Chahar Province
Assigned as resident staff officer in Riga, Latvia in 1926, Kawabe studied Soviet affairs for two years before his return to Japan. Kawabe, then a major, became an instructor in tactics at the Army War College between 1928 and 1929, before being reassigned to the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff. After three years, Kawabe was stationed in Moscow as a military attaché until 1934, when he was sent to the Kwantung Army as a staff officer and chief of its intelligence section. He was promoted to colonel in 1935. While serving with the Kwantung Army, Kawabe became involved in the Japanese government's efforts, through local Chinese warlord Li Shouxin, to gain control of Chahar Province in northeast Inner Mongolia. After serving briefly as commander of a field artillery regiment in the Imperial Guards Division, Kawabe was appointed to the General Staff as a member of the War Leadership Council and, following the Marco Polo Bridge incident, was one of the few senior officers who supported General Kanji Ishiwara in opposing Japan's further involvement in China.