July 1937: Lugou Bridge Incident

 

What:

 On 7 July 1937, a Japanese soldier was briefly reported missing around Wanping, prompting the Japanese to demand entry to the city to conduct a search. The Chinese refused and, in retaliation, the Japanese attacked the city on 8 July. Fighting escalated from this point as Japan attempted to use the incident as an opportunity to achieve a better tactical position in northern China and China refused to concede anything. The incident is regarded as the beginning of the Second World War, as both sides escalated the local incident into a general war.

 

Why:

 Prior to Summer 1937, China responded to Japanese aggression by backing down and avoiding general war, which it expected to badly lose. Jiang Jieshi believed that China was too weak to successfully fight Japan and needed first to be unified and defeat Communism. By 1936, Jiang Jieshi had successfully defeated his most intense rivals in Guangzhou and consolidated Guomindang ruled through China. He was forced to abandon his prioritization of the Communist threat over the Japanese threat in December 1936, when he was kidnapped by Manchurian Chinese soldiers during the Xi’an Incident. When the Lugou Bridge Incident occured in July 1937, China was better prepared than any other time in the previous decade and Jiang Jieshi was under intense pressure from within the Guomindang and the army to stand up to the Japanese.

 In 1937, the Japanese army in northern China had been working to consolidate its tactical position around Beiping and, thus, place itself in a better negotiating position versus the Chinese leadership in Hebei and Chahar provinces. Despite these limited Japan objectives, China had become conditioned by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia to assume the Japan had extensive imperial claims; accordingly, Jiang Jieshi assumed that Japan’s aggression at Wanping was the first part of a plan that aimed to turn all of northern China into a colony. China’s response to this incident was based on the assumption that this was, from the beginning, a fight for northern China.

 The involvement of the central Chinese government, rather than the local authorities in Hebei and Chahar, infuriated the Japanese, whose attitude changed to support a punitive expedition against China to punish them for stationing troops within the special zone of Hebei. Continued Chinese resistance only further angered the Japanese by convincing them that China needed to be taught a lesson about their inferiority to Japan. It is this dynamic that led to an escalation of the conflict into the Second World War.

 

Impact:

The Lugou Bridge Incident is the start of the Second World War. Japan had committed many other aggressions in China over the previous decades, but this was the first instance where China stood firm and resisted Japanese aggression. Japan’s attempt to beat China into submission is the first stage of the Second World War and will continue to be a major front of the conflict until 1945.