Study Of The Causes Of The Nanjing National Government "nonresistance"

The "Non-Resistance" dogma adopted by the Nanjing National Government during the 9 ? 18 Incident and over the entire 1930s stands out in China's contemporary history of diplomacy. It is improper to base the research into the causes of the formation of this policy upon the power comparison between China and Japan in that era so that the research will possibly slip into materialism while neglecting subjective factors; so is it to simply commence from the individual intention of a certain Chinese policy-maker and reckon the decision-making as the result of contingent individualist factors. On the contrary, the specific decision-making culture characteristic of collective cognition, the outcome of the interaction between China and the outside world at the threshold of the 20th century, should be taken as the start-point of the research and its effect on the decisions and policies is to be discussed.Being the "common knowledge" shared within the policy-formulators of a government, a decision-making culture is established on the basis of the accumulative ideas obtained in interaction with both foreign and other domestic political units while being nourished by the traditional culture of the nation, the reins of which the government is controlling. By describing their identity and interests, a decision-making culture helps the decision-makers to set up their general belief system among international systems and regimes, behavior modes and the strategic objectives of other nations, domestic political logic as well as to identify the behavior mode their government is supposed to adopt. This belief system serves as a guideline for the formulation of both the foreign and domestic policies of the government in certain situation as well as the benchmark on the cognition, selection and judgment on concrete issues. The interaction between China and the rest of the world from the late 19th to the early 20th century, the first Sino-Japanese War (1 August 1894 - April 1895) and the Eight-Power invasion of China in 1900 in particular, brought about the thorough collapse of the belief in the "Supreme Dynasty and Uppermost Nation" of China and catalyzed a new decision-making culture characteristic of an intense weak-nation mentality. The Weak-nation Mentality decision-making culture can be interpreted as intense self- depreciation and a bound-to fail thought that had stemmed from the failure of the all previous wars against the western powers, tremendous humiliation China had suffered from the failure and the wide gap in power between China and the western powers that China had clearly realized. It is a relatively more level headed understanding of the then world situation and its own identity and interests, meanwhile it is also a type of psychological unbalance between the status quo and the past superiority and arrogance. Throughout the first half 20th century, this culture made a series of governments during that era aware of their identity as a poor and weak nation, fixed their special interests and also guided their cabinets to make new choices based on the following four issues: resistance to or compromise with foreign invasions; rejection or consent to the integration into the international community; being a lonely warrior or being reliant on other power while in a vulnerable state; and priority on internal or external issues, so as to permit puny administrations both externally and domestically to be able to furthest safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, minimize the losses of national interests and try to maintain a peaceful and stable overall situation as long as possible in diplomacy, as well as to be able to maintain and cement its rule and unify and build the country at its own will.The foundation of the Nanjing National Government did not turn the scale of China's being a poor and weak nation since the late Qing Dynasty and the Weak-nation Mentality decision-making culture was still guiding the government in identity construction, interests fixing and behavior-mode choosing. The "Non-Resistance" dogma, adopted by the Nanjing National Government on the basis of the Weak-nation Mentality decision-making culture in face of both severe internal and external issues, was a road map fusing military and diplomatic and combining short-term and long-term objectives to strive to completely ravel out the domestic unrest and the foreign aggression. This dogma included four aspects: appeasing Japan and avoiding armed resistance due to its fear of war; suing the League of Nations and seeking asylum from international laws; relying on the major powers to deal one nation with another; first internal pacification, then external resistance.The death of the "Non-Resistance" dogma, the same way as its birth, was conditioned by the conversion of the decision-making culture. Performance of a decision-making culture in practice and decision-makers' cognition of such performance separately serve as the sufficient and the necessary conditions of conversion of a culture. Due to the change of the situation that led to the failure of the non- resistance policies guided by the Weak-nation Mentality decision-making culture, as well as the recognition of the reality caused the culture to come down, thus reversing China from non-resistance to resistance.