Invasion
- Home
-
Explore the scroll
- Before the gold rush
- Chinese workers
- Australian gold rush
- Chinese miners
- Anti-Chinese violence
- Lambing flat riots
- A safe haven
- Isolated and homesick
- Rise of merchants
- Market gardens and musicians
- Vendors and cooks
- Laundries and factories
- The general store
- Trouble in the homeland
- Opium
- Revolution in China
- Republican victory
- Healing the sick
- The strength of traditions
- Religion
- Developing the north
- Riverboat trade
- Entrepreneurs
- Politics and racism
- Invasion
- The support effort
- The Second World War
- The war effort
- The People's Republic of China
- Melbourne Olympics
- Colombo Plan
- Multiculturalism
- Professions
- Rising to the top
- Australia's Bicentenary
- Towards the future
- Final inscription
- How to read the scroll
- Creating the scroll
- The people
- Acknowledgements and bibliography
Invasion
Many Chinese Australians were deeply concerned about the impact of the Japanese invasion of China that began in 1937. These people are reading advertisements for performances of a folk opera about the Japanese massacres in China.
Japanese militarism directed against China
Chinese communities throughout the world were concerned about Japanese militarism directed against China. By the mid-1930s, Japan dominated Manchuria, the north-eastern region of China, and in 1932 had attacked the major trading city of Shanghai in retaliation against Chinese protests. Following international condemnation, the Japanese withdrew from their assault on Shanghai. However in 1937 they launched a full-scale offensive southwards, capturing Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Nanjing (Nanking) — then the capital city of China. The atrocities committed against the Chinese civilian population in this city were so appalling that the seven weeks of mayhem and massacre was referred to in the foreign press as the rape of Nanjing.