Promoted to lieutenant general in 1928, Ueda became commander-in-chief of the Japanese China Garrison Army from March 1929 to the end of December 1930.

[2] Ueda lost a leg in the 29 April 1932 terror attack by Korean independence activist Yoon Bong-Gil which killed his superior, General Yoshinori Shirakawa in Shanghai's Hongkou Park.

As commander, Ueda supported measures to suppress the illicit narcotics trade in Manchukuo and northern China.

[4] A strong believer in the “Strike North” or Hokushin-ron policy that Japan's main enemy was communism and that Japan's destiny laid in conquest of the natural resources of the sparsely populated north Asian mainland, Ueda supported the unauthorized aggressive actions initiated by staff and field officers on the Soviet border with Manchukuo and Mongolia which led to the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts with heavy fighting and high casualties against Soviet forces around Nomonhan between May and August 1939.

[5] Despite the disastrous results of the battles against Soviet forces, Ueda remained adamant in his support of the hokushin-ron policy and refused to discourage his officers from taking similar actions.