1937 At the beginning of the Lugouqiao Incident, Chiang Kai-shek felt that the situation was serious, but he still had illusions. On the third day of the incident, he asked the foreign minister to send a note to the Japanese ambassador to China, asking for a peaceful settlement of the war with Japan, but the negotiation proposal was quickly rejected by the Japanese side. At this point, Japanese hardliners gained the upper hand. Their slogan is "If the saber is pulled out, how can it be sheathed without blood!" Japan's tough attitude greatly stimulated Chiang Kai-shek. 16 In July, Chiang Kai-shek instructed the Executive Yuan of the National Government to hold a meeting to study and discuss the issue of declaring war on Japan. After analyzing the development of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the international situation, the participants carefully weighed the possible advantages and disadvantages of declaring war on Japan, and thought that maintaining China's relations with Japan at present was the best policy. The reasons are as follows.
First, because China is extremely backward at present, its military supplies cannot be self-sufficient, and most of it depends on foreign imports. If it declares war on Japan, Japan, as a belligerent country, will inform all countries to prohibit all munitions and munitions raw materials from being imported into China, and cut off China's maritime transport lines, while China is unable to guarantee a large number of foreign aid materials to be imported into China from the sea.
Second, in recent years, China has just trained and equipped several armored soldiers through the German military advisory group. At that time, Germany still had a large number of scheduled important military equipment that had not arrived. If a war is declared, Japan will justifiably force Germany to cancel its arms sales to China, which is very unfavorable for China to continue its war of resistance.
Third, if a war is declared, China's overseas Chinese in Japan will be expelled or arrested, while China is currently unable to evacuate and protect overseas Chinese. On the contrary, Japanese overseas Chinese can move into the concessions of Britain, France and other countries and continue to play the role of the fifth column invading China, but the China government cannot expel or interfere.
Therefore, in the long War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression since then, the Kuomintang government has always adopted the strategy of guarding the city and seeking peace.
Like China, Japan attached great importance to the issue of declaring war after the outbreak of the all-out war of aggression against China. His cabinet has repeatedly discussed the issue of declaring war and breaking diplomatic relations with China, but no consensus has been reached. The unanimous opinion of the military is that "it is not appropriate to declare war." The reason is that although declaring war can prevent economic exchanges between China and a third country and cut off the import of China's military equipment to the greatest extent, Japan is also an island country lacking in resources, and most of its military materials and raw materials have to be imported from abroad. If a war is declared, countries sympathetic to China will restrict the export of strategic raw materials to Japan, and Japan will even be subject to international economic sanctions, which will undoubtedly do more harm than good to Japan.
194 1 The Pacific War broke out in, and the change of the international situation made Chiang Kai-shek completely give up the idea of making peace with Japan. 194165438+On February 9th, China officially declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy.