Chiang Kai Shek is Kidnapped

About this episode

After the Long March, the Chinese Communists were mostly in northern Shaanxi, wanting a breather. Japan had continued its aggression in China after it set up the puppet state of Manchukuo under Emperor Pu Yi. It manufactured incident after incident and had expanded its army’s reach into northern and northeast China. It was trying to influence Inner Mongolia and Hebei, around Beijing. It looked to set up warlords as puppet leaders under Japanese control. Students and intellectuals in Beijing and other Chinese cities began protesting against the Japanese and against politicians that they perceived as being too friendly to Japan. It was a reminder of earlier demonstrations against Japan like the May Fourth movement of 1919. The Communist Party and Comintern supported these student protests against Japan. The Soviet Union was very concerned by Japan’s aggression and the fact that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had signed an anti-Comintern pact in late 1936. Stalin wanted either an anti-Japanese China, or alternatively, a Communist controlled buffer state between it and Japan. Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT government in Nanjing was prioritizing pacifying internal enemies befor