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Concept
Xi'an Incident
Summary
The Xi'an Incident, previously romanized as the Sian Incident, was a political crisis that took place in Xi'an, Shaanxi in 1936. Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist government of China, was detained by his subordinate generals Chang Hsüeh-liang (Zhang Xueliang) and Yang Hucheng, in order to force the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) to change its policies regarding the Empire of Japan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Prior to the incident, Chiang Kai-shek followed a strategy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance" that entailed eliminating the CCP and appeasing Japan to allow time for the modernization of China and its military. After the incident, Chiang aligned with the Communists against the Japanese. However, by the time Chiang arrived in Xi'an on 4 December 1936, negotiations for a united front had been in the works for two years. The crisis ended after two weeks of negotiation, in which Chiang was eventually released and returned to Nanjing, accompanied by Zhang. Chiang agreed to end the ongoing civil war against the CCP and began actively preparing for the impending war with Japan.
In 1931, the Empire of Japan escalated its aggression against China through the Mukden Incident. Japanese troops then occupied Northeast China. "Young Marshal" Chang Hsüeh-liang, who had succeeded his father as head of the Fengtian clique and Northeastern Army in that region, was widely criticized for this loss of territory. In response, Chang resigned from his position and went on a tour of Europe.
Chinese Civil War
In the aftermath of the Northern Expedition in 1928, China was nominally unified under the authority of the Nationalist government in Nanjing. Simultaneously, the Nationalist government violently purged members of the CCP in the Kuomintang, effectively ending the alliance between the two parties. Beginning in the 1930s, the Nationalist government launched a series of campaigns against the CCP. In the meanwhile, the impending war against Japan led to nationwide unrest and surge of Chinese nationalism.
Official source
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