This week, seventy years ago, forces of the Japanese North China Area Army, commanded by Hajime Sugiyama, began a blockade of the British Enclave located in the North China port city of Tianjin, also known as Tiensin.  It is known to history as “The Tiensin Incident.” Today, Tianjin is the sixth largest city in China with a population of 11,500,000.
     These Enclaves had been in existence since the Nineteenth Century, when the British Empire had extracted trading and other concessions from the Chinese Empire.  After the British began extracting these concessions, other nations began doing the same, so that in many coastal cities of China there were Japanese, French and American Enclaves.  There had been German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Enclaves, but after the Great War, they had been eliminated.  In Tianjin, there were also Belgian and Italian enclaves. These Enclaves were governed by the laws of their nationality.
    The British enclave encompassed about 200 acres on the Hai He River. The administrative center was Gordon Hall on Victoria Road, now Jiefang Lu. The British government sublet plots to private owners. The enclave had a population of 1500, half of whom were British military.
    Japanese forces had captured the port city on July 30, 1937, and, although the Japanese governed and administered the city, they, for the most part, respected the foreign administrations of the Enclaves.  
    Although General Sugiyama had only held his command for about six months, he was not unfamiliar with international politics. Prior to taking command of the North China Area Army, he had served a year as Japan’s Minister of War. In the early Thirties, he had served, for three years, as Vice War Minister. He was Chief of the General Staff from September 3, 1940, until his removal, as the “Fall Guy,” in February 1944 by Premier Hideki Tojo. He became a Field Marshal in 1943. After General Tojo’s ouster, he resumed his duties as War Minister. Following the American occupation, he and his wife committed suicide.
    On April 9, 1939, the Chinese collaborationist manager of the Japanese-owned Federal Reserve Bank of North China was assassinated by Chinese nationalists at the city’s Grand Theater.  After investigation, six Chinese men living in the British Enclave were implicated in the crime.  The British arrested four of the six, and, after the Japanese promised they would not be tortured and would be returned to British custody within five days, handed them over to the Japanese.  Of course they were tortured, and two of them confessed to being involved.  They were then returned to British custody. The local British counsel, Mr. Jamison, had promised the Japanese that the British would hand over the accused assassins.  
    In the meantime, Madam Chiang, wife of National Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek, admitted to the British Ambassador to China, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, that the men were indeed guilty, but that they were Chinese operatives involved in resistance work, and lobbied the Ambassador to retain the accused and not to hand them over to the Japanese for execution.  Even though Mr. Jamison had given his word, and by implication the word of His Majesty, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, ordered that they not be handed over.  
    The Chief of Staff of the Northern China Area Army, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, had been advocating an end to the British concession in the port city, and now used the British refusal to turn over the assassins as the pretext to blockade the British concession.  General Yamashita would later gain fame, first, as the conqueror of the British fortress of Singapore,  thereby earning the sobriquet of “Tiger of Malaya.”  He was also the subject of a decision by The Supreme Court of The United States, in Application of Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946), challenging his conviction and death sentence by a U.S. Military Tribunal, convened in Manila by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, as a result of the conduct of the Japanese defending the Philippines against his forces, and in particular Manila.
    The Japanese blockade of the British enclave began on June 14, 1939.  Food and fuel were not permitted into the British Enclave.  Anyone wishing to enter or leave was publicly strip-searched.  In order to end the blockade, the Japanese demanded that the British government turn over all silver reserves belonging to the Chinese government within British banks, forbid all anti-Japanese radio broadcasts from anywhere in the British Empire, ban school text books that the Japanese government considered offensive and end the issuing of fapi currency.  The Japanese stated that, “...the arrow is already off the bow and therefore the question cannot be settled by the mere transfer of the four suspect assassins.”  Japan further demanded that Britain must be prepared to “cooperate” with it in the Far East and must drop its “pro-Chiang Kai-Shek policy.”  It appeared to many as if the two Nations would soon be at war.  
    Since Britain was unable to interest the United States in joining with it in imposing economic sanctions against the Japanese, with the looming war with Germany, and possibly its new ally, Italy, it was not dealing from a position of strength. The Japanese were very careful not to bother the United States or its interests.  The 203 U.S. Marines who were stationed in Tianjin were able to come and go as they pleased.  The 400 U.S. civilian citizens needed only to show their passports to avoid being searched and questioned.  
    The Italian Fascist newspaper, Popolo d’ Italia, founded by Mussolini, wrote that, “The days are gone when, if anyone, knocked an Englishman’s hat off, a war ship would be sent full steam to that place.”  On the other hand, the Chinese Ambassador to France, Dr. V. K. Wellington Koo, warned that, “If Japan gets away with Tianjin, she will turn immediately to another concession, for the recent history of both Europe and Asia shows, beyond doubt, the futility of trying to turn a tiger into a kitten by giving it a dish of cream....”  He was, of course, referring to the recent concessions made at Munich.  He would subsequently serve as ambassador to, first, Great Britain and then the U.S.
    Under these conditions, the British Empire did not want to get involved in a war on the other side of the world over a half dozen Chinese.  British Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain ordered Sir Robert Craigie, British Ambassador in Tokyo, to resolve the matter.  Craigie, utilizing bluff and skillfully playing off one Japanese faction against the other, was able to persuade the Japanese to back down from most of their demands.  However, on August 20, 1939, the British did turn over the four  Chinese fugitives, who were then executed.  
    During the course of the blockade, the Japanese had established a loudspeaker system outside of the British Enclave.  Its purpose was to explain the Japanese actions to English-speaking passers-by.  In English, the Japanese said through the loud speaker, that, “We are so sorry to be giving you lots of trouble.”

Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.