Do weak powers have no diplomacy? Or is diplomacy their only play?
There is an often-cited saying in China: “A weak power has no diplomacy弱国无外交” meaning weaker powers can not dictate the terms of international relations and can only try to survive at the mercy of big powers.
Just like today’s Ukraine.
However, I believe it’s also true that precisely because a weak power is weak, diplomacy may be the only weapon it can employ, and sometimes diplomacy can be a matter of life and death.
I can’t help but to think of one such moment when China was also a weak power, barely surviving at the hands of big powers. It’s, I believe, the most dangerous moment China faced in the last 500 years. It’s not the Opium War. It’s not 1900 when 8 great powers occupied Peking. It’s not 1937 when Shanghai fell and the Rape of Nanking happened. It’s not 1950 when Chinese and American forces fought each other in Korea. And it’s not 1969, when a total war almost broke out between China and the Soviet Union.
It was the moment when China almost sided with Nazi Germany.
The year was 1940. It was a moment that was so dangerous for China, but few people remember it precisely because we don’t remember what might have happened, but averted in the end. 1940 involved a weak power making a binary choice, and that choice turned out to be right in the end.
In 1940, China had been engaged in a gruesome war with Japan for more than 2 years. It had lost all of the coastal regions, and more than half of China Proper fell to Japanese invaders. (Drawing the analogy from the Ukraine War, China already lost the equivalent of Kyiv and all of the coastal regions a long time ago and barely hung on to the western city of Lviv.)
Britain and the US had not provided meaningful support to China, despite the fact Chiang committed the main body of his most elite forces, and immediately lost them, to fight the Battle of Shanghai, putting out a PR event for the Western media at the time, just like what Zelenskyy was doing every day on his Twitter account. Britain even threatened China to negotiate a settlement with Japan, in the same way Trump is threatening Zelenskyy right now.
On the other hand. Germany was strong. By that time, it had already eaten up Poland, and Paris had just fallen. Britain was fighting a lone war with Germany and may surrender at any moment. Germany became indisputably the greatest power in Europe.
Within such context, many key members of KMT’s top leadership, including Sun Ke, the son of founding father Sun Yat-sen, advocated that China should side with the Nazis, responding to an offer that the Nazis did make. H.H.Kung, the finance minister who married Madame Chiang’s sister, had just met Hitler a few years ago in 1937 and also supported this idea. Clearly, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had to make a choice here.
To be frank, this was an extremely tempting proposal.
We need to appreciate the peculiar time that was 1940 here. Despite warm feelings, Germany had not militarily allied with Japan until the Tripartite Pact in September of that year. But even that pact lacked substances at the time. After all, Germany had not yet invaded the Soviet Union, while Japan had yet to attack Pearl Harbour. The final configuration of WWII (the Allies vs, the Axis) was far from certain. So, siding with Germany didn’t necessarily mean China would side with Japan and wouldn’t necessarily antagonize Americans and Russians, at least not in 1940.
Not to mention, KMT had historically warm relations with Germany. Its best armies were German-trained and German-equipped. Chiang, also a fascist, openly admired Hitler and exchanged warm letters with him for years.
And not to mention, had Chiang chosen to join some kind of alliance with Germany and reached a truce with Japan mediated by Germany, he would not only be “protected” by Germany but would successfully neutralize the Wang Jingwei regime, China’s version of “Vichy”, a puppet Chinese government propped up by the Japanese, rivalling Chiang’s legitimacy.
And not to mention, had that truce been reached, there would be no more fighting and bloodshed, and hardship!
Putting you in the same seat as Chiang in 1940, unable to see what the future holds for you, it was actually difficult NOT to ally with Germany.
It’s a Faustian bargain, but it made all the sense.
In the end, Chiang made the right choice despite strong internal dissent. According to his diary, his ultimate line of reasoning was that if China sided with Britain, and Britain prevailed in the end, China would gain more than it would gain if China sided with Germany and Germany won.
This is a precarious judgement and essentially a comparison for the less worse choice. You could well imagine the number of sleepless nights Chiang might have over this. But he made the right choice, nonetheless.
The stakes were so high. The “what-if”s can be so tough to ponder. Had he tried to ally with Germany, China’s “century of humiliation” would last at least TWO centuries. At first, Japan would consolidate its territorial gains along China’s coast. Later, China would be dragged into a war with the Soviets and the US at the same time. The Germans and the Japanese were not likely to win that war, though, since China would have been too weak to change the ultimate trajectory of WW2, so China would eventually be partitioned into “North China” and “South China”, just like the two Koreas of today.
I often shudder at this thought. And I am so glad I was not born into that parallel universe.
I also have to say that, although Chiang later lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan, which created a big problem for today, his choice in 1940 saved China from certain doom.
What’s the key takeaway?
History can be precarious, mercurial, and fundamentally unpredictable. The only thing that can be done, especially for a small country, is to try to listen to the inner calls and do the right thing.
The problem, as always, is:
What is the right thing?
Kowtowing to two powerful bullies, which will almost certainly end the war but will also subjugate yourself to 100 years of slavery, or hanging on to an impossible war, backed by your weak, un-unified neighbors?
What should a small country do to survive 21st Century? Read my essay on this:
Great article. Hadn’t known that part of history. To be honest, I probably would have joined Germany, its seems in the moment the most beneficial.
The most striking thing about this story is the cold calculated logic that ultimately went into Chiang's decision. You conclude by saying that smaller states can only listen to their inner voice and do the "right" thing, but it's clear to me that when stakes are that high, moralistic values takes the back seat to cold realism.