The threats we face: British imperial defence and the Far East, 1925-1934

Hutton, Richard W.B. (2025) The threats we face: British imperial defence and the Far East, 1925-1934. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Text - Submitted Version Download (2MB)

Abstract

From 1925 to 1934, the British Empire in the Far East was menaced by two principal threats. The first – Chinese nationalism, alongside and often in partnership with international communism – was transnational in nature, attempting to make not a revision to the Far Eastern status quo but a revolution in the politics of the entire region. The second – a rising and increasingly militaristic Japan – was international in nature, intent on upsetting the regional balance of power that Britain had helped police for a generation. This thesis makes several arguments. First, that assessments and understandings of British imperial defence and strategy in the era, which heretofore have focused predominately on the international threat of Japan at the expense of the transnational threat of Chinese (and other indigenous forms of) nationalism and communism, must be reframed around a broader understanding of imperial defence efforts against both. Second, that Britain’s responses to these twin threats were dissonant. The crisis of Chinese Nationalism from 1925-1927, while transnational in nature, was also an international challenge to the status quo, and thus unique in the way that it afforded Britain the opportunity to synchronize and leverage tools and strategies, employed by both policymakers in the imperial core and officials in the imperial periphery, to counter it. The transformation of that threat from 1927 into a purely transnational challenge allowed Britain to simultaneously soften, with respect to moderate Chinese nationalists, and sharpen, with respect to radical Chinese nationalists and communists, these strategies. This vibrant, nuanced, forward leaning, and often effective campaign against communism and what it saw as malign forces of nationalism coexisted alongside Britain’s static and ambivalent efforts in understanding Japan both before and after it emerged as the principal international threat to the British-led Far Eastern status quo in the early 1930s. This dissonance both complicates and builds upon existing narratives of imperial crisis and decline and shows Britain continuing, at times, to exert agency and leadership and shape the regional environment well into the 1930s. Third, and finally, this thesis will demonstrate that such dissonance and complexity more accurately depict the realities, experiences, efforts, and achievements – or lack thereof – of imperial defence officials of all stripes, from the members of the Committee of Imperial Defence in London to the inspectors of the Straits Settlements Police Force in Singapore.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2025 Richard W.B. Hutton
Library of Congress subject classification:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain D History General and Old World > DS Asia J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Sets:	Departments > International History
Supervisor:	Best, Antony and Jones, Matthew
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4851

Actions (login required)

Record administration - authorised staff only