Volume 20, Number 8 · May 17, 1973
Rules of the Game
By John Gittings
The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, the League, and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931-1933
by Christopher Thorne
Putnam, 442 pp., $12.95
On September 18, 1931, a very small bomb caused a very minor explosion on the South Manchurian Railway just north of Mukden, a railway controlled by the Japanese and crucial to their economic domination of Manchuria. The explosion was denounced as the work of Chinese saboteurs. Two railway sleepers, half a dozen fish plates, one rifle, and two Chinese soldiers' caps were displayed as evidence by the Japanese army, which proceeded to take over the whole of Manchuria with alacrity. The Western powers huffed and puffed but did precisely nothing. Neither did Chiang Kai-shek, who was hard at work killing communists in the south. By the middle of 1933 Japan had gained a foothold across the Manchurian border and was threatening the North China plain. Japan had also withdrawn from the League of Nations, leaving that organization prostrate with inactivity. That was the 'Manchurian crisis.'
Review, 2694 words
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