Second Sino-Japanese War

1937–1945 conflict

Second Sino-Japanese War

Part of the interwar period and the Pacific War

Clockwise:

* Japanese landing forces in gas masks during the Battle of Shanghai
* NRA forces on the Great Wall
* Nanjing Massacre victims on the Qinhuai River shore
* Chinese machine gun nest at the Battle of Wuhan
* Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-21 in the bombing of Chongqing
* Chinese Expeditionary Force marching in India

| Date| 7 July 1937 - 2 September 1945 (8 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 5 days)

|

Location|

* Mainland China
* Indochina
* Burma

Result|  Chinese victory
Territorial
changes|  China recovers territories lost to Japan since the Treaty of Shimonoseki
Belligerents

China
Kuomintang
Chinese Communist Party

Japan
Manchukuo
Mengjiang
Wang Jingwei regime

Commanders and leaders

* Chiang Kai-shek
* Mao Zedong
* He Yingqin
* Chen Cheng
* Cheng Qian
* Bai Chongxi
* Xu Yongchang
* Li Zongren

* Hirohito
* Hideki Tojo
* Shunroku Hata
* Yasuji Okamura
* Prince Kotohito #
* Otozō Yamada
* Hajime Sugiyama

Strength
16 million+ total[1]: 436

Nationalists
1.7 million (1937)
2.6 million (1939)[2]
5.7 million (1945)[3]
Communists
640,000 (1937)[4]
166,700 (1938)[5]
488,744 (1940)[6]
1.2 million (1945)[7]

|  4.1 million total[8]

Japan
600,000 (1937)[9]
1,015,000 (1939)[10]
1,124,900[a][11]
Puppet states
900,000–1,006,086 (1945)[12][13]

Casualties and losses

Official Nationalist data
1,319,958 killed
1,761,335 wounded
130,116 missing
3,211,409 total[14][15]
Other Nationalist estimates
3–4 million+ dead and missing
500,000 captured[16]
3.2–10 million+ total[17]
Official Communist data
160,603 dead
290,467 wounded
87,208 missing
45,989 POWs
584,267 total[18]
Other Communist estimates
446,740 total[17]
Total
3.8–10.6 million+ casualties[a]
1 million+ captured[16]
266,800–1,000,000 POWs dead[16]

Japanese medical data
455,700[19]–700,000 military dead[20][b]
1,934,820 wounded and missing[21]
22,293+ captured[c]
2.5 million+ total casualties[a]
Puppet state forces
288,140–574,560 dead
742,000 wounded
Middle estimate: 960,000 dead and wounded[17]
Total
3.0–3.6 million casualties[a][d]

15[22]–22[15] million total casualties

1. ^ a b c d After July 1937; excluding Manchuria and Burma
2. ^ This number does not include Japanese killed by Chinese forces in the Burma campaign and does not include Japanese killed in Manchuria.
3. ^ Excluding more than 1 million who were disarmed following the surrender of Japan
4. ^ Including casualties of Japanese puppet forces. The combined toll is most likely around 3,500,000: 2.5 million Japanese, per their own records, and 1 million collaborators.

* v
* t
* e

Second Sino-Japanese War

1931–1937 (pre-war skirmishes)

* Manchuria
* Mukden
* Lytton Report
* Jiangqiao
* Nenjiang Bridge
* Jinzhou
* Harbin
* 1st Shanghai
* Pacification of Manchukuo
* Great Wall
*       * Rehe
* Inner Mongolia
* Suiyuan

1937–1939

* Marco Polo Bridge
* Beiping–Tianjin
* Chahar
* 2nd Shanghai
* Sihang Warehouse
* Railway Operation
* Beiping–Hankou
* Tianjin–Pukou
* Taiyuan
* Pingxingguan
* Xinkou
* Nanking
* Massacre
* Xuzhou
* Taierzhuang
* North-East Henan
* Lanfeng
* Amoy
* Chongqing
* Yellow River flood
* Wuhan
* Wanjialing
* Wenxi fire
* Canton
* Hainan
* Nanchang
* Suixian–Zaoyang
* Swatow
* 1st Changsha
* South Guangxi
* Kunlun Pass
* Winter Offensive
* West Suiyuan
* Wuyuan

1940–1942

* Zaoyang–Yichang
* Hundred Regiments
* North Vietnam
* Central Hubei
* South Anhui
* South Henan
* West Hubei
* Shanggao
* South Shanxi
* 2nd Changsha
* 3rd Changsha
* Yunnan-Burma Road
* Tachiao
* Oktwin
* Toungoo
* Yenangyaung
* Zhejiang–Jiangxi
* Sichuan (cancelled)

1943–1945

* West Hubei
* North Burma and West Yunnan
* Myitkyina
* Mount Song
* Changde
* Ichi-Go
* 4th Changsha
* Hengyang
* Guilin–Liuzhou
* West Henan–North Hubei
* West Hunan
* Guangxi

Air War

* Taihoku

* v
* t
* e

Pacific War

Central Pacific

* Pearl Harbor
* Marshalls–Gilberts raids
* K
* Doolittle Raid
* Midway
* Gilberts and Marshalls
* Marianas and Palau
* Volcano and Ryukyu
* Truk
* Ocean Island

Indian Ocean (1941–1945)

* Japanese merchant raids
* Andaman Islands
* Homfreyganj massacre
* Christmas Island
* 1st Indian Ocean
* Ceylon
* Bay of Bengal
* 2nd Indian Ocean

Southeast Asia

* Indochina (1940)
* Franco-Thai War
* Thailand
* Malaya
* Hong Kong
* Singapore
* Indochina (1945)
* Malacca Strait
* Vietnam
* Jurist
* Tiderace
* Zipper
* Strategic bombing (1944–45)

Burma and India

* Burma (1941–42)
* Burma (1942–43)
* Burma and India (1944)
* Burma (1944–45)

Southwest Pacific

* Dutch East Indies (1941–42)
* Philippines (1941–42)
* RY
* Solomon Islands
* Coral Sea
* Timor
* Australia
* New Guinea
* New Britain
* Philippines (1944–45)
* Borneo (1945)

North America

* Ellwood
* Aleutian Islands
* Estevan Point Lighthouse
* Fort Stevens
* Lookout Air Raids
* Fire balloon bombs
* Project Hula
* PX

Japan

* Air raids
* Tokyo
* Yokosuka
* Kure
* Hiroshima and Nagasaki
* Mariana Islands
* Volcano and Ryukyu Islands
* Starvation
* Naval bombardments
* Sagami Bay
* South Sakhalin
* Kuril Islands
* Shumshu
* Downfall
* Japanese surrender

Manchuria and Northern Korea

* Kantokuen
* Manchuria (1945)
* Mutanchiang
* Chongjin

* * *

Second Sino-Japanese War

* v
* t
* e

Military campaigns of the Empire of Japan

Meiji era

* Taiwan (1874)
* Ganghwa (1875)
* Ryukyu (1879)
* Qing-Japanese War (1894–1895)
* Triple Intervention (1895)
* Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901)
* Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)
* Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910

Taishō era

* Tsingtao (1914)
* German Pacific possesions (1914)
* Siberia (1918–1922)

Shōwa era

* Manchuria (1931–1932)
* China (1937–1945)
* French Indochina (1940)
* coup d'état 1945
* Pacific Theatre (1941–1945)

* v
* t
* e

Campaigns of World War II

Europe

* Poland
* Soviet invasion

* Phoney War
* Saar Offensive

* Finland
* Winter War
* Karelia
* Lapland

* Weserübung
* Denmark
* Norway
* Finnmark

* Western Front 1940
* Luxembourg
* Netherlands
* Belgium
* France

* Alps 1940
* 1944-1945

* Britain

* Balkans
* Greco-Italian War
* Greece
* Crete
* Yugoslavia
* Guerilla war
* pre-war invasion of Albania

* Eastern Front
* Barbarossa
* Leningrad
* Crimea
* Rzhev
* Case Blue
* Stalingrad
* Kursk
* Dnieper–Carpaths
* Bagration
* Romania
* Hungary
* Vistula–Oder
* Berlin

