飞兵奇袭密支那——远征缅甸抗战的关键战

太平洋怒潮澎湃,战火纷飞。 1941年12月8日,日本突然袭击珍珠港(美国在太平洋的重要军港)。太平洋战争爆发! 挟偷袭珍珠港的余威,日本人以劲风扫落叶之势,横扫南太平洋的美、英、荷盟军。因事起仓卒,盟军无还手之力。菲律宾、泰国、马来西亚和新加坡、香港,在一个月内先后失陷。日本南进的最后一站将是缅甸。 1942年3月8日,扛着太阳旗的日本士兵高     

对盟国的抵制与索取:战后初期日本的领土政策(1945—1951)

日本作为第二次世界大战的发起国与战败国,按照盟国《开罗宣言》的规定,"其以暴力或贪欲所攫取之所有土地"都应被剥夺,但战后已被盟国从日本领土剥离出来的琉球群岛、小笠原群岛等又被美国私相授受给了日本。其根源在于,日本对殖民扩张和侵略战争没有进行彻底清算,殖民主义的意识形态仍在影响着日本政界,导致日本在战后实施的领土政策不是心甘情愿地放弃侵占的邻国领土,而是抵制盟国对日本领土的处置,甚至向盟国索要领土。尤其是冷战爆发后,日本巧妙地利用盟国分裂之机,向美国争取到了对琉球群岛拥有"剩余主权"的承诺,实现了与美国等国的片面媾和,为日后美日私相授受琉球群岛、小笠原群岛等做了铺垫,同时也为中日、苏(俄)日、韩日领土争端埋下了伏笔。     

台湾当局与日本对琉球“剩余主权”说

1951年9月8日,美国及其他国家在旧金山签署了《与日媾和条约》。日本同意将北纬29度以南的南西诸岛(包括琉球群岛和大东群岛)、孀妇岩岛以南的南方诸岛(包括小笠原群岛、西之岛、琉磺列岛)、冲之鸟礁、南鸟岛置于联合国托管制度之下,而以美国为唯一管理当局。为了扶持日本,1971年6月17日,美国与日本签署协定,决定将琉球群岛中南部地区、大东诸岛、钓鱼岛及其附属岛屿移交日本管辖。自1953年至1972年,台湾当局与美国政府持续沟通,公开发表声明,指出美国此举将挑战《开罗宣言》、《波茨坦宣言》,质疑所谓的"剩余主权"说,缺乏国际法依据,试图劝说美国,应根据对日和约第三条,将琉球群岛置于联合国托管制度下。     

珍珠港事变前夜的中美交涉

美国长期大量向日本出售钢铁、石油等战略物资,助长其侵华实力。1939年7月,蒋介石致电罗斯福,建议美国采取办法,削弱日本的战斗力与经济力。同月,美国政府宣布废止美日商约,对日实行经济制裁。1941年4月,日本向美国提出《日美谅解案》,企图通过谈判,减轻美国对日本的经济压力。罗斯福为避免美国过早陷入大西洋和太平洋同时两面作战的不利局面,提出退让、妥协方案,企图在一定时间内放松对日本的经济封锁。蒋介石坚决反对美国政府改变对日政策,愤而以"国际信义"与"人类道德"相责,胡适、宋子文也积极与美方交涉,最终,美国对日政策由有限度的妥协恢复为全面强硬,美日谈判破裂。日本指责美国已彻头彻尾地成为蒋介石的代言人,于12月初突袭珍珠港等地,太平洋战争爆发。     

为争取亚洲及太平洋区域的和平而门争

(一)美帝扩大侵略战争的阴谋,使世界人类尤其是亚洲及太平洋区域的和平受到了严重的威协:它非法武装日本,非法单独对日媾和;在朝鲜停战谈判的会议上,它一再玩弄着卑鄙无耻的手段,阴谋破坏谈判;同时并向朝鲜及我国东北进行着惨无人道的细菌战;美国战争贩子们想在亚洲发动世界大战的阴谋已日益显著了。亚洲及太平洋区域善良的人们,谁不痛恨战     

