Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:14:08.049Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Opponents of Appeasement: Western-educated Chinese Diplomats and Intellectuals and Sino-Japanese Relations, 1932-37

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2001

STEPHEN G. CRAFT
Affiliation:
Valparaiso University

Abstract

Many years ago, the eminent historian Gordon A. Craig wrote: ‘One of the recurring themes in those books on the diplomatic pre-history of the Second World War which have come to us from the former enemy countries is the plight of the professional diplomat, whose training and knowledge convinced him that the policy of his government was leading straight to disaster but whose advice was seldom solicited and never followed.’ Craig went on to show that this pattern of ‘the neglect and abuse of the resources of expert diplomacy’ occurred in the democratic countries of the time. Professional Chinese diplomats (and intellectuals) fared little better than their counterparts, democratic or totalitarian, in the 1930s when their leader, Chiang Kai-shek, pursued a policy of appeasement toward Japan. Chiang's appeasement policy, or what some have referred to as a policy of accommodation or gradualism, has received much treatment from historians.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)