The story of China's international position from 1931 to 1949 indicates that Japanese aggression, and the ways in which other nations coped with it, served steadily to transform the country from being a weak victim of invasion into a world power, a partner in defining a stable framework of peace. The two factors, China's relative insignificance in international economic relations, and its increasing domestic unity, provided the background of the country's troubles after 1931. On the eve of the Manchurian incident, Chiang Kai-shek's authority had been steadily extended, having weathered serious challenges from some warlords and party dissidents. The Chinese-Japanese conflict over Manchuria was a clash of forces between an industrial country going through severe economic difficulties and a predominantly agricultural society determined to regain and retain national rights. Two years after the Mukden incident, it was clear that while the Manchurian crisis might have given the powers an excellent opportunity to solidify the postwar international system.

Late Ch'ing foreign relations must be examined both in the global context of intensified imperialism and shifting power configurations among the leading Western states and Japan, and also against the background of the progressive decline of Manchu rule and the disintegration of the imperial tradition of foreign intercourse. The last three decades of the nineteenth century were a period of accelerated foreign imperialism in China. Korea, regarded by the Chinese as a valuable 'outer fence' of North China, was a leading tributary state during Ming and Ch'ing times. The Japanese minister in Peking warned Prince Ch'ing that any concession on the Russian occupation of Manchuria would lead to the partition of China. It was clear that if the Anglo-Japanese Alliance led to a Russo-Japanese understanding, China would be the loser, and if it led to a war, Chinese territory would be the battleground, and China would be at the mercy of the victor.