Post by Diarist on Feb 24, 2017 4:19:01 GMT 1
Sino-German cooperation in the 1930s
Sino-German trade slowed between 1930 and 1932 due to the Great Depression; Chinese progress towards industrialisation was further hampered by conflicting interests between various Chinese reconstruction agencies, German industries, German import-export houses and the German Army. Events did not pick up speed until the 1931 Mukden Incident. This incident created the need for a concrete military and industrial policy aimed at resisting Japanese encroachment. In essence, it spurred the creation of a centrally planned, national defence economy. This both consolidated Chiang's rule over China and hastened industrialisation efforts.
The 1933 seizure of power by the Nazi Party further accelerated Sino-German cooperation. Before the Nazi rise to power, German policy in China had been contradictory, as the Foreign Ministry under the Weimar Government urged neutrality and discouraged the Reichswehr from becoming directly involved with the Chinese government. The same feeling was shared by the German import-export houses, for fear that direct government ties would exclude them from profiting as the middleman. On the other hand, the new Nazi government's policy of Wehrwirtschaft (Defence economy) called for the complete mobilisation of society and stockpiling of military raw materials, which China could supply in bulk.
In May 1933, Hans von Seeckt arrived in Shanghai and was offered to oversee economic and military development involving Germany in China. He submitted the Denkschrift für Marschall Chiang Kai-shek memorandum, outlining his programme of industrialising and militarising China. He called for a small, mobile, and well-equipped force as opposed to a massive but under-trained army. In addition, he advocated that the army is the "foundation of ruling power", that the military power rests in qualitative superiority derived from qualified officers.
Von Seeckt suggested that the first steps toward achieving this framework was that the Chinese military needed to be uniformly trained and consolidated under Chiang's command, and that the entire military system must be subordinated into a centralised hierarchy. Toward this goal, von Seeckt proposed the formation of a "training brigade" in lieu of the German eliteheer which would train other units, with its officer corps selected from strict military placements.
In addition, with German help, China would have to build up its own defence industry because it could not rely on buying arms from abroad much longer. The first step toward efficient industrialisation was the centralisation of both the Chinese and German reconstruction agencies. In January 1934, the Handelsgesellschaft für industrielle Produkte, or Hapro, was created to unify all German industrial interests in China. Hapro was nominally a private company to avoid oppositions from other foreign countries. In August 1934, "Treaty for the Exchange of Chinese Raw Materials and Agricultural Products of German Industrial and Other Products" was signed in which China would send strategically important raw material in exchange for German industrial products and development. This barter agreement was beneficial to Sino-German cooperation since China was unable to secure external monetary loans due to high budget deficit from military expenditure. This agreement allowed Germany to become independent of the international raw material market. The agreement specified that China and Germany were equal partners. Having accomplished this important milestone in Sino-German cooperation, von Seeckt transferred his post to General Alexander von Falkenhausen and returned to Germany in March 1935, where he died in 1936.
Germany and Chinese industrialization
In 1936, China had only about 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of railways, far lower than the 100,000 miles (160,000 km) that Sun Yat-sen had envisioned. In addition, half of these were in Japanese controlled Manchuria. The slow progress of modernising China's transport was due to conflicting foreign interests. Chinese external credits needed approval from British, French, American, and Japanese banks as stated in the 1920 New Four-Power Consortium. In addition, other foreign countries were hesitant to provide funding because of the depression.
However, a series of Sino-German agreements in 1934–1936 greatly accelerated railway construction in China. Major railways were built between Nanchang, Zhejiang, and Guizhou. These fast developments were made possible because Germany needed efficient transportation to export raw materials, and because the railway lines served the Chinese government's need to build an industrial centre south of the Yangtze. In addition, these railways served important military functions. For example, the Hangzhou-Guiyang rail was built to facilitate military transport in the Yangtze delta valley, even after Shanghai and Nanking were lost. Another similar railway was the Guangzhou-Hankou network, which provided transport between the eastern coast and the Wuhan area.
