Comment On The Effect Of Xi’an Incident On China’s Social Process

Xi’an Incident，initiated by the patriotic generals—Zhang Xueliang, YangHucheng—on December12,1936, was a major historical turning point in China’smodern history. The occurrence and the peaceful settlement of the incident ended thedecade-long civil war between the Communist Party of China and Kuomintang,stopped Kuomintang’s encirclement to the Communist Party, and contributed to thesecond cooperation between them. It helped establish nation-wide anti-JapaneseUnited Front, which guarantee the victory in the war of resistance against Japan andthen accelerate the development of China’s social progress.This paper has developed from three aspects to discuss the influence of Xi’anIncident on the process of China’s social development.The first part discusses the historical opportunity of Xi’an Incident. The severechallenges from the outside world, internal social situations and the simmering socialcontradiction in China are major causes of Xi’an Incident. Japan and Russia’sscramble for Northeast China and Japan’s step-by-step aggression against Chinaaggravated challenges of the outside world to China. The Kuomintang reactionarybehavior as well as the communist party’s united front policy made the internalsituation appear tense. The conflict among Zhang Xueliang, Yang Hucheng andChiang Kai-shek reached the irreconcilable degree. All these factors had acceleratedthe occurrence of Xi’an Incident.The second part expounds the leading factor of peaceful settlement of Xi’anincident.This paper considers that the peaceful settlement of Xi’an Incident is theresult of many factors. The Communist Party showed great foresight and adopted thepolicy of forcing Chiang Kai-shek to resist Japan. It also defined guidelines of thepeaceful settlement of the incident. The mediation of the Kuomintang favouring peaceand compromise of strong powers accelerated pace of peaceful settlement of Xi’anIncident. Factors of the international active intervention also cannot be ignored,whichinvolves communication with Soviet Union, British and American attitude andDonald’s help. Under the interaction of these factors, the Xi’an incident was resolved peacefully.The third part summarizes the influence of Xi’an Incident on the development ofChinese social progress. This paper considers that Xi’an Incident promotes thedevelopment of Chinese Social Politics. The event promoted the relative stability ofthe social order, raised the level of political democratization in China, and promotedits development of political ecology. Meanwhile, it accelerated China’s democraticrevolution. Namely the establishment of the national United Front, The growingforces of people’s democratic revolution and the opening of the prelude to liberationand rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.To summarize, the occurrence and the peaceful settlement of Xi’an incidentfacilitated China’s social progress.