* Italy
* Sicily
* Mainland Italy
* Winter Line
* Gothic Line
* Spring Offensive

* Western Front 1944–1945
* Overlord
* Dragoon
* Siegfried Line
* Market Garden
* Bulge
* Western Germany

Asia-Pacific

* China
* Winter Offensive
* Hundred Regiments Offensive
* Northern Burma and Western Yunnan
* Ichi-Go

* Burma
* 1941-1942
* 1942-1943
* 1944
* 1944–1945

* South-East Asia
* Indochina
* Franco-Thai War
* Thailand
* Malaya and Singapore

* Philippines 1941–1942
* 1944–1945

* South West Pacific
* Dutch East Indies
* 2nd Borneo
* Solomon Islands
* New Guinea
* New Georgia
* New Britain

* Pacific Ocean
* Guadalcanal
* Gilberts and Marshalls
* Mariana and Palau
* Volcano and Ryukyu

* Soviet–Japanese War
* Manchuria and Northern Korea
* pre-war border conflicts
* Japan
* South Sakhalin
* Kurils

Mediterranean and Middle East

* Mediterranean Sea
* Adriatic
* Malta
* Dodecanese

* North Africa
* Libya-Egypt
* Morocco-Algeria
* Tunisia

* East Africa
* Guerrilla war

* Middle East
* Iraq
* Syria–Lebanon
* Iran

Other campaigns

* Air Warfare
* Strategic bombing

* Americas
* Aleuts

* Antarctica
* Atlantic
* Australia
* Arctic

* French West Africa

* Indian Ocean 1941-1945
* Madagascar

Coups

* Uruguay
* Norway
* Baltic Nations
* Yugoslavia
* Romania 1941
* Iraq
* Italy
* Argentina
* Germany
* Croatia
* Romania 1944
* Bulgaria
* Hungary
* French Indochina
* Japan
* Matsue
* Slovak National Uprising

Resistance movements

* Albanian resistance
* Baltic states
* Belgian Resistance
* Czechoslovak Resistance
* Danish resistance
* Dutch resistance
* French Resistance
* Greek resistance
* Italian Resistance
* Norwegian resistance
* Polish resistance
* Romanian resistance
* Slovak partisans
* Soviet partisans
* Yugoslav Partisans

Second Sino-Japanese War

Chinese name
Traditional Chinese| 抗日戰爭
Simplified Chinese| 抗日战争
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| kàng rì zhàn zhēng
Bopomofo| ㄎㄤˋ ㄖˋ ㄓㄢˋ ㄓㄥ
Alternative name
Traditional Chinese| 抗戰
Simplified Chinese| 抗战
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| kàng zhàn
Second alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese| 八年抗戰
Simplified Chinese| 八年抗战
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| bā nián kàng zhàn
Third alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese| 十四年抗戰
Simplified Chinese| 十四年抗战
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| shí sì nián kàng zhàn
Fourth alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese| 第二次中日戰爭
Simplified Chinese| 第二次中日战争
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| dì èr cì zhōng rì zhàn zhēng
Fifth alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese| (日本)侵華戰爭
Simplified Chinese| (日本)侵华战争
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| (rì běn) qīn huá zhàn zhēng
Japanese name
Kanji|

* 支那事変
* 日支戦争
* 日中戦争

Hiragana|

* しなじへん
* にっしせんそう
* にっちゅうせんそう

Katakana|

* シナジヘン
* ニッシセンソウ
* ニッチュウセンソウ

| Transcriptions

Romanization|

* Shina jihen
* Nisshi sensō
* Nicchū sensō

Kunrei-shiki|

* Sina zihen
* Nissi sensou
* Nittyuu sensou

The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931.[23][24] It is considered part of World War II, and often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century[25] and has been described as The Asian Holocaust, in reference to the scale of Japanese war crimes against Chinese civilians.[26][27][28] It is known in China as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.[a]

On 18 September 1931, the Japanese staged the Mukden incident, a false flag event fabricated to justify their invasion of Manchuria and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo. This is sometimes marked as the beginning of the war.[29][30] From 1931 to 1937, China and Japan engaged in skirmishes, including in Shanghai and in Northern China. Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces, respectively led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, had fought each other in the Chinese Civil War since 1927. In late 1933, Chiang Kai-shek encircled the Chinese Communists in an attempt to finally destroy them, forcing the Communists into the Long March, resulting in the Communists losing around 90% of their men. As a Japanese invasion became imminent, Chiang still refused to form a united front before he was placed under house arrest by his subordinates who forced him to form the Second United Front in late 1936 in order to resist the Japanese invasion together.

The full-scale war began on 7 July 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident near Beijing, which prompted a full-scale Japanese invasion of the rest of China. The Japanese captured the capital of Nanjing in 1937 and perpetrated the Nanjing Massacre. After failing to stop the Japanese capture of Wuhan in 1938, then China's de facto capital at the time, the Nationalist government relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. After the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, Soviet aid bolstered the National Revolutionary Army and Air Force. By 1939, after Chinese victories at Changsha and with Japan's lines of communications stretched deep into the interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were unable to defeat Chinese Communist Party forces in Shaanxi, who waged a campaign of sabotage and guerrilla warfare. In November 1939, Chinese nationalist forces launched a large scale winter offensive, and in August 1940, communist forces launched the Hundred Regiments Offensive in central China.

In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States. The US increased its aid to China under the Lend-Lease Act, becoming its main financial and military supporter. With Burma cut off, the United States Army Air Forces airlifted material over the Himalayas. In 1944, Japan launched Operation Ichi-Go, the invasion of Henan and Changsha. In 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. China launched large counteroffensives in South China, repulsed a failed Japanese invasion of West Hunan, and recaptured Japanese occupied regions of Guangxi.

Japan formally surrendered on 2 September 1945, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet declaration of war and subsequent invasions of Manchukuo and Korea. The war resulted in the deaths of around 20 million people, mostly Chinese civilians. China was recognized as one of the Four Policemen, regained all territories lost, and became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.[31][32] The Chinese Civil War resumed in 1946, ending with a communist victory and the Proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

## Names

[edit]

In China, the war is most commonly known as the "War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression" (simplified Chinese: 抗日战争; traditional Chinese: 抗日戰爭), and shortened to "Resistance against Japanese Aggression" (抗日) or the "War of Resistance" (抗战; 抗戰). It was also called the "Eight Years' War of Resistance" (八年抗战; 八年抗戰), but in 2017 the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a directive stating that textbooks were to refer to the war as the "Fourteen Years' War of Resistance" (十四年抗战; 十四年抗戰), reflecting a focus on the broader conflict with Japan going back to the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.[33] According to historian Rana Mitter, historians in China are unhappy with the blanket revision, and (despite sustained tensions) the Republic of China did not consider itself to be in an ongoing war with Japan over these six years.[34][need quotation to verify] It is also referred to as part of the "Global Anti-Fascist War".

In contemporary Japan, the name "Japan–China War" (Japanese: 日中戦争, romanized: Nitchū Sensō) is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. When the invasion of China proper began in earnest in July 1937 near Beijing, the government of Japan used "The North China Incident" (北支事變/華北事變, Hokushi Jihen/Kahoku Jihen), and with the outbreak of the Battle of Shanghai the following month, it was changed to "The China Incident" (支那事變, Shina Jihen).

The word "incident" (事變, jihen) was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war. From the Japanese perspective, localizing these conflicts was beneficial in preventing intervention from other countries, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, which were its primary source of petroleum and steel respectively. A formal expression of these conflicts would potentially lead to an American embargo in accordance with the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s.[35] In addition, due to China's fractured political status, Japan often claimed that China was no longer a recognizable political entity on which war could be declared.[36]

### Other names

[edit]

In Japanese propaganda, the invasion of China became a crusade (聖戦, seisen), the first step of the "eight corners of the world under one roof" slogan (八紘一宇, Hakkō ichiu). In 1940, Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoe launched the Taisei Yokusankai. When both sides formally declared war in December 1941, the name was replaced by "Greater East Asia War" (大東亞戰爭, Daitōa Sensō).

