1939: Shanghai

Shanghai, the principal port of China and one of the great cities of the world, is situated on the Chinese coast, 13 miles up the Huang P'u River, in the province of Kiangsu. The city's strategic importance lies in the fact that nearly half of all Chinese foreign trade passes through it and it forms the center of both foreign and domestic manufacturing and financial interests in the Orient. The city is divided into two principal sections, consisting of the International Settlement, which includes the French Concession, and the Chinese city. Opened to foreign trade by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Shanghai by 1854 fell under the influence of foreign-controlled interests. Friction between the Chinese authorities and the internationally controlled areas has increased since 1900. In 1932, following disputes between China and Japan over the boycotting of Japanese goods, Japanese marines landed at Chapei, adjacent to the Japanese section of the International Settlement. Since the undeclared Sino-Japanese War, which started in July 1937, Japan has been putting pressure both economic and military upon the International Settlement in Shanghai. Barbed wire fences, electrically charged, have been erected around many of the foreign settlements; food supplies have been cut off; and in spite of continued protests by Great Britain, France, and the United States, severe restrictions increasing throughout 1939 augmented the difficulties of foreign business and residence in the city and further strained relations between Japan and the western democracies that control the foreign areas. See also CHINA; JAPAN.