Redefining North China during the Sino–Japanese War: The Jin–Xi Incident, 1939–1940

Abstract

ABSTRACT In late 1939 and early 1940, during the Sino–Japanese War, the Chinese Communist Party entered into a civil war with both the Shanxi provincial warlord, Yan Xishan, and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party. This is usually referred to as the Jin–Xi Incident – the “first anti-Communist upsurge” the Nationalists launched during the war with Japan. However, compared to the “second anti-Communist upsurge” (also known as the New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941) in Anhui Province, which has attracted great scholarly attention both inside and outside China, the Jin–Xi Incident has been to a large extent neglected. Previously, it was regarded as a local crisis for the Chinese Communist Party’s united front in Shanxi, but newly available evidence suggests that the incident had wider significance. This article illustrates how the Jin–Xi Incident reshaped resistance activities against the Japanese in both Shanxi and North China more broadly, and laid the foundation for the CCP’s victory over the Nationalist Party following the Sino–Japanese War.