For several years, China had been,
effectively, held hostage to the rolling tide of chaos, bitterness, and hostility. Regime changes had been a common thing now for nearly 20 years, ranging from the Kuomintang, to monarchists, to communists, to republicans again, to conservatives, so on and so forth. For
Zhu De, leader of the Communist Party of China, and one of the only factions to have endured and weathered the worst of the Mongol Empire's aggression without retreating from China entirely, had been exploiting the rapid collapse of the Mongol State to expand their own revolutionary tide. Despite the assassination of the 'father of the party'
Chen Duxiu,
Zhu De was a man who was ready to strike.
The
National Anti-Imperialist Campaign began in March 1936, and coincided with the post-2/26 chaos in Japan. While Zhu wisely decided to
avoid confrontation with the Empire of Japan, his '
National Liberation Army' took several skirmishes to the nose against the conservative anti-Japanese
Republic of China, and the Maoist Japanese-aligned
Republic of China.
Chinese insurgencies as of 1935
During the first weeks of the campaign, the Communists focused their efforts against the Conservatives, whom were dealing with a peasant insurgency due to their strict and heavy taxation policies that benefited only the small urban elite in parts of their territory, and not the largely agrarian majority.
By the middle of May 1936, the Communists had delivered a crippling blow to the conservative Republicans, driving them from Central China all together, and into the southern regions. The Communists had seen an increase in popularity as they had been the least
nefarious of all factions, showing some measure of 'mercy' and 'kindness' to the average Chinese citizen. As a result, they had a large amount of popularity amongst the agrarian classes, most of whom were under the jackboot of the Mongols.
The
National Anti-Imperialist Campaign would carry on through 1936 and into 1938, with the twin Republics retreating entirely. Mao, being a forebear of some-what socialistic thought and an important and popular figure, was allowed to return to China in 1947, where he would hold numerous political positions of middle-relevance before his death in 1967. Chiang, however, was convicted of treason in absentia, and was never allowed to return to China. He lived the remainder of his life in Japanese exile, primarily staying on Formosa, but frequently foraying north to Korea and into Japan for personal reasons or business reasons.
While the Communists were conducting the 'Anti-Imperialist Campaign', the
Hebei-Chahar Republic did not waste time to do a land-grab. They had taken great strides to push deep into the heart of the Mongol Empire, primarily 'Inner Mongolia', and the Qinghai region. As the Communist forces advanced against the Mongols, the
Hebei-Chahar Republic and
Zhu De's China had to reach an agreement on the future border. Zhu would not be able to impose his will on them, as they were still protected by the Japanese--so Beijing was a lost cause for years to come (and likely forever at the current rate), however; he was able to get most of the Qinghai region
back from them. The accords of July 1938 marked the end of hostilities in China, and the formalization of China's borders.
Zhu De was a communist, but was not a Trotskyite in the image of Chen Duxiu. He did not see expanding China's aegis over the other 'troubled minorities' to be worth the venture, as it would cause nothing but headache, as those groups had caused China for centuries. Proclaiming the establishment of the
Chinese Soviet Republic on July 11th, 1938; he began the new communist era of China. While relations between Japan and the new China were very poor, Zhu acknowledged that Japan was the 8,000 pound elephant in the room, and Japan acknowledged that they would have to do business with the new communist China--there was no avoiding it anymore.
The two nations, tense and uncertain of each other's true intentions, opened diplomatic relations reluctantly in September 1938.
Outside of Japan, the foreign response to the Chinese Revolution was primarily negative. Joseph Stalin's Russia was already frustrated enough as it was by the hamstrung Trotskyite revolutionary movements causing trouble at home-- however, the slight benefit that Zhu De took a lot of inspiration from his own socialist movement gave him some respite. Russia opened diplomatic relations with the Chinese, but until China severed all ties to Paris, Russia remained recalcitrant and distant.
The United Kingdom was outraged, and concerned. Prime Minister Stafford Cripps put in the deep efforts to prevent Hong Kong and other British spheres of influence from being damaged. Zhu De delineated a region of China where the foreign capitalists would be able to conduct business without the oversight of the
Ministry of Economics--this was the Guangxi region. However, the UK opened diplomatic relations with the Chinese in 1939.