七十五年前的一次国际学术会议及胡适的一篇佚文

1931年九一八事变爆发,日本悍然出兵侵占中国东三省。事过仅一个月,太平洋国际学会第四届大会在中国举行。这次国际学术会议召开之前和开会之中,不仅在国内学术界乃至社会各界引起轩然大波,而且在中日两国学者之间更是引发激烈的抗争。太平洋国际学会是由美国学界和商界人物发起组织的非官方性质的政治学术团体,于1925年7月在美国夏威夷的檀香山正式成立并举行第一届大会。参加者为来自美国、中国、日本、朝鲜、加拿大、澳大利亚、新西兰、菲律宾等太平洋区域内及沿岸国家的代表112人。会议主旨是对太平洋沿岸各国面临的问题及国际关系之症…     

《吉田书简》出台之始末

由于冷战和朝鲜战争的爆发,战败的日本面临着是与中华人民共和国还是与台湾当局媾和的抉择,<吉田书简>的出台并非单纯受到美国压力的结果.日本选择加人以美国为首的西方阵营.与台湾当局媾和即是题中之义.既然以美国作为盟友是符合日本国家利益的最优选择,那么牺牲与中华人民共和国的关系就是可以放弃的次要利益.在<吉田书简>产生的过程中.日本政府实际上是一个积极的参与者而非被动的接受者.     

1937年布鲁塞尔会议与美国的外交因应

1937年中日全面战争爆发后,国民政府将中日冲突诉诸国际联盟.随后,国联通过决议,要求《九国公约》签字国召开会议,即后来的布鲁塞尔会议.美国期望借布鲁塞尔会议调停中日冲突,故一方面设法劝说日本参加会议,另一方面建议中国做出让步.然而,日本两次拒绝邀请,加之负责调停工作的小委员会未能成立,美国的设想最终落空.美国希望在调停问题上有所作为,但在援华制日方面不愿当头,美国的"有为"和"无为"反映了其参与布鲁塞尔会议的限度,亦折射出美国远东政策的矛盾性与复杂性.     

中苏同盟与新中国成立初期的对日政策

新中国成立初期,中国政府确立了"一边倒"的外交方针,并与苏联签订了《中苏友好同盟互助条约》。在对日政策上,中国政府在反对美国长期单独占领日本、反对旧金山片面对日媾和以及积极恢复中日邦交等方面与苏联政府一直保持着密切沟通与合作,制定出既保证本国利益,同时又体现出中苏同盟关系的对日政策。     

试论二十世纪三十年代美国对日奉行孤立主义政策的历史因素

20世界30年代前后,围绕日本侵华战争,门户开放和东亚新秩序这些问题,美日两国展开了长期的外交干涉。虽然日本的不断侵略威胁到美国在东亚的利益,但美国仍然极力避免卷入战争。其原因是受国内传统的孤立主义思潮的反战倾向,严重的经济危机和美日巨大的经济利益的影响导致美国对日奉行孤立主义。尽管在一定程度上反映了美国人民反战的和平愿望,但实际效果却是助长了法西斯的卿略野心。最终随着日本偷袭珍珠港,美国宣战,孤立主义才最终退出历史舞台。从本质上说,美国在围绕太平洋远东地区争霸的斗争中,美国的"门户开放"原则和日本的"大东亚共荣圈"是一对不可调和的矛盾,最终只能以武力解决。     

Changes in Japanese strategy in 1939–1940 and the internationalization of the Sino–Japanese War

In the early stage of the Sino–Japanese War, Japan was trying hard to limit the conflict to within a scope where it could be resolved bilaterally between only the two nations involved. However, her actual behavior was in stark contrast to her wishful desire to be at peace with the United States, pushing the latter step by step instead in the direction of aiding China and thwarting Japan. Caught in a dilemma created as the United States abrogated the American–Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, and faced with the changes in the European situation, Japan’s policy makers were eventually pushed by their obsession with the “New East Asian Order” and by their yearning for the “Extended New East Asian Order” which was to include Southeast Asia, deciding to steer the Sino–Japanese War in the direction of “international resolution,” which was just an alternate route to the same goal sought by China. Subsequently, not only did Japan refuse to withdraw from China, she actually took one step further in an expansion southwards, trying to kill several birds with one stone. The war thus spilled over from China to encompass a much greater area. In this process, Japan’s diplomatic corps was often several steps ahead of the military, reflecting the carefully considered background in Japanese policymaking.     

