September 18, 2004

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  73 YEARS AGO TODAY

  
  

  

  
  

  Sep 18 1931

  
  

  The "Mukden Incident" occurs when Imperial Japanese troops occupying northern Manchuria blow up a portion of the railway near Mukden (now Shenyang), blame the destruction on Chinese saboteurs, and commence the annexation of Manchuria.

  
  

  By the late 1920s the Japanese feared that unification of China under the Kuomintang party would imperil Japanese interests in Manchuria. This view was confirmed when the Manchurian general Chang Hsüeh-liang, a recent convert to the Kuomintang, refused to halt construction of railway and harbor facilities in competition with the South Manchurian Railway, referring Japan to the Nationalist central government.

  
  

  When a bomb of unknown origin ripped the Japanese railway near Shenyang (then known as Mukden), the Japanese Kwantung army guarding the railway used the incident as a pretext to occupy S Manchuria (Sept., 1931). Despite Japanese cabinet opposition and a pledge before the League of Nations to withdraw to the railway zone, the army completed the occupation of Manchuria and proclaimed the puppet state of Manchukuo.

  
  

    -http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0831483.html

  
  

   

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