The International Settlement at Shanghai, 1924–34

It is becoming increasingly clear that the decade following the Washington Conference constituted a distinct epoch in the Far East. The revolutionary surge of Nationalist China with its warcry, “abolish the unequal treaties,” threw the foreign Powers on the defensive for the first time in a century. Skillful Chinese diplomacy supported by physical, moral, and economic force swept away foreign rights and privileges of long standing. Expansive world prosperity bolstered up a sagging Japanese financial structure and encouraged all the Powers to respect the self-denying pledges of the Washington treaties and the demands of Chinese nationalism. This period terminated with the Japanese attack on Mukden in September, 1931. As hard times put increasing strain upon the economy of the Island Empire, the Japanese army, with continental ambitions rekindled, launched a bold campaign for hegemony north of the Great Wall—and possibly south.During the nineteen-twenties, the center of gravity in China shifted to the Yangtse Valley. Shanghai, the foreign-controlled metropolis which stands at the cross-roads of Far Eastern commerce and dominates an immense hinterland, assumed a position of increasing importance in the domestic economy and international politics of China.