But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. Jesus Christ in Mark 3:27
The years between 1929 and 1931 determined the fate of China. What the nineteenth century had destroyed—sovereignty, dignity, and continuity—the twentieth might have restored. But the chance was lost.
China was torn just before the Second World War. The Chinese like many peoples who abandoned long histories of imperial dynastic rule, struggled to find themselves. Between 1912 and 1919 the Chinese, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian and German empires all fell from their thrones. China however was a big guy in a tough neighborhood, with neighbors who wanted its land and internal factions fighting over the resources and population. From 1926-1931 the trajectory of China was set, and sealed with a fight in 1929, and a mauling by a bear. China had great promise, but the timing was wrong, and its friends were few and far away.
