International Status And Territorial Sovereignty

In modern times, China was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The fight for China's sovereign independence and national self-reliance was the central theme of modern China. For a long time, there are quite few researches on the characteristics of China's territorial sovereignty during the semi-colonial and semi-feudal period, and the impact of the characteristics on the diplomacy of Republic of China. The thesis attempts, from this perspective, to review and analyze the evolution of KMT government's policy on territorial sovereignty over northeast region during the period between 1937 and 1945.The present thesis discusses in detail two latitudes of territorial sovereignty, the legal latitude and substantive latitude, which are two important perspectives on the analysis of modern China's semi-colonial territorial sovereignty. In the thesis, modern China, a "semi-colony", is defined as a nation which only has legal sovereignty but lacks of substantive sovereignty. With such characteristics, modern China can safeguard its territorial sovereignty through two forces:one is the potential strength and power of nationalism; the other is the international check and balance on the basis of the recognition of China's legal sovereignty. According to the legal sovereignty and substantive sovereignty, KMT government's policy on territorial sovereignty can be divided into holding policy, Resumption policy, and compromise policy.In the treatment of the territorial sovereignty, the key factor of KMT government's choice to rely on international checks and balances to solve the problems of its own territorial sovereignty is the change of China's international status. KMT government's policy on territorial sovereignty of northeast region has changed from holding policy to active resumption policy, and then to compromise. The one of major factors is the change of China's international status. When there were no obvious changes of China's semi-colonial status, KMT government could only take hold policy over invaded area based on legal sovereignty; when there were improvements of China's status in East Asia (though remained a semi-colonial status), KMT government could take the recover policy with international support; instead; when China's status declined and there was few international support, KMT government could only take the compromise policy.