A Political and Economic History of China, Part 31: The Xi’an Incident Ends The First Nationalist-Communist Civil War (1936)

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7 MIN READ - The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs continues his China history series, reaching a key event of long personal interest: Chiang Kai-shek’s kidnapping at the hands of his own deputy, a crisis that ended the first Nationalist-Communist civil war and dramatically altered the course of Chinese history.

Photo: Commander and mutineer—China President Chiang Kai-shek (L) and the “Young Marshal” General Zhang Xueliang (R) at Xi’an.

After a yearlong retreat from pursuing Nationalist troops, Mao’s communists settled in remote Shaanxi province and once again enjoyed a brief reprieve in the marginally warlord-controlled countryside. A new headquarters was founded in the loess caves of Yan’an. However Chiang Kai-shek negotiated with the local warlord to allow his armies to enter Shaanxi and was soon making preparations for another annihilation campaign.

A WARLORD PLANS THE XI’AN INCIDENT

By late 1936 Chiang was poised to encircle and attack the Communists again, but his plans would be thwarted by the duplicity of one of his generals—Zhang Xueliang.

CO readers may recall from an earlier article that Zhang Xueliang was the son of the powerful Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin. Zuolin was dubbed “The Old Marshal” and Xueliang “The Young Marshal.”

The Japanese assassinated the elder Zhang in 1928 with plans to install his son as puppet warlord. At the time the young Zhang was an opium addict which the Japanese believed would render him malleable and easier to control than his now-dead father. However Zhang shook off his drug habit, found a new resolve and proved a more formidable adversary than the Japanese anticipated. 

They responded by launching an all-out military invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Zhang’s warlord army put up some resistance but was soon defeated and Zhang fled to mainland China. After a few ineffective attempts to retake Manchuria Zhang joined Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government as an army general.

Which brings us back to 1936.

Ever since joining the Nationalists, Zhang had urged Chiang Kai-shek to focus on countering Japanese aggression in Manchuria, but Chiang insisted on eliminating the communist rebels first so that a united China could better resist the outside invaders later. His famous adage was “The Japanese are a disease of the skin. The Communists are a disease of the heart.”

Chiang’s policy of “First internal pacification, then external resistance” didn’t go over well with Zhang, and it was also growing deeply unpopular with the Chinese public at large.

So in late 1936 Zhang took matters into his own hands.

Nationalist soldiers in Shaanxi, many of whom had served under Zhang in Manchuria, were awaiting their chance to move northeast and attack the Japanese army. Instead they received orders from the capital to annihilate the nearby Communists.

Zhang complained that his troops were refusing to fight fellow Chinese and requested Chiang Kai-shek fly to the ancient capital of Xi’an to galvanize them, but in fact Zhang and another general, Yang Hucheng—whose wife had come under communist influence—were secretly plotting with the Communists. If Chiang would not attack the Japanese voluntarily he must be coerced. If he still would not attack the Japanese under coercion, he must be removed.

Chiang flew to Xi’an unaware of the trap that awaited him. Mao Zedong, who reviewed and approved the subversive plan beforehand, described it as pure genius.

Throughout several days of meetings Chiang argued with Zhang and his staff about the wisdom of prioritizing attacks on Chinese communists over the Japanese, but Chiang overrode them all and ordered the offensive to proceed. Then he retired to his temporary headquarters at the Huaqing Hot Springs.

CHIANG’S ARREST AND NEGOTIATION

Early the next morning Zhang’s troops broke into the resort, killing or arresting Chiang’s aides. They entered his bedroom to find it empty. Chiang had escaped through the window but inured himself and was quickly captured in the hillside forest.

Brought before Zhang, Chiang’s own subordinate pleaded (paraphrasing) “I am still your loyal officer. I will release you if you agree to unite with the Communists and fight the Japanese.”

To which Chiang replied: “If you are still my loyal subordinate, you will obey and release me immediately,” but to no avail. For Zhang there was no turning back. He was now fully committed to his mutiny and Chiang refused to speak any further. He was now held hostage by one of his own generals, his fate uncertain.

This crisis, known as “The Xi’an Incident,” effectively saved the Communists.

Chiang’s wife Soong Mei-ling, fearing for her husband’s life, flew to Xi’an to mediate a resolution. She had good reason to worry. The CCP was thrilled at the news of Chiang’s arrest and Mao Zedong was openly calling for his show trial and execution.

However Zhang Xueliang didn’t want Chiang dead, only to change policy. Furthermore Zhang believed Chiang was the only man strong enough to lead a united China against the Japanese, so killing him would be counterproductive.