Although the Japanese government still uses the term "China Incident" in formal documents,[37] the word Shina is considered derogatory by China and therefore the media in Japan often paraphrase with other expressions like "The Japan–China Incident" (日華事變／日支事變, Nikka Jiken/Nisshi Jiken), which were used by media as early as the 1930s.

The name "Second Sino-Japanese War" is not commonly used in Japan as the China it fought a war against in 1894 to 1895 was led by the Qing dynasty, and thus is called the Qing-Japanese War (日清戦争, Nisshin–Sensō), rather than the First Sino-Japanese War.

Another term for the second war between Japan and China is the "Japanese invasion of China", a term used mainly in foreign and Chinese narratives.[38]

## Background

[edit]

Main article: China–Japan relations

The origins of the Second Sino-Japanese War can be traced to the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), in which China, then under the rule of the Qing dynasty, was defeated by Japan and forced to cede Taiwan and recognize the full and complete independence of Korea in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Japan also annexed the Senkaku Islands, which Japan claims were uninhabited, in early 1895 as a result of its victory at the end of the war. Japan had also attempted to annex the Liaodong Peninsula following the war, though was forced to return it to China following the Triple Intervention by France, Germany, and Russia.[39][40][41] The Qing dynasty was on the brink of collapse due to internal revolts and the imposition of the unequal treaties, while Japan had emerged as a great power through its efforts to modernize.[42] In 1905, Japan defeated the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War, gaining Dalian and southern Sakhalin and establishing a protectorate over Korea.

### Warlords in the Republic of China

[edit]

Main articles: 1911 Revolution and Warlord Era

In 1911, factions of the Qing Army uprose against the government, staging a revolution that swept across China's southern provinces.[43] The Qing responded by appointing Yuan Shikai, commander of the loyalist Beiyang Army, as temporary prime minister in order to subdue the revolution.[44] Yuan, wanting to remain in power, compromised with the revolutionaries, and agreed to abolish the monarchy and establish a new republican government, under the condition he be appointed president of China. The new Beiyang government of China was proclaimed in March 1912, after which Yuan Shikai began to amass power for himself. In 1913, the parliamentary political leader Song Jiaoren was assassinated; it is generally believed Yuan Shikai ordered the assassination.[45] Yuan Shikai then forced the parliament to pass a bill to strengthen the power of the president and sought to restore the imperial system, becoming the new emperor of China.

However, there was little support for an imperial restoration among the general population, and protests and demonstrations soon broke out across the country. Yuan's attempts at restoring the monarchy triggered the National Protection War, and Yuan Shikai was overthrown after only a few months. In the aftermath of Shikai's death in June 1916, control of China fell into the hands of the Beiyang Army leadership. The Beiyang government was a civilian government in name, but in practice it was a military dictatorship[46] with a different warlord controlling each province of the country. China was reduced to a fractured state. As a result, China's prosperity began to wither and its economy declined. This instability presented an opportunity for nationalistic politicians in Japan to press for territorial expansion.[47]

### Twenty-One Demands

[edit]

Main article: Twenty-One Demands

In 1915, Japan issued the Twenty-One Demands to extort further political and commercial privilege from China, which was accepted by the regime of Yuan Shikai.[48] Following World War I, Japan acquired the German Empire's sphere of influence in Shandong province,[49] leading to nationwide anti-Japanese protests and mass demonstrations in China. The country remained fragmented under the Beiyang Government and was unable to resist foreign incursions.[50] For the purpose of unifying China and defeating the regional warlords, the Kuomintang (KMT) in Guangzhou launched the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928 with limited assistance from the Soviet Union.[51]

### Jinan incident

[edit]

Main article: Jinan incident

The National Revolutionary Army (NRA) formed by the Kuomintang swept through southern and central China until it was checked in Shandong, where confrontations with the Japanese garrison escalated into armed conflict. The conflicts were collectively known as the Jinan incident of 1928, during which time the Japanese military killed several Chinese officials and fired artillery shells into Jinan. According to the investigation results of the Association of the Families of the Victims of the Jinan massacre, it showed that 6,123 Chinese civilians were killed and 1,701 injured.[52] Relations between the Chinese Nationalist government and Japan severely worsened as a result of the Jinan incident.[53][54]

### Reunification of China (1928)

[edit]

Main article: Northeast Flag Replacement

As the National Revolutionary Army approached Beijing, Zhang Zuolin decided to retreat back to Manchuria, before he was assassinated by the Kwantung Army in 1928.[55] His son, Zhang Xueliang, took over as the leader of the Fengtian clique in Manchuria. Later in the same year, Zhang declared his allegiance to the Nationalist government in Nanjing under Chiang Kai-shek, and consequently, China was nominally reunified under one government.[56]

### 1929 Sino-Soviet war

[edit]

Main article: Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)

The July–November 1929 conflict over the Chinese Eastern Railroad (CER) further increased the tensions in the Northeast that led to the Mukden Incident and eventually the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Soviet Red Army victory over Xueliang's forces not only reasserted Soviet control over the CER in Manchuria but revealed Chinese military weaknesses that Japanese Kwantung Army officers were quick to note.[57]

The Soviet Red Army performance also stunned the Japanese. Manchuria was central to Japan's East Asia policy. Both the 1921 and 1927 Imperial Eastern Region Conferences reconfirmed Japan's commitment to be the dominant power in the Northeast. The 1929 Red Army victory shook that policy to the core and reopened the Manchurian problem. By 1930, the Kwantung Army realized they faced a Red Army that was only growing stronger. The time to act was drawing near and Japanese plans to conquer the Northeast were accelerated.[58]

### Chinese Communist Party

[edit]

In 1930, the Central Plains War broke out across China, involving regional commanders who had fought in alliance with the Kuomintang during the Northern Expedition, and the Nanjing government under Chiang. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) previously fought openly against the Nanjing government after the Shanghai massacre of 1927, and they continued to expand during this protracted civil war. The Kuomintang government in Nanjing decided to focus their efforts on suppressing the Chinese Communists through the Encirclement Campaigns, following the policy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance" (Chinese: 攘外必先安內).

After the defeat of the Chinese Soviet Republic by the Nationalists, the Communists retreated on the Long March to Yan'an.[59]: 34 The Nationalist government ordered local warlords to continue the campaign against the Communists rather than focus on the Japanese threat.[59]: 34 A December 1936 coup by two Nationalist Generals, the Xi'an Incident, forced Chiang Kai-shek to accept a United Front with the Communists to oppose Japan.[59]: 34

## Invasion of Manchuria and Northern China

[edit]

Further information: Japanese invasion of Manchuria

Japanese troops entering Shenyang during the Mukden Incident

The internecine warfare in China provided excellent opportunities for Japan, which saw Manchuria as a limitless supply of raw materials, a market for its manufactured goods (now excluded from the markets of many Western countries as a result of Depression-era tariffs), and a protective buffer state against the Soviet Union in Siberia. As a result, the Japanese Army was widely prevalent in Manchuria immediately following the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, where Japan gained significant territory in Manchuria. As a result of their strengthened position, by 1915 Japan had negotiated a significant amount of economic privilege in the region by pressuring Yuan Shikai, the president of the Republic of China at the time. With a widened range of economic privileges in Manchuria, Japan began focusing on developing and protecting matters of economic interests. This included railroads, businesses, natural resources, and a general control of the territory. With its influence growing, the Japanese Army began to justify its presence by stating that it was simply protecting its own economic interests. However militarists in the Japanese Army began pushing for an expansion of influence, leading to the Japanese Army assassinating the warlord of Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin. This was done with hopes that it would start a crisis that would allow Japan to expand their power and influence in the region. When this was not as successful as they desired, [citation needed] Japan then decided to invade Manchuria outright after the Mukden incident in September 1931. Japanese soldiers set off a bomb on the Southern Manchurian Railroad in order to provoke an opportunity to act in "self defense" and invade outright. Japan charged that its rights in Manchuria, which had been established as a result of its victory in 1905 at the end of the Russo-Japanese War, had been systematically violated and there were "more than 120 cases of infringement of rights and interests, interference with business, boycott of Japanese goods, unreasonable taxation, detention of individuals, confiscation of properties, eviction, demand for cessation of business, assault and battery, and the oppression of Korean residents".[60]

