The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 13, 1941: China's response

Abstract

The subject of this research is response of the government, political parties, and society of the Republic of China to signing the Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan on April 13, 1941 – one of the crucial bilateral agreements of the World War II, which entailed fundamental changes to the Far Eastern international system. The Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact negatively affected the relations between the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. The goal of this work is to objectively assess the impact of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 13, 1941 upon the domestic and foreign policy of the Chinese government, as well as further development of the Sino-Soviet relations. The novelty of this work consists in the fact that based on the poorly studied Russian and foreign documentary materials, the author examines the questions that have been rarely touched upon within the Russian historiography, such as: China’s response to conclusion of the Neutrality Pact between the USSR and Japan; its effect upon Sino-Soviet relations. The conclusion is made that the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of April 13, 1941, which marked the most difficult moment of the Sino-Japanese War, was a psychological blow to China. The position of the Kuomintang government was ambivalent: on the one hand, it refrained from the public anti-Soviet propaganda; while on the other hand, used dissatisfaction of China’s population to enhance pressure on its major political opponent – China’s Communist Party. Therefore, the Sino-Soviet relations in general did not experience severe problems; however, the internal split in the Chinese society has worsened, which substantially undermined the formation of Second United Front.