Diplomatic compromises between the United States and Japan during the Nanjing Massacre

ABSTRACT

During its assault on Nanjing, the Japanese Army bombarded and sank the USS Panay, an American gunship, straining the relations between Japan and the United States. During the Nanjing Massacre, to ease tensions with the United States, Japan allowed the staff of the American embassy in Nanjing to make an early return to the city. While investigating allegations that Japanese troops had trespassed on American property and kidnapped and raped a Chinese woman, the American diplomat John M. Allison was struck in the face by a Japanese soldier. The U.S. government exerted pressure on Japan over what was referred to as the “Allison Incident”: under orders from Tokyo, the Japanese occupying force in Nanjing apologized to Allison and placed the officers and soldiers involved in the incident under court-martial. The incident was thereby resolved. However, amidst the furor of the “Allison Incident,” the Chinese woman who had been assaulted was forgotten by both the American and Japanese governments as well as by public opinion. The Japanese soldiers were placed under court-martial not for raping the Chinese woman, but rather for striking an American diplomat. The U.S. government received a great many reports on the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army, but in policy and deed, the American response was limited to safeguarding its national interests in China.     

Localizing the Reynolds case: a comparison of two American military atrocities in the Far East in Cold War 1957

ABSTRACT

This paper’s main focus is the case of the killing of Chinese citizen Liu Ziran by the American soldier Robert G. Reynolds in Taipei on March 20, 1957. Following this unfortunate event, a United States court-martial was inappropriately held in Taiwan. Reynolds’ acquittal provoked a violent response from the Chinese people. The riot on May 24, 1957, is best interpreted within a framework of nationalism rather than Cold War discourse. That same year, in the Girard case, another American soldier killed a Japanese woman in Japan. Due to the unequal positions of Taiwan and Japan in US Cold War strategy, these two killings were handled differently and led to dissimilar reactions. Washington viewed Taipei as somewhat of a troublemaker rather than a reliable ally and expressed great suspicion of Chiang Kai-shek and his eldest son, Chiang Ching-kuo. The US government had already declined to support Chiang Kai-shek’s plan for parachute raids in China. Meanwhile, Chiang’s authoritarian regime created a hotbed for the outbreak of nationalism. The people of Taiwan experienced a “pawn complex” and, in the Reynolds case, gave vent to accumulated ideological and social pressures.     

Globalizing a Race to Publish an Encyclopedia

In 1912, Daniel Alexander Payne Murray published a prospectus for his “Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of the Colored Race throughout the World.” He promised to publish what literary historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., would describe as the “Grail” for black scholars. As Murray planned his encyclopedia in the first decade of the twentieth century, persons of African descent in the United States were killed and assaulted because of their race, and racial identification was as critical an issue as it was also ambiguous. Moreover, despite its ambiguity, or perhaps, because of it, race, in 1912 and since the Naturalization Act of 1790, had everything to do with American citizenship. In Murray’s time, whether a person was identified on the one hand as “white” or “octoroon” versus an identity as “black,” “Negro,” “mulatto,” or “quadroon” influenced whether or not that person could exercise his rights as an American citizen (with her rights barely entering the question). However, race, as Murray understood with its skin color codes shading the meaning of American citizenship, was much more a social construction than it was biological evidence of a person’s hereditary origins. Formulating a strategy in support of black American citizenship, Murray developed a global interpretation of the black American experience from a pragmatically ambiguous cultural practice to compose an identity for himself, his people, and his proposed encyclopedia.     

Intellectual preparedness: Dr. Hu Shih,Lake Forest College,and Chinese diplomacy during World War II

The summer of 1941 was a critical juncture in WWII history. As the war intensified and threatened the security of the United States, the American people were sharply divided into two opposing political camps, one sympathetic to interventionism and the other in favor of isolationism. Frightened by the recent memory of WWI and the reality of a worldwide economic depression, many Americans believed that their country should separate itself from troubling events in the world, thereby refuting President Roosevelt’s call for America to intervene against Hitler’s aggression in Europe and Japan’s atrocities in Asia. Against this historical background, Dr. Hu Shih, Chinese ambassador to the United States, came to Lake Forest in Illinois, the center of the isolationist movement, in the summer of 1941 to deliver a speech at Lake Forest College’s Sixty-Third Annual Commencement. This article uses various archives to reveal an untold story about Dr. Hu’s speech-diplomacy during his ambassadorial career. Tied to this event was a drama conveyed via multiple layers of historical accounts and contextualized by a series of political discourses ranging from the rise of isolationism in America to China’s use of soft-power diplomacy in the international arena, in which Dr. Hu played a significant role.     

