e benevolent guardians of China," but they were not so regarded by the Chinese, who looked upon themselves as morally superior to all 'foreign barbarians.' During the 1930s, growing Chinese nationalism and Japanese strategic and economic interests in China came into sharp conflict over Japan's conquest of Manchuria (1931) and its military incursions into northwestern China (1931-1936). The United States was unwilling to go to war over Japan's full scale of invasion of China in 1937 because, according to Tang Tsou, American "policy continued to reflect the view that China was not important enough to risk embroilment with Japan."
as the 1930s drew to a close, the American people's image
of China grew to heroic proportions--an image of a dogged, patient, indomitable people fighting with boundless
determination against a brutal foreign invader.
Given their geopolitical objectives, Japan's militarists had little choice but to
...