The most important industrial project from Sino-German cooperation was the 1936 Three-Year Plan, which was administered by the Chinese government's National Resources Commission and the Hapro corporation. The purpose of this plan was to create an industrial powerhouse capable of resisting Japan in the short run, and to create a centre for future Chinese industrial development for the long run. It had several basic components such as the monopolisation of all operations pertaining to tungsten and antimony, the construction of the central steel and machine works in Hubei, Hunan, and Sichuan, and the development of power plants and chemical factories. Cost overrun for these projects was partly assuaged by the fact that the price of tungsten had more than doubled between 1932 and 1936. Germany also extended RM 100 million line of credit to the KMT. The Three-Year Plan introduced a class of highly educated technocrats to run these state-owned projects. At the height of this programme, Sino-German exchange accounted for 17% of China's foreign trade and China was the third largest trading partner with Germany.
Germany and Chinese military modernisation
Alexander von Falkenhausen was responsible for most of the military training. Original plans by von Seeckt called for a drastic reduction of the military to 60 elite divisions modelled on the Wehrmacht, but questions as to which factions would be axed remained a problem. As a whole, officer corps trained by the Whampoa Academy up until 1927 were only of marginally better quality than the warlord armies, but they remained loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. Nonetheless, some 80,000 Chinese troops, in eight divisions, were trained and formed the elite of Chiang's army. However, China was not ready to face Japan on equal terms, and Chiang's decision to pit all of his new divisions in the Battle of Shanghai, despite objections from his staff officers and von Falkenhausen, would cost him one-third of his best troops. Chiang switched his strategy to preserve strength for the eventual civil war.
Von Falkenhausen recommended that Chiang fight a war of attrition as Falkenhausen calculated that Japan could not win a long term war. He suggested that Chiang should hold the Yellow River line, and not attack until later in the war. Also, Chiang should give up a number of provinces in northern China, including Shandong. He also recommended to construct a number of fortifications at strategically important locations to slow a Japanese advance. Falkenhausen also advised the Chinese to establish a number of guerrilla operations behind Japanese lines.
Von Falkenhausen believed that it was too optimistic to expect the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) to be supported by armour and heavy artillery, because the industry lacked necessary capacity. Thus, he emphasised the creation of a mobile force that relied on small arms and adept with infiltration tactics, similar to the stormtroopers near the end of World War I. German officers were called into China as military advisers, like Lt. Col. Hermann Voigt-Ruscheweyh, who acted as adviser to the Artillery Firing School in Nanjing from 1933.
German assistance in the military was not limited to personnel training and reorganisation, but also military hardware. According to von Seeckt, around eighty percent of China's weapons output was below par or unsuitable for modern warfare. Therefore, projects were undertaken modernise existing arsenals. For example, the Hanyang Arsenal was reconstructed during 1935–1936 to produce Maxim machine guns, various 82 mm trench mortars and the Chiang Kai-shek rifle based on the German Karabiner 98k rifle. The Chiang Kai-shek and Hanyang 88 rifles remained as the predominant firearm used by Chinese armies throughout the war. Another factory was established to produce gas masks, and plans for a mustard gas plant that was eventually scrapped. In late 1936 a plant was built near Nanking to manufacture binoculars and sniper rifle sights. Additional arsenals were built or upgraded to manufacture other weapons and ordnance, such as the MG-34, pack guns of different calibres, and even replacement parts for vehicles of the Leichter Panzerspähwagen. Several research institutes were also established under German auspices, such as the Ordnance and Arsenal Office, the Chemical Research Institute under the direction from IG Farben, and others. Many of these institutes were headed by German-returned Chinese engineers. In 1935 and 1936, China ordered a total of 315,000 of the M35 Stahlhelm, and also large numbers of Gewehr 88, 98 rifles and the C96 Broomhandle Mauser. China also imported other military hardware, such as a small number of Henschel, Junkers, Heinkel and Messerschmitt aircraft, some of them to be assembled in China, and Rheinmetall and Krupp howitzers, anti-tank and mountain guns, such as the PaK 37mm, as well as AFVs such as the Panzer I.
These modernisation efforts proved useful in the war. Although the Japanese were able to capture the Nationalist capital at Nanjing, the process took several months with a cost far higher than either side had anticipated. Despite this loss, the fact that Chinese troops could challenge Japanese troops boosted Chinese morale. In addition, the cost of the campaign made the Japanese reluctant to go deeper into the Chinese interior, allowing the Nationalist Government to relocate China's political and industrial infrastructure into Sichuan.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-German_cooperation_until_1941#Sino-German_cooperation_in_the_1930s