policy of safeguarding Chinese independence and territorial
integrity; but in practice favoured Japan. Japanese military
capabilities at first offered strategic advantage to
Britain, decreasingly capable of dealing alone with all
comers. In the First World War, when Western energies were
concentrated in Europe, Japan had a freer hand in the Far East
and Japanese pressure on China became more blatant. The
Twenty One Demands of 1915, if fully pressed, would have
reduced China to a virtual protectorate; and the Western
powers could do little about it. At the end of the war Britain
and her allies supported Japanese claims to inherit German
rights in Shandong province. The move provoked one of the
great outbursts of Chinese protest, led by the students, in
May 1919. From now on the fires of Chinese nationalism burned
ever more strongly.
The Government of Chiang Kaishek, which came to power in
1928, saw one of its principal functions as being to
articulate this deep sense of pride and resentment at foreign
intrusions; and Britain, still the leading imperialist
power, was a natural target. But the real danger to China now
came from Japan, which seized Manchuria in 1931 and began a
series of encroachments, culminating in the full-scale
invasion of 1937. Britain's sympathy for China and the
provision of economic aid were outweighed by continuing
British efforts to conciliate Japan. Given the balance of
power in the area, Britain may have had little choice; but it
was not an elevating course; and it was not until the Japanese
attack on the West in December 1941 that Britain was able to
follow a more consistent and respectable policy, with China