For about 15 years, starting in 1926, Germany and China had a mutually beneficial relationship where, in summary, China modernized its military and industry while Germany received raw resources. Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan in 1936, believing it to be more militarily effective than China and could help later against USSR and was dismayed when nationalist China and Japan formally clashed in 1937, kicking off the Second Sino-Japanese War, tying up an ally and a potential war ally against each other in a wasteful slug fest.
In the fall of 1937, after the Battle of Shanghai indicated a full-scale war and China called for international aid against Japan, Japan asked Germany to mediate a peace between China and Japan, as Japan correctly saw the conflict as an endless waste of men and equipment. This proposal is called the Trautmann Mediation. Among other things, the first proposal would end the conflict and Japan and China would cooperate to fight communists(which would have crucially help Germany later). Japan warned China that the response must be swift as fierce fighting was ongoing. China delayed, tried unsuccessfully for international help, and sent an acceptance response some 28 days later, however; by then, the Japanese had gained the upper hand and the warhawks won out in Tokyo and war continued. Later, the second proposal to China was of harsher nature and was declined by China.
If the first Trautmann proposal had been accepted in a timely fashion and saw an early end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, how different would World War II have played out? After rooting out the communists in China, how significant would a Sino-Japanese buildup in western China and Manchuria along USSR’s border be to disallow full USSR deployment against Euro-Axis? Or perhaps India is sacked? I don’t know the resources Japan dumped into China but imagine that being deployed throughout the Pacific or USSR Far East instead.
Thoughts?