Doctrine of Non-Recognition

One sentence made Nael, who was warming himself by the fire, break out in a cold sweat. In the freezing winter with temperatures below minus four, five, six, seven, eight degrees, how was it possible that he suddenly felt hot?

"...Not yet..." Nael couldn't just make something up.

"Your eldest sister is already married, Campbell is now pregnant, and even Debbie isn't in a hurry. Nael, you really need to be more serious. Your mother passed away early, and Ian was injured in the mine. I'm getting old—only after I settle the big events in your lives can I rest in peace." Aunt Gingie, though only about fifty years old, sounded completely justified in saying this as if it were a law of nature.

Upon hearing her words, Nael realized for the first time that his sister-in-law was pregnant. He hadn't expected that. Otherwise, he would've thought about buying something like a stroller—a small gesture from an uncle, after all.

"Sister-in-law is pregnant?" Nael turned to Patrick, who was bringing firewood into the house to feed the fireplace.

"Four or five months along," Patrick said with a smile as he put the firewood down.

"It's still early." Campbell walked by with a basin in her arms and shot Patrick a glare.

"Your brother and sister-in-law don't need me to worry anymore. Now it's just you and Debbie." Aunt Gingie sat down beside Nael as she stirred the batter.

As Nael's guardian and only remaining parent figure, Aunt Gingie was now determined to see him married with children. Only then could she enjoy a peaceful old age.

"But I haven't even started college yet," Nael offered this excuse immediately.

"Of course you need to go to college—you need to study and improve yourself. But that doesn't mean you can't date! Don't New York girls always talk about free love? Even I know that!" Aunt Gingie wasn't buying it.

She had clearly done her homework: in a rural town like Brook, many marriages still involved parental arrangements. It wasn't even unusual, as they had seen before, for a forty-year-old man like Iver to marry a twelve-year-old girl like Carla. But in big cities like New York, the women's rights movement was on the rise, and with more educated women, arranged marriages were going out of style.

"I just haven't met anyone I like yet."

"Don't blame me for nagging, but this isn't something you can delay. You're not a kid anymore." Aunt Gingie wasn't going to let Nael off the hook so easily. She wasn't one to be dismissed with a few casual words.

In her eyes, Nael—twenty-three years old during the New Year—was already a late bloomer by Brook's standards. At that age, if a man hadn't found a wife, he was likely to remain a bachelor all his life, just like the miners, eventually dying and filling in the pit.

"I get it, I get it, I get it..." Nael had no way out and used the old "pee and flee" excuse to escape.

He didn't return to the house afterward. Instead, he hid out in the barn to check whether the chickens had laid any eggs, if the cows had calved this year, and stared at the empty pigsty while daydreaming about the sausages he would soon eat.

After shooing away an old hen (and ending up with a few feathers stuck in his hair), Nael picked up two eggs and slowly made his way back home. Something was already cooking on the stove, and since Aunt Gingie couldn't leave the kitchen, Nael was finally spared.

"Actually, marrying a girl from our town isn't such a bad idea. Everyone knows each other, and the girls are down-to-earth. There's no need to go for city girls." Patrick, now finished with his tasks, washed his hands and sat next to Nael.

Patrick had worked as an apprentice in a car parts factory in Detroit, so he had seen city women. Still, he felt marrying someone from their own village—someone whose background they knew—was the better choice.

It was just like in the TV show Drawing Sword, where Li Yunlong fell for Tian Yu in the hospital, and another deputy commander also fancied her, causing the hospital's political director a major headache. He kept saying that wives from the countryside were best—they only needed three pairs of cloth shoes a year. Somehow, when some officers moved to the city, they suddenly wanted to marry college girls and constantly hung around the hospital.

People's views often changed with their surroundings. Patrick clearly thought Nael had become snobbish after moving to the big city of New York and was now looking down on rural girls. That's why he came over to talk some sense into him.

"Yeah, I get it." Nael continued warming himself by the fire with Patrick.

"Wanna listen to the radio?" Patrick knew Nael had his own thoughts and didn't push it further. He stood up to help turn on the radio for Nael.

"Sure."

Nael wasn't doing anything anyway, so listening to the radio was a good way to pass time. Brook wasn't like New York—if something big happened in the morning, the whole city would know by the afternoon. Here, even if World War II broke out, the people of Brook might only hear about it two or three days later, or even longer.

The radio was Nael's only connection to the outside world. Meanwhile, over in New York, political battles were raging, with Roosevelt gaining support nationwide. American political winds were shifting.

"Japanese troops have surrounded Jinzhou, the capital of Manchuria. The League of Nations is urgently discussing establishing an international condominium zone, with joint military presence by the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan to ensure neutrality and safety," the broadcast was reporting.

"Secretary of State Stimson has sent a note to Japan..."

The broadcast continued, with Stimson representing the U.S. government, stating that the United States would not recognize Japan's occupation of Northeast China, considering it a violation of U.S. interests in China and of the "Open Door" policy and existing treaties between China and Japan. However, he also said that the U.S. had no intention of interfering with "Japan's legal treaty rights in Manchuria."

The Stimson Doctrine!

The Doctrine of Non-Recognition!

Nael frowned deeply upon hearing this. America's isolationist or neutral stance was now fully on display, indicating that it was gradually giving up its influence in China and choosing to compromise with Japan, focusing instead on domestic political and economic crises.

The U.S. suddenly gave up curbing Japan's expansion in China, which emboldened Japanese ambitions. It even gave Japan a dangerous illusion.

Due to the economic crisis and President Hoover's high-tariff policies, U.S. exports had drastically declined. But one country's imports from the U.S. remained relatively strong—Japan.

At the time, Japan had become America's largest trading partner. The Japanese government began to believe that it was their purchases of American goods and resources that were keeping the U.S. economy afloat. Therefore, American capitalists and the government would go to great lengths to protect this important customer.

Even if Japan provoked the U.S. on the international stage, or directly encroached on American interests worldwide, the U.S. would still keep compromising and avoid confrontation.

Just as the Stimson Doctrine debuted, it gave the Japanese government clear signs of America's reluctance to engage in war—further fueling Japan's expansionist ambitions in Asia.

If we're talking about appeasement policies, it wasn't just British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In fact, at this point, governments across Europe and America were all implementing various appeasement strategies, collectively emboldening the fascist powers.