Paper short abstract:

The Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 was a major trial for "Shidehara diplomacy" and affected subsequent relations between China and Japan. Research on the Japanese press, presented with a focus on local newspapers, takes that regional crisis as a case study of competing discourses on Nationalist China.

Paper long abstract:

In the late 1920s, the establishment of a new central government in China under the Nationalist Party posed a major challenge to Japan's established interests in that country. When Shidehara Kijurō started his second tenure as foreign minister, in July 1929, he had a complex agenda for improving strained relations with Nanjing, so as to secure for Japan a leading role among the powers in the renegotiation of the "unequal treaties". Before he could act, though, his plans were disrupted by the outbreak of an armed conflict between China and the Soviet Union over control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Japan's neutrality worked in favour of Moscow, which managed to reassert its rights on the disputed railway by the year's end. Shidehara's unwillingness to support China's claims left a negative impression on the Nationalists, thus affecting adversely the later course of Sino-Japanese negotiations.

Scholars have examined the 1929 conflict and its wider consequences from different national perspectives. Their focus, however, has been on institutional actors, such as diplomats and military officials. As a result, little is known about the responses of public opinion and their impact on diplomacy, or, conversely, about the influence of that conflict over the formation of public discourses on Nationalist China. Newspapers and magazines published at the time, still largely overlooked in the literature, are precious sources to tackle these questions.

This paper, specifically, compares opinions in the national press of Japan with those that appeared in some leading local newspapers. For the latter group, three areas of circulation are considered, namely northern Kyūshū, the Tōkai region and Niigata prefecture. The analysis rests on a complete survey of editorials from the selected sources, chosen as representative of different political stances and target readerships. The results highlight common threads and narrative patterns across the sample, while showing at the same time the critical independence of local editors. This, in turn, provides evidence for a better understanding of the structure of public opinion in imperial Japan and its relationship with policymaking.