著者

津久井 弘光

出版者

日本大学

雑誌

日本大学経済学部経済科学研究所紀要 (ISSN:03859983)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, pp.15-77, 1996-01-31

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Following the May 4th Movement, a series of anti-Japanese nationalistic movements broke out in China. Due to the post-World War I depression and the crisis faced by the cotton industry, the Movement to Repeal Japan's 21 Articles and the Movement to Recover Luda flared up in 1923, mainly in the Shanghai area, in the form of a movement to break off economic ties with Japan. With the wartime "Golden Era" serving as the backdrop, four textile mills were established with private-sector funds in Wuhan after 1919. Due to requirements arising from the operation of their funds, the cotton thread and textile merchants selected Qianzhuang as the place to invest their capital and launch business operations. In this way, an association (which also included stockholders) of business executives/ cotton-thread and -textile merchants/and Qianzhuang capitalists came to be established. A market for reproduction on a progressive scale was a sin qua non, which the Wuhan cotton industry capitalists could not do without. Thus, the recently established Wuhan National Textile Co. (Chinese operated) had to stake its very existence on engaging and fighting the Nihon Textile Co. (run by resident Japanese) and the Shanghai National Textile Co. It was in this manner that the anti-Japanese movement was accelerated in a hardhitting way by the Wuhan National Foreign Relations Committee (Wuhan Guomin Wai-jiao Wei-yuan-hui), chiefly consisting of school teachers and students, and the All-Hubei Province Businessmen's Foreign Relations Support Group (Hubei Quan-sheng Shang-jie Wai-jiao Hou-yuan-hui), spearheaded by the Hankow Merchants' Association (Hankou Zong-shang-hui). On the other hand, the Hankow Kyoryu Mindan (Hankow Association of Resident Japanese) and the Hankow Nihon Shogyo Kaigisho (Hankow Japanese Chamber of Commerce) called on the government to put an end to the anti-Japanese movement; and the Federation of Japanese Chambers of Commerce in China (Zai-chugoku Nihon Shogyo Kaigisho Rengokai) and the Japan Chamber of Commerce sponsored an extraordinary meeting in Shanghai in July to check the movement. With an eye to desensitizing the anti-Japanese activities, Japanese business representatives engaged in a series of talks with their Chinese counterparts, who were headed by the deputy chairman of the Shanghai Merchants' Association (Shanghai Zong-shang-hui). And, in the course of those negotiations, anti-Japanese protesters in Tianjin deserted the movement. The issuing of orders in August for the arrest of the leaders of the anti-Japanese campaign resulted in strengthening solidarity within the aforementioned "foreign relations support group" (Wai-jiao Hou-yuan-hui). But toward the end of August, a banquet cosponsored by the representatives of Japanese and Chinese business circles and the surfacing of the question of sending relief to the victims of the Great Kanto (Tokyo-Yokohama area) Earthquake resulted in splitting and further assuaging the sting of the anti-Japanese movement. This motivated the Wuhan National Foreign Relations Committee into organizing the All-Hubei Provincial National Foreign Relations Committee (Hubei Quan-sheng Guo-min Wai-jiao Wei-yuan-hui) which was participated in by Chinese Communist Party members in charge of the local districts. This group then joined hands with the radical elements of the "foreign relations support group," thus making the anti-Japanese movement all the more intense. Although the All-Hubei committee (Wai-jiao Wei-yuan-hui) was subsequently closed down and disbanded by armed police, the movement was kept alive for a while by both organizations. But from November onward, following the bankruptcy of Qianzhuang and its affiliated companies due to the tightening of the money situation, and with the talks between the Beijing Government and Japanese Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary Yoshizawa serving as the backdrop, instructions calling for more rigid enforcement of regulations were issued and both organizations began shifting toward a reconcilition. And they eventually decided to leave the details of the anti-Japanese movement up to the discretion of individual members. Even in the Wuhan district, where the anti-Japanese movement continued to the bitter end, all activities hostile to the Japanese petered out in December. In 1924, the following year, Ji Ming credited the Japanese as having managed to narrowly escape death by the skin of their teeth--" thanks to the fact that the Chinese side lacked a single sandbag."