The Xi'an Incident was a Chinese political crisis that lasted from 12 to 26 December 1936. Generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng seized Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an, demanding the Nationalist government end the Chinese Civil War and ally with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against Japanese expansionism, resulting in the Second United Front.
The incident took place after months of secret negotiations between the CCP and the Kuomintang (KMT) had stalled. The CCP had meanwhile forged a covert alliance with Zhang Xueliang's Northeastern Army and Yang Hucheng's Northwestern Army. After Chiang issued Zhang an ultimatum to either attack the Communists or face reassignment, Zhang arrested him and threw the Nationalist government into disarray. General He Yingqin nearly launched a military assault on Xi'an before Soong Mei-ling and T. V. Soong prevailed in favor of negotiation. Following initial mediation by William Henry Donald, the Soongs flew to Xi'an. The CCP called for Chiang's execution, but Joseph Stalin, fearing the mutiny was part of a Japanese plot to weaken China, overruled them and ordered a peaceful resolution. CCP representatives Zhou Enlai, Qin Bangxian, and Ye Jianying then joined the talks in Xi'an and Chiang conceded to a ceasefire. On 25 December, Zhang released Chiang and accompanied him to Nanjing, where Chiang immediately had him arrested; Zhang remained under house arrest until 1990. Yang was arrested in 1937 and executed in Chongqing shortly before the city fell to the CCP in 1949.
The incident is subject to widely ranging and often partisan historiography. To the KMT, it represented a lost opportunity to destroy the CCP; to the CCP, it is celebrated as evidence of its commitment to national resistance against invasion over Chiang's obstinate prioritization of the civil war. Zhang expressed regret over the mutiny in the 1950s but reaffirmed in the 1990s that he had no regrets.
Background
Japanese expansionism and the Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalists had been engaged in a civil war since 1927. Although the Empire of Japan's expansionism in China posed a clear threat to both sides, at first it did not lead to a cessation of hostilities. Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek believed that "The Japanese are a disease of the skin. The Communists are a disease of the heart." He responded to the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria by ordering General Zhang Xueliang not to resist. He felt unprepared to confront Japan with China's limited military capacity and the ongoing civil war. When the invasion ended in an unstable peace, Chiang decided to prioritize winning the civil war before he confronted Japan. He called this policy "first internal pacification, then external resistance." The CCP in turn reacted to Chiang's policy of nonresistance with disdain, viewing him as a pawn of the Japanese. They saw fighting the Nationalist government as an essential part of resistance to Japan and called for "Resisting Japan and Opposing Chiang".
Nonetheless, prosecuting the civil war while resisting Japan became increasingly impractical as time went on. Already by late 1932, Communist guerilla groups in Manchuria had begun to cooperate with Nationalist guerillas against the Japanese occupiers. The CCP also began to come under pressure from the Soviet Union to negotiate an end to the civil war. The USSR was concerned with events in Europe—especially Hitler's rise to power—and wanted Communist parties to form united fronts with moderates to resist fascist aggression. This policy was formally adopted by the 7th World Congress of the Comintern in the summer of 1935. The CCP delegation at the Congress, headed by Wang Ming, published the "August 1 Declaration" describing how a united front could be created in China. They recommended a government of national defense including all parties in China that wanted to resist Japanese imperialism. Importantly, because they still considered Chiang to be a "running dog" of the Japanese, they did not extend this offer to the Nationalist government.
The CCP itself was in the middle of the Long March during the Comintern Congress and was cut off from radio communication with Moscow. Its leaders learned of the Congress's decisions in November 1935. The following month, they held a conference at Wayaobu to discuss the implications of this new Comintern policy. The Wayaobu Manifesto that they published was a significant retreat from the hardline positions they had held during the early civil war. It called for "the most broad national united front" involving rich peasants and the national bougeoisie to resist Japan, and announced that the CCP was willing to suspend class conflict in the interests of cross-class collaboration. However, they did not intend for the Chinese Red Army to surrender or submit to the Nationalists. On the contrary, their plan to resist the Japanese centered on expanding the Red Army to 1 million men and dramatically increasing the land area covered by the Chinese Soviet Republic. Mao correctly deduced that the weakest link in Chiang's armory was Zhang Xueliang's Manchurian army, who had no interest in fighting the communists. From late November 1935, Mao made overtures to Zhang with offers of a truce and a joint campaign against the Japanese.
In late 1935, relations between Nanjing and Tokyo took a sharp downturn as Japan stepped up its expansionist policies in north China. Chiang Kai-shek feared that a full-scale invasion of China was imminent, and wanted to secure the material and diplomatic support of the Soviet Union. He also faced growing public pressure to actively resist Japan; on 9 December 1935, for example, a major student protest broke out in Beiping. In January, Chiang Kai-shek sent emissaries to Moscow to negotiate a military mutual assistance treaty. However, as a precondition for a treaty, Chiang wanted the Soviet Union to order the CCP to submit to the Nationalist Government. The Soviet ambassador told Chiang that while the USSR hoped the CCP would agree to a unified command under the Nationalists, Chiang would have to negotiate directly with the CCP. This upset Chiang, who worried that if the USSR was unwilling to order the CCP to stop, they might be willing to support further revolutionary actions by the CCP if a ceasefire broke down. Progress halted, and after news leaked to the press that Chiang was contemplating a treaty with the USSR, he called off negotiations.