After five months of fighting, Japan established the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932, and installed the last Emperor of China, Puyi, as its puppet ruler. Militarily too weak to challenge Japan directly, China appealed to the League of Nations for help. The League's investigation led to the publication of the Lytton Report, condemning Japan for its incursion into Manchuria, causing Japan to withdraw from the League of Nations. No country took action against Japan beyond tepid censure. From 1931 until summer 1937, the Nationalist Army under Chiang Kai-shek did little to oppose Japanese encroachment into China.[61]: 69

Incessant fighting followed the Mukden Incident. In 1932, Chinese and Japanese troops fought the 28 January battle. This resulted in the demilitarization of Shanghai, which forbade the Chinese to deploy troops in their own city. In Manchukuo there was an ongoing campaign to pacify the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies that arose from widespread outrage over the policy of non-resistance to Japan. On 15 April 1932, the Chinese Soviet Republic led by the Communists declared war on Japan.[62]

In 1933, the Japanese attacked the Great Wall region. The Tanggu Truce established in its aftermath, gave Japan control of Rehe Province, as well as a demilitarized zone between the Great Wall and Beijing-Tianjin region. Japan aimed to create another buffer zone between Manchukuo and the Chinese Nationalist government in Nanjing.

Japan increasingly exploited China's internal conflicts to reduce the strength of its fractious opponents. Even years after the Northern Expedition, the political power of the Nationalist government was limited to just the area of the Yangtze River Delta. Other sections of China were essentially in the hands of local Chinese warlords. Japan sought various Chinese collaborators and helped them establish governments friendly to Japan. This policy was called the Specialization of North China (華北特殊化; huáběitèshūhùa), more commonly known as the North China Autonomous Movement. The northern provinces affected by this policy were Chahar, Suiyuan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong.

This Japanese policy was most effective in the area of what is now Inner Mongolia and Hebei. In 1935, under Japanese pressure, China signed the He–Umezu Agreement, which forbade the KMT to conduct party operations in Hebei. In the same year, the Chin–Doihara Agreement was signed expelling the KMT from Chahar. Thus, by the end of 1935 the Chinese government had essentially abandoned northern China. In its place, the Japanese-backed East Hebei Autonomous Council and the Hebei–Chahar Political Council were established. There in the empty space of Chahar the Mongol military government was formed on 12 May 1936. Japan provided all the necessary military and economic aid. Afterwards Chinese volunteer forces continued to resist Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.

Some Chinese historians believe the 18 September 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria marks the start of the War of Resistance.[63] Although not the conventional Western view, British historian Rana Mitter describes this Chinese trend of historical analysis as "perfectly reasonable".[63] In 2017, the Chinese government officially announced that it would adopt this view.[63] Under this interpretation, the 1931–1937 period is viewed as the "partial" war, while 1937–1945 is a period of "total" war.[63] This view of a fourteen-year war has political significance because it provides more recognition for the role of northeast China in the War of Resistance.[63]

## 1937: Full-scale invasion of China

[edit]

Main article: Marco Polo Bridge incident

Chiang Kai-shek announced the Kuomintang policy of resistance against Japan at Lushan on 10 July 1937, three days after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.

On the night of 7 July 1937, Chinese and Japanese troops exchanged fire in the vicinity of the Marco Polo (or Lugou) Bridge about 16 km from Beijing.[59]: 29 The initial confused and sporadic skirmishing soon escalated into a full-scale battle.

Unlike Japan, China was unprepared for total war and had little military-industrial strength, no mechanized divisions, and few armoured forces.[64]

Within the first year of full-scale war, Japanese forces obtained victories in most major Chinese cities.[59]: 29

### Battle of Beiping–Tianjin

[edit]

Main article: Battle of Beiping–Tianjin

On 11 July, in accordance with the Goso conference, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff authorized the deployment of an infantry division from the Chōsen Army, two combined brigades from the Kwantung Army and an air regiment composed of 18 squadrons as reinforcements to Northern China. By 20 July, total Japanese military strength in the Beijing-Tianjin area exceeded 180,000 personnel.

The Japanese gave Sung and his troops "free passage" before moving in to pacify resistance in areas surrounding Beijing (then Beiping) and Tianjin. After 24 days of combat, the Chinese 29th Army was forced to withdraw. The Japanese captured Beijing and the Taku Forts at Tianjin on 29 and 30 July respectively, thus concluding the Beijing-Tianjin campaign. By August 1937, Japan had occupied Beijing and Tianjin.[59]: 29

However, the Japanese Army had been given orders not to advance further than the Yongding River. In a sudden volte-face, the Konoe government's foreign minister opened negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek's government in Nanjing and stated: "Japan wants Chinese cooperation, not Chinese land." Nevertheless, negotiations failed to move further. The Ōyama Incident on 9 August escalated the skirmishes and battles into full scale warfare.[65]

The 29th Army's resistance (and poor equipment) inspired the 1937 "Sword March", which—with slightly reworked lyrics—became the National Revolutionary Army's standard marching cadence and popularized the racial epithet guizi to describe the Japanese invaders.[66]

### Battle of Shanghai

[edit]

Main article: Battle of Shanghai

A baby sits in the remains of a Shanghai train station on 'Bloody Saturday', 1937

The Imperial General Headquarters (GHQ) in Tokyo, content with the gains acquired in northern China following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, initially showed reluctance to escalate the conflict into a full-scale war. Following the shooting of two Japanese officers who were attempting to enter the Hongqiao military airport on 9 August 1937, the Japanese demanded that all Chinese forces withdraw from Shanghai; the Chinese outright refused to meet this demand. In response, both the Chinese and the Japanese marched reinforcements into the Shanghai area. Chiang concentrated his best troops north of Shanghai in an effort to impress the city's large foreign community and increase China's foreign support.[61]: 71

On 13 August 1937, Kuomintang soldiers attacked Japanese Marine positions in Shanghai, with Japanese army troops and marines in turn crossing into the city with naval gunfire support at Zhabei, leading to the Battle of Shanghai. On 14 August, Chinese forces under the command of Zhang Zhizhong were ordered to capture or destroy the Japanese strongholds in Shanghai, leading to bitter street fighting. In an attack on the Japanese cruiser Izumo, Kuomintang planes accidentally bombed the Shanghai International Settlement, which led to more than 3,000 civilian deaths.[67]

In the three days from 14 to 16 August 1937, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) sent many sorties of the then-advanced long-ranged G3M medium-heavy land-based bombers and assorted carrier-based aircraft with the expectation of destroying the Chinese Air Force. However, the Imperial Japanese Navy encountered unexpected resistance from the defending Chinese Curtiss Hawk II/Hawk III and P-26/281 Peashooter fighter squadrons; suffering heavy (50%) losses from the defending Chinese pilots (14 August was subsequently commemorated by the KMT as China's Air Force Day).[68][69]

The skies of China had become a testing zone for advanced biplane and new-generation monoplane combat-aircraft designs. The introduction of the advanced A5M "Claude" fighters into the Shanghai-Nanjing theater of operations, beginning on 18 September 1937, helped the Japanese achieve a certain level of air superiority.[70][71] However the few experienced Chinese veteran pilots, as well as several Chinese-American volunteer fighter pilots, including Maj. Art Chin, Maj. John Wong Pan-yang, and Capt. Chan Kee-Wong, even in their older and slower biplanes, proved more than able to hold their own against the sleek A5Ms in dogfights, and it also proved to be a battle of attrition against the Chinese Air Force. At the start of the battle, the local strength of the NRA was around five divisions, or about 70,000 troops, while local Japanese forces comprised about 6,300 marines. On 23 August, the Chinese Air Force attacked Japanese troop landings at Wusongkou in northern Shanghai with Hawk III fighter-attack planes and P-26/281 fighter escorts, and the Japanese intercepted most of the attack with A2N and A4N fighters from the aircraft carriers Hosho and Ryujo, shooting down several of the Chinese planes while losing a single A4N in the dogfight with Lt. Huang Xinrui in his P-26/281; the Japanese Army reinforcements succeeded in landing in northern Shanghai.[72] The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) ultimately committed over 300,000 troops, along with numerous naval vessels and aircraft, to capture the city. After more than three months of intense fighting, their casualties far exceeded initial expectations.[73] On 26 October, the IJA captured Dachang, a key strong-point within Shanghai, and on 5 November, additional reinforcements from Japan landed in Hangzhou Bay. Finally, on 9 November, the NRA began a general retreat.