Living with Giants and Inconvenient Truths: The US,China, and Everyone Else

ABSTRACT

The Trump administration is redefining the traditional post-World War II approach to American foreign policy, preferring an “America First” approach instead. At the same time, China is becoming increasingly assertive on the world stage, willing to throw its weight around and threaten smaller countries over any perceived slight. For the smaller countries who viewed the United States as a reliable security partner and China as an increasingly important trade partner, the world is looking increasingly uncertain. This uncertainty is compounded by the Trump administration’s more confrontational approach in its China policy. Other states, including Canada, are trying to navigate between a reluctant Washington and a temperamental and brash Beijing. This article argues that a major reset of US-China relations was both inevitable and needed. That said, it is not so much what the Trump administration is doing, but how it is doing it that is the problem. With its heavy-handed “America First” policies, the Trump administration risks losing the support of other states needed to push back against China.     

Of Peaceable Kingdoms and Lawless Frontiers: Exploring the Relationship between History,Mythology and Gun Culture in the North American West

The United States is more violent than Canada and it always has been. Even in the face of mass shootings, most Americans remain culturally and politically resistant to the sorts of gun control measures that have long existed in Canada. America’s unique gun culture is embedded in the history, imagery, and especially the mythology of the American frontier. Canada had its own frontier experience and has its own history of gun ownership, but it does not have a parallel gun culture. This article presents a comparative analysis of post-Civil War/post-Confederation frontier history and mythology, and examines the construction of contrasting cultural narratives of America’s “Wild West” and Canada’s “Mild West.” It suggests that US–Canadian differences in gun laws and gun culture—even in the borderlands region of Alberta/Montana—are better explained by the countries’ two different frontier mythologies than by their actual western histories.     

The power of the “Stockpile”: American aid and China’s Wartime everyday

ABSTRACT

This article argues that American and British narratives about the existence of a “stockpile” of Chinese goods had a powerful impact on US-China relations, China’s war effort, and China’s wartime everyday. Focusing on both the material and discursive construction of the so-called stockpile in the early 1940s, the work seeks to deconstruct a powerful symbol that was long used by both British and American officials (particularly in the US War Department) to delegitimize the Nationalist government’s war effort against Japan. Drawing on sources collected at archives in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan, the article seeks to rethink many commonly held assumptions about American aid and to reveal the powerful influence that the symbolic presence of the stockpile had in shaping Sino-American relations in the wartime period and beyond.     

杜勒斯与美国的琉球政策(1950-1951)

如何处理琉球群岛,是美国战后对日和约中需要解决的主要问题之一。1950年4月,杜勒斯被杜鲁门总统任命为国务卿顾问,负责对日和约问题。当时,美国政府内部特别是军方和国务院之间对此存在争论和分歧。杜勒斯因应美国遏制共产主义发展的亚洲政策主要目标,与美国政府内部各方、美国各盟国、苏联、日本等折冲博弈,基本上界定了琉球政策的框架。为满足各方需求,杜勒斯创造了“剩余主权”这一全新概念,通过《旧金山和约》确保了在联合国托管的名义下,美国对北纬29度以南的琉球群岛进行排他性战略控制。同时,杜勒斯主导了《美日安保条约》《美澳新安全条约》《美菲共同防御条约》的形成,初步构建了美国在亚太地区以琉球群岛军事基地为核心的防卫体系。     

Something to Compete with ‘Gunsmoke’: ‘The Big Picture’ Television series and selling a ‘modern,progressive and forward thinking’ Army to Cold War America

Airing from 1951 until 1971, ‘The Big Picture’ was the United States Army’s primary means of marketing itself to the U.S. public, particularly between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Drawing for the first time on archival records concerning the show’s production, this paper documents how information officers sought to escape the stock-footage straightjacket embedded in the show’s origins and showcase an Atomic Age Army standing sentry at the Cold War’s ramparts. Ultimately, they fought dual losing battles against parsimonious budgets and public indifference, while their insistence on content control hampered potential exposure in more appealing prime-time entertainment programmes.