In October 1935, the Chinese Communist Party arrived in northern Shaanxi at the end of the Long March. The party had lost over 90% of its numbers and was in desperate need of supplies. But their new base area was economically backwards, agriculturally unproductive, and cut off from the outside world. It was bordered to the north by the Ordos Desert, to the east by Shanxi (governed by the warlord Yan Xishan), and to the south and west by the "Northwest Bandit Suppression Headquarters". The Northwest BanditSuppression Headquarters was a command created by the Nationalist government to wipe out the remnants of the CCP. Based in Xi'an, it consisted of the 130,000-strong Northeastern Army, led by Zhang Xueliang, and the 40,000-strong Northwestern Army, led by Yang Hucheng. Both Yang and Zhang were former warlords who had pledged their armies to the Nationalist Government. As such, they retained a degree of independence from the central government that the CCP would seek to exploit.
Zhang and Yang had been promised an easy victory against the Communists. They were therefore surprised and dismayed when the Chinese Red Army defeated them in several major engagements. The Red Army treated their prisoners of war well and gave them a political education, sending them back to tell their comrades that the Communists wanted to form an anti-Chiang and anti-Japanese alliance. This proposal struck a chord with both the soldiers and their commanders. Zhang Xueliang had governed Manchuria before it was overrun by the Japanese, and he and his army strongly wished to retake their homeland. He resented the policy of nonresistance ordered by Chiang Kai-shek, and was frustrated to be fighting the Communists instead of the Japanese. Yang had likewise become skeptical of Chiang's anti-Japanese commitment after he suppressed the anti-Japanese demonstrations in December 1935 and found the offer of a united front persuasive. With his officer Nan Hanchen acting as intermediary, Yang quickly concluded a secret ceasefire with the CCP. Negotiations with Zhang took longer to begin. But after Dong Jianwu (see the next section) requested passage to CCP territory on his mission from the central government, Zhang realized that the central government was negotiating with the CCP and was encouraged to do so himself. Furthermore, in January 1936, the Communists released Gao Fuyuan, a officer schoolmate of Zhang who was captured two months earlier and Gao convinced Zhang that the communists' offer of co-operation were sincere. Zhang accepted a meeting with Mao's envoy Li Kenong and agreed to adopt a "passive stance" in the civil war, but Zhang disagreed on the communists' proposed overthrow of Chiang. By 25 February 1936, the Communists had agreed to a temporary ceasefire. On 9 April, Zhou Enlai arrived at Zhang Xueliang's headquarters in Xi'an to solidify their agreement. Zhou, an experienced negotiator, not only formalized the covert ceasefire, but also secured supplies for the Red Army. In May, the CCP formalized a non-aggression pact with the Northwestern Army as well.
Zhou and Zhang began a series of secret meetings to discuss what a united front could look like. Zhang Xueliang argued that resisting Japan would only be possible if the CCP was willing to let Chiang lead the united front. Zhou offered to discuss the point with CCP leadership, but refused to commit to changing the policy. Meanwhile, Zhang tolerated growing Communist influence within the Northeastern Army. Communist cadres spread ideas among the soldiers and recruited officers into secret societies. In June they set up an officer training camp that preached the virtues of a united front. His army's receptiveness to the Communists helped persuade Zhang to conclude a formal alliance on 22 September.
The [CCP]'s call for suspending the civil war and forming a united anti-Japanese resistance touched not only my heart deeply but also the hearts of most of the men in the Northeastern Army.
— Zhang Xueliang
Yan Xishan also concluded secret agreements with the CCP. Illegally imported Japanese products were undermining the Shanxi economy and the Japanese puppet Mongol Military Government was encroaching on Yan's rule over Suiyuan. Out of fear of the Japanese, Yan was attracted by the CCP's proposition for a united front and agreed to a truce in June 1936. In September, he created the "League for Sacrifice and Salvation" to agitate the Shanxi public against the Japanese. CCP leaders Bo Yibo and Feng Xuefeng went to Shanxi and began working closely with Yan.
The partners in this covert northwestern alliance were united by their desire to resist Japan, but they differed over the details of how this could best be accomplished. The Communists proposed a plan to unite under Zhang's command and use Soviet support to take over Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang, turning northwest China into a base to resist Japan and oppose Chiang. Zhang, Yang, and Yan were still committed to convincing Chiang to lead the anti-Japanese resistance. But none of them informed Chiang of their secret alliance and they even staged fake military battles to deceive the Nanjing government.
Sluggish negotiations
Despite breaking off negotiations with the USSR in late 1935, Chiang did secretly reach out to the CCP. Two prominent figures in the Nationalist government, Soong Ching-ling and Chen Lifu, managed to recruit two members of the Communist underground, Dong Jianwu and Zhang Zihua, to cross the front line and tell the CCP that Chiang was interested in negotiations. They arrived on 27 February 1936. Despite their skepticism towards Chiang, the CCP Central Committee sent a list of five conditions to the Nationalists in March. They sought a ceasefire, a government of national defense (i.e., one where the Communists, the Nationalists, and the warlord factions were equal partners), a military alliance against Japan (but with continued Red Army independence), the right to move their base of operations to Hebei, and political and economic reforms. Meanwhile, skirmishes with the Nationalists continued in Shaanxi and despite having pledged to sent a expeditionary force to fight the Japanese, christened "Eastern Expedition to Resist Japan and Save the Nation", the communists did not even came within 200 miles of the Japanese frontlines.
The Nationalists responded in June with a proposal for a different vision of a united front. They wanted to see the Red Army fully integrated into the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), for it to move to Suiyuan and Chahar rather than Hebei, and for the CCP to recognize the legitimacy of the Nationalist government. However, they did offer CCP leaders the chance to come to Nanjing to participate in the central government. The CCP disliked this proposal, but because they had failed to break out of Northern Shaanxi, they continued to negotiate.