What are the main causes of the Manchurian crisis?
19 September 1931: * Explosion on a section of the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway. * Incident was contrived by officers of the Japanese Kwantung army without the knowledge of government in Japan. * Wanted to seize Manchuria’s valuable resources and exploit them. * Army used the explosion as an excuse first to capture Mukden and then to proceed to take over the whole of Manchuria. ¨ Japan had long had an economic interest in Manchuria, a part of northern China. China was a complete mess by the 1920s; it had been torn apart by warlords and extremist politicians. In 1931 the Japanese stage-managed an attack on the Japanese owned Manchurian railway by “Chinese bandits”. To protect their interests the Japanese army took control of the whole region. Both China and Japan appealed to the League of Nations to arbitrate. ¨ The Manchurian Incident is significant because it was the League’s first real test of its collective security policy. The League should have placed economic and
