinese to unite against a common foe or face destruction. Yet external pressure can divide as well as unite, and nowhere was this divisive tendency more practically damaging than in the north.