Japan did not immediately occupy the Shanghai International Settlement or the Shanghai French Concession, areas which were outside of China's control due to the treaty port system. Japan moved into these areas after its 1941 declaration of war against the United States and the United Kingdom.[74]: 11–12

### Battle of Nanjing and massacre

[edit]

Main article: Nanjing Massacre

A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a shin gunto

In November 1937, the Japanese concentrated 220,000 soldiers and began a campaign against Nanjing.[59]: 29 Building on the hard-won victory in Shanghai, the IJA advanced on and captured the KMT capital city of Nanjing (December 1937) and Northern Shanxi (September - November 1937).

Japanese forces inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese soldiers defending the city, killing approximately 50,000 of them including 17 Chinese generals.[59]: 29 Upon the capture of Nanjing, Japanese committed massive war atrocities including mass murder and rape of Chinese civilians after 13 December 1937, which has been referred to as the Nanjing Massacre. Over the next several weeks, Japanese troops perpetrated numerous mass executions and tens of thousands of rapes. The army looted and burned the surrounding towns and the city, destroying more than a third of the buildings.[75]

The number of Chinese killed in the massacre has been subject to much debate, with estimates ranging from 100,000 to more than 300,000.[76] The numbers agreed upon by most scholars are provided by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which estimate at least 200,000 murders and 20,000 rapes.[77]

The Japanese atrocities in Nanjing, especially following the Chinese defense of Shanghai, increased international goodwill for the Chinese people and the Chinese government.[61]: 72

The Nationalist government re-established itself in Chongqing, which became the wartime seat of government until 1945.[59]: 32

## 1938

[edit]

By January 1938, most conventional Kuomintang forces had either been defeated or no longer offered major resistance to Japanese advances.[78]: 122 KMT forces won a few victories in 1938 (the Battle of Taierzhuang and the Battle of Wanjialing) but were generally ineffective that year.[59]: 29 By March 1938, the Japanese controlled almost all of North China.[59]: 29–30 Communist-led rural resistance to the Japanese remained active, however.[78]: 122

### Battles of Xuzhou and Taierzhuang

[edit]

Chinese soldiers in urban warfare in the Battle of Taierzhuang, March–April 1938

With many victories achieved, Japanese field generals escalated the war in Jiangsu in an attempt to wipe out the Chinese forces in the area. The Japanese managed to overcome Chinese resistance around Bengbu and the Teng xian, but were fought to a halt at Linyi.[79]

The Japanese were then decisively defeated at the Battle of Taierzhuang (March–April 1938), where the Chinese used night attacks and close-quarters combat to overcome Japanese advantages in firepower. The Chinese also severed Japanese supply lines from the rear, forcing the Japanese to retreat in the first Chinese victory of the war.[80]

The Japanese then attempted to surround and destroy the Chinese armies in the Xuzhou region with an enormous pincer movement. However the majority of the Chinese forces, some 200,000–300,000 troops in 40 divisions, managed to break out of the encirclement and retreat to defend Wuhan, the Japanese's next target.[81]

### Battle of Wuhan

[edit]

Chinese troops advancing near Wanjialing

Following Xuzhou, the IJA changed its strategy and deployed almost all of its existing armies in China to attack the city of Wuhan, which had become the political, economic and military center of China, in hopes of destroying the fighting strength of the NRA and forcing the KMT government to negotiate for peace.[82] On 6 June, they captured Kaifeng, the capital of Henan, and threatened to take Zhengzhou, the junction of the Pinghan and Longhai railways.

The Japanese forces, numbering some 400,000 men, were faced by over 1 million NRA troops in the Central Yangtze region. Having learned from their defeats at Shanghai and Nanjing, the Chinese had adapted themselves to fight the Japanese and managed to check their forces on many fronts, slowing and sometimes reversing the Japanese advances, as in the case of Wanjialing.[83]: 39–41

To overcome Chinese resistance, Japanese forces frequently deployed poison gas and committed atrocities against civilians, such as a "mini-Nanjing Massacre" in the city of Jiujiang upon its capture.[83]: 39 [84] After four months of intense combat, the Nationalists were forced to abandon Wuhan by October, and its government and armies retreated to Chongqing.[61]: 72 Both sides had suffered tremendous casualties in the battle, with the Chinese losing up to 500,000 soldiers killed or wounded,[83]: 42 and the Japanese up to 200,000.[85]

### Communist resistance

[edit]

After their victory at Wuhan, Japan advanced deep into Communist territory and redeployed 50,000 troops to the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region. Elements of the Eighth Route Army soon attacked the advancing Japanese, inflicting between 3,000 and 5,000 casualties and resulting in a Japanese retreat.[78]: 122–124 The Eighth Route Army carried out guerilla operations and established military and political bases.[59]: 34–35 As the Japanese military came to understand that the Communists avoided conventional attacks and defense, it altered its tactics.[78]: 122 The Japanese military built more roads to quicken movement between strongpoints and cities, blockaded rivers and roads in an effort to disrupt Communists supply, sought to expand militia from its puppet regime to conserve manpower, and use systematic violence on civilians in the Border Region in an effort to destroy its economy. The Japanese military mandated confiscation of the Eighth Route Army's goods and used this directive as a pretext to confiscate goods, including engaging in grave robbery in the Border Region.[78]: 122–124

With Japanese casualties and costs mounting, the Imperial General Headquarters attempted to break Chinese resistance by ordering the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and Imperial Japanese Army Air Service to launch the war's first massive air raids on civilian targets. Japanese raiders hit the Kuomintang's newly established provisional capital of Chongqing and most other major cities in unoccupied China, leaving many people either dead, injured, or homeless.

### Yellow River flood

[edit]

National Revolutionary Army soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood

This section is an excerpt from 1938 Yellow River flood.[edit]

A map of the flooded area in 1938

The 1938 Yellow River flood (simplified Chinese: 花园口决堤事件; traditional Chinese: 花園口決堤事件; pinyin: Huāyuánkǒu Juédī Shìjiàn; lit. 'Huayuankou Dam Burst Incident') was a man-made flood from June 1938 to January 1947 created by the intentional destruction of levees on the Yellow River in Huayuankou, Henan by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first wave of floods hit Zhongmu County on 13 June 1938.

NRA commanders intended the flood to act as a scorched earth defensive line against the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces.[86][87][88] There were three long-term strategic intentions behind the decision to cause the flooding: firstly, the flood in Henan safeguarded the Guanzhong section of the Longhai railway, a major northwestern route used by the Soviet Union to send supplies to the NRA from August 1937 to March 1941.[89][90] Secondly, the flooding of significant portions of land and railway sections made it difficult for the Japanese military to enter Shaanxi, thereby preventing them from invading the Sichuan basin, where the Chinese wartime capital of Chongqing and China's southwestern home front were located.[91] Thirdly, the floods in Henan and Anhui destroyed much of the tracks and bridges of the Beijing–Wuhan railway, the Tianjin–Pukou railway and the Longhai railway, thereby preventing the Japanese from effectively moving their forces across Northern and Central China.[92] In the short term, the NRA aimed to use the flood to halt the rapid transit of Japanese units from Northern China to areas near Wuhan.[92][93][94][95]

## 1939–1943

[edit]

The extent of Japanese occupation in 1940 (in red)

By 1939, the Nationalist army had withdrawn to the southwest and northwest of China and the Japanese controlled the coastal cities that been centres of Nationalist power.[59]: 30 From 1939 to 1945, China was divided into three regions: Japanese-occupied territories (Lunxianqu), the Nationalist-controlled region (Guotongqu), and the Communist-controlled regions (Jiefangqu, or liberated areas).[59]: 35

From the beginning of 1939, the war entered a new phase with the unprecedented defeat of the Japanese at Battle of Suixian–Zaoyang and First Battle of Changsha.

