Chiang Kaishek in 1927
Chiang Kaishek visited Japan in 1927 as he temporarily stepped down from the leading position of the Nationalist Party.
This visit to the Empire of Japan was, probably, the most decisive moment and chance to avoid the tragic war between the Empire and China that would be set off a decade later, though Chinag and Japanese counterparts failed to grasp it.
Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th-century China...
Chiang was an influential member of the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy, and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT when Sun died in 1925. In 1926, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to unify the country, becoming China's nominal leader.[3] He served as Chairman of the National Military Council of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 to 1948. Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Nationalist government's power severely weakened, but his prominence grew.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek
He stayed in Japan 40 days on this occasion, moving from a Japanese port city Kobe to Tokyo.
Chiang met some Japanese leaders in politics and business. But the most important meeting was the one with Giichi Tanaka, the then prime minister of the Empire of Japan and a general of the Imperial Army.
Chiang asked Tanaka about his opinion about future of the relationship between the Empire of Japan and China. But PM Tanaka did not answer the question; instead, he asked Chiang why he came to Japan. Then, Chiang said that his aims were,
To request Tokyo not to tie up with rotten military cliques in China and Manchuria but to support the Nationalist Party,
To request Tokyo not to interfere with the military campaign of his party to conquer northern part of China and thus achieve unification of China in a revolutionary manner, and
To request Tokyo to adopt a diplomatic policy toward China based on economic relationships but not on military concerns.
Hearing this answer, General Tanaka said to Chiang not to try to promote in haste the military campaign in northern China but concentrate Chiang's efforts in southern China.
So, Chiang argued against Tanaka, saying that the goal of the Chinese revolution was to unify China, so that the military operation in northern China should be carried out so quickly. "And without unification of China, East Asia cannot be stable," said the Chinese young leader.
Chiang later commented that when he had used the expression of unification of China, Tanaka suddenly blanched his face (to hide some emotion inside). So, Chiang Kaishek understood that Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka had no intention to cooperate with Chinag and the National Party. The Empire of Japan must have come to take Manchuria or northern part of China, so Chiang felt.
Eventually ten years later in 1937, Chiang Kaishek started to attack the Imperial troops stationed in North China and Shanghai, though the Empire of Japan had already established its protected nation in Manchuria which was called Manchukuo. These battles that started in 1937 continued till the end of WWII in 1945 through the Pearl Harbor attack.
But, if Japanese PM Giichi Tanaka and other leaders had had more compassion for the rising Chinese leader Chiang in 1927, many tragic incidents must have been avoided in Asia through the Second Japanese-Sino War and the Pacific theater of WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaka_Giichi
It is also notable that Chiang Kaishek was educated in the Empire of Japan:
Chiang grew up in a time period in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He then left for the Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, an Imperial Japanese Army Academy Preparatory School for Chinese students, in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor of the Kuomintang (KMT) organization. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek
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