And far more frustrating to Mao’s plans was Soviet leader Joseph Stalin who interceded on Chiang’s behalf, one of many times that Stalin would side with Chiang over the ostensibly preferable fellow communist Mao Zedong.

Why? Stalin’s first concern was the Soviet eastern border’s vulnerability to Japan, a rising empire that defeated Russia and snatched away Manchurian territory in 1905. Stalin believed Chiang and a united Nationalist-Communist front would be far more effective at resisting Japanese aggression than Mao and his ragtag force of a few thousand soldiers.

Stalin chose the USSR’s security over ideology and for many years cooperated regularly with Chiang Kai-shek, usually to Mao Zedong’s chagrin.

Deferring to Stalin’s position of strength Mao acquiesced and sent his diplomatically inclined deputy Zhou Enlai to partake in a two-week negotiation with Chiang, Zhang, Soong Mei-ling, Nationalist officials, and Australian arbitrator William Henry Donald.

In the end Chiang was forced to accept the new United Front, to end his attacks on the Communists, and to allow the Communists to keep and independently operate their own army, all in the name of the new anti-Japanese alliance. He was released on Christmas Day 1936 and resumed his duties as president of China.

AFTERMATH

One small boost Chiang received from the ordeal was his kidnapping instantly gained him sympathy from the Chinese public and the world. The nation sat on edge as negotiations were conducted, and when Chiang was released he became a national hero—in part because he finally agreed to confront the Japanese, in part because Zhang’s actions were viewed as disloyal and treasonous. 

For now Chiang had the full support of the Chinese people, but his communist foes were still alive and worse yet also enjoying a public relations boost of their own. The Communists could claim a magnanimous stay of execution for their mortal enemy Chiang, all done for the greater good of saving China from the Japanese invaders. And the Communists were now free to operate their own armies, shielded from Nationalist onslaughts.

After the Xi’an Incident Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Mel-ling, and Zhang Xueliang flew to the capital in Nanjing where Zhang was promptly arrested along with his co-conspirator General Yang Hucheng.

Zhang Xueliang wrote apologetic letters to Chiang Kai-shek from his jail cell, explaining he had reluctantly acted for the preservation of China. Chiang eventually reduced his sentence to indefinite house arrest.

Zhang spent the next half century jailed in his own home. When the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan Yang Hucheng was executed along with his family. Zhang was transferred to Taiwan and his house arrest continued from Taipei. It was only when Chiang’s son, Taiwan president Chiang Ching-kuo, died in 1988 that Zhang was finally freed at age 86.

He moved to Hawaii where he died in 2001 at age 100.

Today the CCP hails Zhang Xueliang as a “Hero of History” for forcing Chiang Kai-shek to unite with the Communists and resist Japanese invasion. Their praise is unsurprising considering Zhang rescued the Communists from a military campaign that may have annihilated them completely.

And Zhang himself was hardly motivated solely by selfless patriotism. Since his eviction at the hands of the Japanese he had urged Chiang Kai-shek to launch an offensive to retake Manchuria, largely so that he could resume warlord status over his old domains. It was only after Chiang repeatedly refused that Zhang decided to mutiny and kidnap his own commander and president in 1936.

The Xi’an Incident saved the CCP… yet again. The Communists, originally an irrelevant fringe party with only 200 members, had been elevated to contender status in 1923 by outside intervention. That is, when the Lenin USSR insisted Sun Yat-sen accept the CCP into the KMT as a condition for Soviet support.

The CCP was then at risk of annihilation in 1934 and saved at the last minute by intelligence stolen by communist spies working within KMT army headquarters.

The CCP was again saved from destruction by the circumstance of Japanese invasion and Chiang’s kidnapping in the 1936 Xi’an Incident.

Intervention had repeatedly rescued the floundering CCP from either irrelevance or annihilation, and it wouldn’t be the last time.

As conservative China writer Leo Timm summarizes: “Had it not been for Zhang and Yang’s coup at Xi’an, the Communist Party would likely have been wiped out, rewriting modern Chinese history. While Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, the direct initiators of the coup, can thus be regarded as responsible for the rise of the Communist Party in China.”

Meanwhile in Tokyo the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) had long scheduled a full scale invasion of mainland China at the end of the decade. Upon hearing the KMT and Communists had formed the United Front to resist Japanese aggression, the IJA immediately accelerated their invasion timetable to begin in 1937, another repercussion of the Xi’an Incident that changed the course of history.