In 1939, Mao Zedong wrote The Greatest Crisis under Current Conditions, calling for more active resistance against Japan and for the strengthening of the Second United Front.[96]: 76

The Chinese launched their first large-scale counter-offensive against the IJA in December 1939; however, due to its low military-industrial capacity and limited experience in modern warfare, this offensive was defeated. Afterwards Chiang could not risk any more all-out offensive campaigns given the poorly trained, under-equipped, and disorganized state of his armies and opposition to his leadership both within the Kuomintang and in China in general. He had lost a substantial portion of his best trained and equipped troops in the Battle of Shanghai and was at times at the mercy of his generals, who maintained a high degree of autonomy from the central KMT government.

During the offensive, Hui forces in Suiyuan under generals Ma Hongbin and Ma Buqing routed the Imperial Japanese Army and their puppet Inner Mongol forces and prevented the planned Japanese advance into northwest China. Ma Hongbin's father Ma Fulu had fought against Japanese in the Boxer Rebellion. General Ma Biao led Hui, Salar and Dongxiang cavalry to defeat the Japanese at the Battle of Huaiyang. Ma Biao fought against the Japanese in the Boxer Rebellion.

After 1940, the Japanese encountered tremendous difficulties in administering and garrisoning the seized territories, and tried to solve their occupation problems by implementing a strategy of creating friendly puppet governments favourable to Japanese interests in the territories conquered. This included prominently the regime headed by Wang Jingwei, one of Chiang's rivals in the KMT.[59]: 35 However, atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, as well as Japanese refusal to delegate any real power, left the puppets very unpopular and largely ineffective. The only success the Japanese had was to recruit a large Collaborationist Chinese Army to maintain public security in the occupied areas.

### Japanese expansion

[edit]

By 1941, Japan held most of the eastern coastal areas of China and Vietnam, but guerrilla fighting continued in these occupied areas. Japan had suffered high casualties which resulted from unexpectedly stubborn Chinese resistance, and neither side could make any swift progress in the manner of Nazi Germany in Western Europe.

By 1943, Guangdong had experienced famine. As the situation worsened, New York Chinese compatriots received a letter stating that 600,000 people were killed in Siyi by starvation.[97]

### Second phase: October 1938 – December 1941

[edit]

National Revolutionary Army soldiers march to the front in 1939.

During this period, the main Chinese objective was to drag out the war for as long as possible in a war of attrition, thereby exhausting Japanese resources while it was building up China's military capacity. American general Joseph Stilwell called this strategy "winning by outlasting". The NRA adopted the concept of "magnetic warfare" to attract advancing Japanese troops to definite points where they were subjected to ambush, flanking attacks, and encirclements in major engagements. The most prominent example of this tactic was the successful defense of Changsha in 1939, and again in the 1941 battle, in which heavy casualties were inflicted on the IJA.

Local Chinese resistance forces, organized separately by both the CCP and the KMT, continued their resistance in occupied areas to make Japanese administration over the vast land area of China difficult. In 1940, the Chinese Red Army launched a major offensive in north China, destroying railways and a major coal mine. These constant guerilla and sabotage operations deeply frustrated the Imperial Japanese Army and they led them to employ the Three Alls policy—kill all, loot all, burn all. It was during this period that the bulk of Japanese war crimes were committed.

By 1941, Japan had occupied much of north and coastal China, but the KMT central government and military had retreated to the western interior to continue their resistance, while the Chinese communists remained in control of base areas in Shaanxi. In the occupied areas, Japanese control was mainly limited to railroads and major cities ("points and lines"). They did not have a major military or administrative presence in the vast Chinese countryside, where Chinese guerrillas roamed freely.

From 1941 to 1942, Japan concentrated most of its forces in China in an effort to defeat the Communist bases behind Japan's lines.[59]: 35 To decrease guerilla's human and material resources, the Japanese military implemented its Three Alls policy ("Kill all, loot all, burn all").[59]: 35 In response, the Communist armies increased their role in production activities, including farming, raising hogs, and cloth-making.[59]: 35

### Relationship between the Nationalists and the Communists

[edit]

Eighth Route Army Commander Zhu De with a KMT "Blue Sky, White Sun" emblem cap

After the Mukden Incident in 1931, Chinese public opinion was strongly critical of Manchuria's leader, the "young marshal" Zhang Xueliang, for his non-resistance to the Japanese invasion, even though the Kuomintang central government was also responsible for this policy, giving Zhang an order to improvise while not offering support. After losing Manchuria to the Japanese, Zhang and his Northeast Army were given the duty of suppressing the Red Army in Shaanxi after their Long March. This resulted in great casualties for his Northeast Army, which received no support in manpower or weaponry from Chiang Kai-shek.

In the Xi'an Incident that took place on 12 December 1936, Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an, hoping to force an end to KMT–CCP conflict. To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT agreed to a temporary ceasefire with the Communists. On 24 December, the two parties agreed to a United Front against Japan; this had salutary effects for the beleaguered Communists, who agreed to form the New Fourth Army and the 8th Route Army under the nominal control of the NRA. In addition, Shaan-Gan-Ning and Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border regions were created, under the control of the CCP. In Shaan-Gan-Ning, Communists in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Base Area fostered opium production, taxed it, and engaged in its trade—including selling to Japanese-occupied and KMT-controlled provinces.[98][99] The Red Army fought alongside KMT forces during the Battle of Taiyuan, and the high point of their cooperation came in 1938 during the Battle of Wuhan.

The formation of a united front added to the legality of the CCP, but what kind of support the central government would provide to the communists were not settled. When compromise with the CCP failed to incentivize the Soviet Union to engage in an open conflict against Japan, the KMT withheld further support for the Communists. To strengthen their legitimacy, Communist forces actively engaged the Japanese early on. These operations weakened Japanese forces in Shanxi and other areas in the North. Mao Zedong was distrustful of Chiang Kai-shek, however, and shifted strategy to guerrilla warfare in order to preserve the CCP's military strength.[100]

Despite Japan's steady territorial gains in northern China, the coastal regions, and the rich Yangtze River Valley in central China, the distrust between the two antagonists was scarcely veiled. The uneasy alliance began to break down by late 1938, partially due to the Communists' aggressive efforts to expand their military strength by absorbing Chinese guerrilla forces behind Japanese lines. Chinese militia who refused to switch their allegiance were often labelled "collaborators" and attacked by CCP forces. For example, the Red Army led by He Long attacked and wiped out a brigade of Chinese militia led by Zhang Yin-wu in Hebei in June 1939.[101] Starting in 1940, open conflict between Nationalists and Communists became more frequent in the occupied areas outside of Japanese control, culminating in the New Fourth Army Incident in January 1941.

