North China Buffer State Strategy

On 7 December 1934 a decision was reached at a meeting of the Army, Navy, and Foreign Ministries of Japan concerning issues relating to policy toward China and an agenda was laid out to see to it that the power of the Chinese government did not extend to North China by setting up a pro-Japanese puppet government and extending Japan's economic rights and interests in the area, and by suppressing anti-Japanese sentiments there.

In addition, the same policy was also advocated at the Dalian Conference, a meeting of intelligence operatives working in China and Mongolia hosted by the Kwantung Army early in January 1935.

[2] In contemporary north China the people had witnessed the remarkable events in Manchuria while dissatisfaction was rising among the citizens and various military cliques due to heavy taxation and exploitation by the Nationalist government.

Chiang Kai-shek's leverage in north China receded and in June 1935 Bai Jianwu launched an abortive coup d'état in Fengtai with the aim of establishing a pro-Japanese and pro-Manchukuo government.

Political and economic grievances increased among the masses and movements for autonomy gathered momentum in places like Shandong, Shanxi, and Hebei where the Xianghe Incident occurred in October in which peasants disavowed the Nationalist government in opposition to a KMT tax hike and demanded self-government against oppressive taxation.

After the Xi'an Incident of 12 December 1936, the detention of Chiang Kai-shek by his subordinate Zhang Xueliang, the Republic of China and the Red Army, with the brokerage of the Comintern, concluded the Second United Front and a definite shift for the Nationalists from anti-communism to resistance against the Japanese.