Jinan Incident - Background

Background

During the Northern Expedition, troops of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army attacked several foreign consulates in a fervor of anti-imperialism in what became known as the Nanjing Incident of March 1927. Chiang Kai-shek sought to avoid repetition of such incidents, and in November 1927 he met with Tanaka Giichi, who had become Japan's premier in April of that year (and also held the portfolio of Foreign Minister)in part, on the strength of promises to take more active and aggressive measures than his predecessor toward protection of Japanese lives, property, and economic interests in China. Chiang had only a tenuous hold on power in China and relied in large measure on the promise to end foreign domination and re-unify the country to buttress his legitimacy.

Tanaka realized that the use of force was not necessarily the best way to protect Japanese interests, and Chiang both wanted to keep his troops away from Jinan and the risks of a costly but useless clash. With no guarantee that Chinese National Revolutionary Army would bypass Jinan, prior political commitments and Imperial Japanese Army insistence forced Tanaka to reinforce Japanese forces in the Shandong leased territory. Between May and September 1927, some 4000 troops were deployed to Qingdao and Jinan in what was known in Japan as the First Shandong Expedition (第一山東出兵, Dai-ichi Santo Shuppei?). Both the northern warlord coalition government in Beijing (Peking) and the Kuomintang government in Nanjing (Nanking) protested vigorously that this was a violation of China's sovereignty, and the Japanese forces were withdrawn when Chiang temporarily halted his northern advance.