Afterwards, the Second United Front completely broke down and Chinese Communists leader Mao Zedong outlined the preliminary plan for the CCP's eventual seizure of power from Chiang Kai-shek. Mao himself is quoted outlining the "721" policy, saying "We are fighting 70 percent for self development, 20 percent for compromise, and 10 percent against Japan".[citation needed] Mao began his final push for consolidation of CCP power under his authority, and his teachings became the central tenets of the CCP doctrine that came to be formalized as Mao Zedong Thought. The Communists also began to focus most of their energy on building up their sphere of influence wherever opportunities were presented, mainly through rural mass organizations, administrative, land and tax reform measures favouring poor peasants; while the Nationalists attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence by military blockade of areas controlled by CCP and fighting the Japanese at the same time.[102]

### Entrance of the Western Allies

[edit]

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling with Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell in 1942, British Burma The 18 February 1943 address by Soong Mei-ling before both houses of the United States Congress. A United States poster from the United China Relief organization advocating aid to China

Japan had expected to extract economic benefits of its invasions of China and elsewhere, including in the form of fuel and raw material resources.[59]: 30 As Japanese aggression continued, however, the United States responded with trade embargoes on various goods, including oil and petroleum (beginning December 1939) and scrap iron and munitions (beginning July 1940).[59]: 30 The United States demanded that Japan withdraw from China and also refused to recognize Japan's occupations of the Indochinese countries.[59]: 30 In spring 1941, trade negotiations between the United States and Japan failed.[59]: 30 In July 1941, the United States froze Japanese financial assets and obtained Dutch and British agreements to also cut those countries' oil exports to Japan.[59]: 30 This in turn prompted the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor.[59]: 30

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war against Japan, and within days China joined the Allies in formal declaration of war against Japan, Germany and Italy.[citation needed] As the Western Allies entered the war against Japan, the Sino-Japanese War would become part of a greater conflict, the Pacific theatre of World War II. Japan's military action against the United States also restrained its capacity to conduct further offensive operations in China.[59]: 30

After the Lend-Lease Act was passed in 1941, American financial and military aid began to trickle in.[103] Claire Lee Chennault commanded the 1st American Volunteer Group (nicknamed the Flying Tigers), with American pilots flying American warplanes which were painted with the Chinese flag to attack the Japanese. He headed both the volunteer group and the uniformed U.S. Army Air Forces units that replaced it in 1942.[104] However, it was the Soviets that provided the greatest material help for China from 1937 into 1941, with fighter aircraft for the Nationalist Chinese Air Force and artillery and armour for the Chinese Army through the Sino-Soviet Treaty; Operation Zet also provided for a group of Soviet volunteer combat aviators to join the Chinese Air Force in the fight against the Japanese occupation from late 1937 through 1939. The United States embargoed Japan in 1941 depriving it of shipments of oil and various other resources necessary to continue the war in China. This pressure, which was intended to disparage a continuation of the war and bring Japan into negotiation, resulted in the Attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan's drive south to procure from the resource-rich European colonies in Southeast Asia by force the resources which the United States had denied to them.

Almost immediately, Chinese troops achieved another decisive victory in the Battle of Changsha, which earned the Chinese government much prestige from the Western Allies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China as the world's "Four Policemen"; his primary reason for elevating China to such a status was the belief that after the war it would serve as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.[105]

Knowledge of Japanese naval movements in the Pacific was provided to the American Navy by the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) which was run by the Chinese intelligence head Dai Li.[106] Philippine and Japanese ocean weather was affected by weather originating near northern China.[107] The base of SACO was located in Yangjiashan.[108]

Chiang Kai-shek continued to receive supplies from the United States. However, in contrast to the Arctic supply route to the Soviet Union which stayed open through most of the war, sea routes to China and the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway had been closed since 1940. Therefore, between the closing of the Burma Road in 1942 and its re-opening as the Ledo Road in 1945, foreign aid was largely limited to what could be flown in over "The Hump". In Burma, on 16 April 1942, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung and rescued by the Chinese 38th Division.[109] After the Doolittle Raid, the Imperial Japanese Army conducted a massive sweep through Zhejiang and Jiangxi, now known as the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, with the goal of finding the surviving American airmen, applying retribution on the Chinese who aided them and destroying air bases. The operation started 15 May 1942, with 40 infantry battalions and 15–16 artillery battalions but was repelled by Chinese forces in September.[110] During this campaign, the Imperial Japanese Army left behind a trail of devastation and also spread cholera, typhoid, plague and dysentery pathogens. Chinese estimates allege that as many as 250,000 civilians, the vast majority of whom were destitute Tanka boat people and other pariah ethnicities unable to flee, may have died of disease.[111] It caused more than 16 million civilians to evacuate far away deep inward China. 90% of Ningbo's population had already fled before battle started.[83]: 49

Most of China's industry had already been captured or destroyed by Japan, and the Soviet Union refused to allow the United States to supply China through the Kazakhstan into Xinjiang as the Xinjiang warlord Sheng Shicai had turned anti-Soviet in 1942 with Chiang's approval. For these reasons, the Chinese government never had the supplies and equipment needed to mount major counter-offensives. Despite the severe shortage of matériel, in 1943, the Chinese were successful in repelling major Japanese offensives in Hubei and Changde.

Chiang was named Allied commander-in-chief in the China theater in 1942. American general Joseph Stilwell served for a time as Chiang's chief of staff, while simultaneously commanding American forces in the China-Burma-India Theater. For many reasons, relations between Stilwell and Chiang soon broke down. Many historians (such as Barbara W. Tuchman) have suggested it was largely due to the corruption and inefficiency of the Kuomintang government, while others (such as Ray Huang and Hans van de Ven) have depicted it as a more complicated situation. Stilwell had a strong desire to assume total control of Chinese troops and pursue an aggressive strategy, while Chiang preferred a patient and less expensive strategy of out-waiting the Japanese. Chiang continued to maintain a defensive posture despite Allied pleas to actively break the Japanese blockade, because China had already suffered tens of millions of war casualties and believed that Japan would eventually capitulate in the face of America's overwhelming industrial output. For these reasons the other Allies gradually began to lose confidence in the Chinese ability to conduct offensive operations from the Asian mainland, and instead concentrated their efforts against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean Areas and South West Pacific Area, employing an island hopping strategy.[112]

Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill at the 1943 Cairo Conference

Long-standing differences in national interest and political stance among China, the United States, and the United Kingdom remained in place. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was reluctant to devote British troops, many of whom had been routed by the Japanese in earlier campaigns, to the reopening of the Burma Road; Stilwell, on the other hand, believed that reopening the road was vital, as all China's mainland ports were under Japanese control. The Allies' "Europe first" policy did not sit well with Chiang, while the later British insistence that China send more and more troops to Indochina for use in the Burma Campaign was seen by Chiang as an attempt to use Chinese manpower to defend British colonial possessions. Chiang also believed that China should divert its crack army divisions from Burma to eastern China to defend the airbases of the American bombers that he hoped would defeat Japan through bombing, a strategy that American general Claire Lee Chennault supported but which Stilwell strongly opposed. In addition, Chiang voiced his support of the Indian independence movement in a 1942 meeting with Mohandas Gandhi, which further soured the relationship between China and the United Kingdom.[113]

American and Canadian-born Chinese were recruited to act as covert operatives in Japanese-occupied China. Employing their racial background as a disguise, their mandate was to blend in with local citizens and wage a campaign of sabotage. Activities focused on destruction of Japanese transportation of supplies (signaling bomber destruction of railroads, bridges).[114] Chinese forces advanced to northern Burma in late 1943, besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina, and captured Mount Song.[115] The British and Commonwealth forces had their operation in Mission 204 which attempted to provide assistance to the Chinese Nationalist Army.[116] The first phase in 1942 under command of SOE achieved very little, but lessons were learned and a second more successful phase, commenced in February 1943 under British Military command, was conducted before the Japanese Operation Ichi-Go offensive in 1944 compelled evacuation.[117]

## 1944 and Operation Ichi-Go

[edit]

In 1944, the Communists launched counteroffensives from the liberated areas against Japanese forces.[59]: 53

Japan's 1944 Operation Ichi-Go was the largest military campaign of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The campaign mobilized 500,000 Japanese troops, 100,000 horses, 1,500 artillery pieces, and 800 tanks.[118]: 19 The 750,000 casualty figure for Nationalist Chinese forces are not all dead and captured, Cox included in the 750,000 casualties that China incurred in Ichigo soldiers who simply "melted away" and others who were rendered combat ineffective besides killed and captured soldiers.[119]

In late November 1944, the Japanese advance slowed approximately 300 miles from Chongqing as it experienced shortages of trained soldiers and materiel. Although Operation Ichi-Go achieved its goals of seizing United States air bases and establishing a potential railway corridor from Manchukuo to Hanoi, it did so too late to impact the result of the broader war. American bombers in Chengdu were moved to the Mariana Islands where, along with bombers from bases in Saipan and Tinian, they could still bomb the Japanese home islands.[118]: 21–22

