After the Sixth Plenum, the CCP continued its active engagement in united front work, but it also began to stress independence and initiative within the united front.  While pursuing cooperation with the Guomindang, the CCP emphasized the need to preserve the concept of class struggle and to safeguard the party’s interests.  Implementing these changes in the anti-Japanese national united front period had an indirect influence on the Communists’ foreign policy.  A key problem that the Communists confronted was how to manage the complicated and changeable international environment in order to maintain GMD-CCP cooperation while effectively protecting the party’s interests in the united front.

The Sixth Plenum took place during the high tide of the battle of Wuhan.  By October 21, the Japanese had occupied Guangzhou.  Wuhan fell four days later.  This marked the end of large-scale Chinese resistance in central China.  Although the Nationalist government had made a considerable effort to defend Wuhan, and had requested and received large quantities of Soviet aid to defend the city, it had not really effectively resisted the Japanese attack or resolved to defend Wuhan.  After the Japanese army occupied Guangzhou, even as the Nationalists made repeated urgent calls for Soviet assistance, they simultaneously decided to abandon Wuhan and withdraw to the southwest.

 On November 3, not long after their occupation of Wuhan, the Japanese government changed its earlier position of “not considering the Nationalist government an adversary.” On November 30, the Imperial Conference determined “to revise its policy for the new Japanese-Chinese relationship,” namely, “to restore the new diplomatic relations among Japan, Manchukuo, and China.”[1]  The changes in Japanese policy encouraged the tendency within the Guomindang that favored compromise with Japan and “the peaceful resolution” of the Sino-Japanese conflict.  T first Chiang Kai-shek supposed that he would no longer have to fight the Japanese.  The change in Japan’s China policy following the fall of Wuhan encouraged him to believe that he might be able to hold on to his remaining territory.  He thought, “the enemy had now reached the ultimate limit of his ability to deploy troops.”  The enemy was unable to augment his troop strength, and Japanese forces in China “were utterly exhausted.”[2]  Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek began to explore what he deemed were “conditions for an honorable peace,” with the Japanese.

In addition to being influenced by Japan’s policy that sought to induce his surrender, Chiang Kai-shek’s attempts to reach an accommodation with Japan were also closely linked to the Chamberlain government’s intensified efforts in the East to appease Japan.  After the Japanese army occupied Guangzhou and Wuhan, the battlefront in China became relatively stabilized.  The British government immediately undertook active efforts at mediation.  British Ambassador Kerr traveled from Shanghai to Chongqing where he met with Chiang Kai-shek on seven occasions in quick succession.  In Britain and the United States there was much public discussion of the idea of convening a Pacific conference to settle the Sino-Japanese conflict.  Britain’s action, as well as that of other countries, encouraged the Guomindang, which had originally lacked the spirit of self-reliance to resist Japan, to believe in the possibility of “making use of British power to solve the Sino-Japanese problem.”  Guomindang officials even openly proclaimed that, “The Sino-Japanese problem is one that will be resolved by pressure applied to both countries by the Great Powers.”  Guomindang publications echoed Anglo-American public opinion, propagating the idea of “supporting the call for a Pacific conference.... A Pacific conference will be beneficial for China.  This will not be a Munich; this step will benefit China.”  In April 1939, Ambassador Kerr returned to Chongqing to peddle this idea, urging the Nationalist government to adopt conciliatory policies toward Japan.

In order to settle the Tianjin Concession issue, in July Britain’s ambassador to Japan Craigie held talks in Tokyo with Japanese Foreign Minister Arita Hachiro resulting in the Arita-Craigie Agreement.  In accordance with the terms of this agreement, Britain made unilateral concessions to Japan on the China question.  London “completely recognized the existing state of affairs” brought into being by Japanese aggression against China.  It recognized “the special requirements of the Japanese army in central China necessitated by their goal of safeguarding their own security, and maintaining public order in the territories they occupied.  At the same time, it takes note that the Japanese army has no option but to curb and eradicate all elements that obstruct the Japanese army or engage in activity beneficial to the enemies of the Japanese army.”[3]  This was the high tide of Britain’s attempt to appease Japan.

The strengthening of this conciliatory tendency within the Guomindang led directly to a split in the leadership.  In December 1938, the Wang Jingwei clique turned traitor and went over to the enemy.  Wang himself slunk off to Hanoi, precipitating a serious crisis within the party.   Although Chiang Kai-shek condemned Wang’s traitorous act, openly or covertly the Guomindang still sought some way to reach an accommodation with Japan.

The other consequence of the growth of the Guomindang’s conciliatory tendency was the strengthening of anti-communist activity inside the country aimed at isolating the CCP.  Following the Sixth Plenum, even though the CCP continued to pursue close relations with the Guomindang, the latter did not abandon its previous policy toward the CCP.  Not long before the fall of Wuhan, Chiang Kai-shek revealed that he had deep misgivings about the effects of the Communists’ political work and mass work.  Chiang first agreed to let the Communists fight within the enemy lines because he figured that the lightly armed Communist troops, of whom there were only 40,000, would be greatly weakened in combat with the Japanese.  The results were precisely the opposite.  In just one year of fighting, Communist troop strength more than doubled, and stable revolutionary bases were constructed behind enemy lines.  This increased Chiang Kai-shek’s sense of threat.  Therefore, as the battlefield situation stabilized, Chiang undertook measures to deal with the CCP.