Japan vs China in early 20th century

There was an excellent question in class today asking about why Japan and China are antagonistic towards each other. There is quite a bit of back history about it and I'll just put down what I do remember and know.

China first. China has a history that dates back thousands of years through any dynasties and kingdoms. The most important one arguably was the Qin where the first emperor united China. Ironically, his reign lasted only 27 years and his dynasty collapses after that. China's dynasties have always gone through cycles of rising and falling. The last dynasty with an emperor was the Qing dynasty that lasted from 1644 til 1911. In the meantime, the Japanese had harassed the eastern seaboard of China and Korea even before this period.

The biggest cause for the fall of the dynasty in 1800s was the entry of Western powers into China and a series of rebellions, boxer, Taiping that helped weakened the government. The disastrous opium wars also sped up the demise of the dynasty while corruption and a resistance to accept the technology and knowledge of the West left china in a stagnant state to be carved up by people like France, Britain, Germany and of course Japan. these countries easily gained low taxes for trade and areas that they completely controlled (remember Japanese vs. Chinese Section?) due to China's inability to defend itself.

Sun yat-sen. Of all the reformers that emerged as a result of the decay of the dynasty, he has gone down in History as one of the most important. He had to go into exile because of persecution by the Qing but helped spread the message for change and raise funds to topple the Qing. In fact, when the revolution took place in 1911, he was not in China. His progressive thoughts and leadership helped inspire the revolution. The problem was that a thousands year old way of government will not disappear overnight and China was plunged into a feudal like warlord era after 1911.

Chiang Kai-shek succeeds Sun as leader of the Kuo Min Tang, the party which Sun forms to become the government but never quite does. However by 1929 and on, the warlords had been contained and China quite united under the banner of this government. This resurgence is what the Japanese feel would threaten their interest in Manchuria.

Japan-Has a culturally rich history that has similarities in the cycle of feuding kingdoms, unity and decay that China experiences. While medieval Japan was largely agricultural and insular, two things have persisted into modern Japan, a respect for the military and a military culture based on the older samurai honor codes that favors and values strength and loyalty.

Hence you have a situation where Japan due to internal reasons needs to have an aggressive foreign policy and is led by soldiers who believe in war to gain strength and empire and with an almost fanatic loyalty to the emperor. Their fear is that if China gets too strong, they will lose their hold on Manchuria and be expelled. Instead, they choose to consolidate their position by conquering Manchuria and deeply upsetting the Chinese in the process.

Of course, Chinese politics is very complex in this period and in the background of the growing strength of the KMT is the threat of the Chinese Communist Party trying to overthrow the KMT. But that is altogether an exciting but different part of the history of this period.

Hope this helps.

http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/imperial3.html#manchus