After Operation Ichigo, Chiang Kai-shek started a plan to withdraw Chinese troops from the Burma theatre against Japan in Southeast Asia for a counter offensive called "White Tower" and "Iceman" against Japanese soldiers in China in 1945.[120]

The poor performance of Chiang Kai-shek's forces in opposing the Japanese advance during Operation Ichigo became widely viewed as demonstrating Chiang's incompetence.[74]: 3 It irreparably damaged the Roosevelt administration's view of Chiang and the KMT.[61]: 75 The campaign further weakened the Nationalist economy and government revenues.[74]: 22–24 Because of the Nationalists' increasing inability to fund the military, Nationalist authorities overlooked military corruption and smuggling. The Nationalist army increasingly turned to raiding villages to press-gang peasants into service and force marching them to assigned units. Approximately 10% of these peasants died before reaching their units.[74]: 24–25

By the end of 1944, Chinese troops under the command of Sun Li-jen attacking from India, and those under Wei Lihuang attacking from Yunnan, joined forces in Mong-Yu, successfully driving the Japanese out of North Burma and securing the Ledo Road, China's vital supply artery.[121] In Spring 1945 the Chinese launched offensives that retook Hunan and Guangxi. With the Chinese army progressing well in training and equipment, Wedemeyer planned to launch Operation Carbonado in summer 1945 to retake Guangdong, thus obtaining a coastal port, and from there drive northwards toward Shanghai. However, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Soviet invasion of Manchuria hastened Japanese surrender and these plans were not put into action.[122]

## Chinese industrial base and the CIC

[edit]

Main articles: Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, History of the cooperative movement in China, and Gung ho

This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (March 2025)

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## Foreign aid

[edit]

Further information: Japanese in the Chinese resistance to the Empire of Japan

Before the start of full-scale warfare of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Germany had since the time of the Weimar Republic, provided much equipment and training to crack units of the National Revolutionary Army of China, including some aerial-combat training with the Luftwaffe to some pilots of the pre-Nationalist Air Force of China.[123] A number of foreign powers, including the Americans, Italians and Japanese, provided training and equipment to different air force units of pre-war China. With the outbreak of full-scale war between China and the Empire of Japan, the Soviet Union became the primary supporter for China's war of resistance through the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact from 1937 to 1941. When the Imperial Japanese invaded French Indochina, the United States enacted the oil and steel embargo against Japan and froze all Japanese assets in 1941,[124][125] and with it came the Lend-Lease Act of which China became a beneficiary on 6 May 1941; from there, China's main diplomatic, financial and military support came from the U.S., particularly following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

### Overseas Chinese

[edit]

Over 3,200 overseas Chinese drivers and motor vehicle mechanics embarked to wartime China to support military and logistics supply lines, especially through Indo-China, which became of absolute tantamount importance when the Japanese cut-off all ocean-access to China's interior with the capture of Nanning after the Battle of South Guangxi. Overseas Chinese communities in the U.S. raised money and nurtured talent in response to Imperial Japan's aggressions in China, which helped to fund an entire squadron of Boeing P-26 fighter planes purchased for the looming war situation between China and the Empire of Japan; over a dozen Chinese-American aviators, including John "Buffalo" Huang, Arthur Chin, Hazel Ying Lee, Chan Kee-Wong et al., formed the original contingent of foreign volunteer aviators to join the Chinese air forces (some provincial or warlord air forces, but ultimately all integrating into the centralized Chinese Air Force; often called the Nationalist Air Force of China) in the "patriotic call to duty for the motherland" to fight against the Imperial Japanese invasion.[126][127][128][129] Several of the original Chinese-American volunteer pilots were sent to Lagerlechfeld Air Base in Germany for aerial-gunnery training by the Chinese Air Force in 1936.[130]

### German

[edit]

Main article: China–Germany relations (1912–1949)

H. H. Kung and Adolf Hitler in Berlin

Prior to the war, Germany and China were in close economic and military cooperation, with Germany helping China modernize its industry and military in exchange for raw materials. Germany sent military advisers such as Alexander von Falkenhausen to China to help the KMT government reform its armed forces.[131] Some divisions began training to German standards and were to form a relatively small but well trained Chinese Central Army. By the mid-1930s about 80,000 soldiers had received German-style training.[132] After the KMT lost Nanjing and retreated to Wuhan, Hitler's government decided to withdraw its support of China in 1938 in favour of an alliance with Japan as its main anti-Communist partner in East Asia.[133]

### Soviet

[edit]

After Germany and Japan signed the anti-communist Anti-Comintern Pact, the Soviet Union hoped to keep China fighting, in order to deter a Japanese invasion of Siberia and save itself from a two-front war. In September 1937, they signed the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and approved Operation Zet, the formation of a secret Soviet volunteer air force, in which Soviet technicians upgraded and ran some of China's transportation systems. Bombers, fighters, supplies and advisors arrived, headed by Aleksandr Cherepanov. Prior to the Western Allies, the Soviets provided the most foreign aid to China: some $250 million in credits for munitions and other supplies. The Soviet Union defeated Japan in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in May – September 1939, leaving the Japanese reluctant to fight the Soviets again.[134] In April 1941, Soviet aid to China ended with the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. This pact enabled the Soviet Union to avoid fighting against Germany and Japan at the same time. In August 1945, the Soviet Union annulled the neutrality pact with Japan and invaded Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, the Kuril Islands, and northern Korea. The Soviets also continued to support the Chinese Communist Party. In total, 3,665 Soviet advisors and pilots served in China,[135] and 227 of them died fighting there.[136]

The Soviet Union provided financial aid to both the Communists and the Nationalists.[59]: 34

### United States

[edit]

Further information: American Volunteer Group, Flying Tigers, and China Air Task Force

Flying Tigers Commander Claire Lee Chennault

The United States generally avoided taking sides between Japan and China until 1940, providing virtually no aid to China in this period. For instance, the 1934 Silver Purchase Act signed by President Roosevelt caused chaos in China's economy which helped the Japanese war effort. The 1933 Wheat and Cotton Loan mainly benefited American producers, while aiding to a smaller extent both Chinese and Japanese alike. This policy was due to US fear of breaking off profitable trade ties with Japan, in addition to US officials and businesses perception of China as a potential source of massive profit for the US by absorbing surplus American products, as William Appleman Williams states.[137]

From December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on USS Panay and the Nanjing Massacre swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan and increased their fear of Japanese expansion, which prompted the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to provide loan assistance for war supply contracts to China. Australia also prevented a Japanese government-owned company from taking over an iron mine in Australia, and banned iron ore exports in 1938.[138] However, in July 1939, negotiations between Japanese Foreign Minister Arita Khatira and the British Ambassador in Tokyo, Robert Craigie, led to an agreement by which the United Kingdom recognized Japanese conquests in China. At the same time, the US government extended a trade agreement with Japan for six months, then fully restored it. Under the agreement, Japan purchased trucks for the Kwantung Army,[139] machine tools for aircraft factories, strategic materials (steel and scrap iron up to 16 October 1940, petrol and petroleum products up to 26 June 1941),[140] and various other much-needed supplies.

In a hearing before the United States Congress House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, 19 April 1939, the acting chairman Sol Bloom and other Congressmen interviewed Maxwell S. Stewart, a former Foreign Policy Association research staff and economist who charged that America's Neutrality Act and its "neutrality policy" was a massive farce which only benefited Japan and that Japan did not have the capability nor could ever have invaded China without the massive amount of raw material America exported to Japan. America exported far more raw material to Japan than to China in the years 1937–1940.[141][142][143][144] According to the United States Congress, the U.S.'s third largest export destination was Japan until 1940 when France overtook it due to France being at war too. Japan's military machine acquired war materials, automotive equipment, steel, scrap iron, copper, oil, that it wanted from the United States in 1937–1940 and was allowed to purchase aerial bombs, aircraft equipment, and aircraft from America up to the summer of 1938. A 1934 U.S. State Department memo even noted how Japan's business dealings with Standard Oil of New Jersey company, under the leadership of Walter Teagle, made United States oil the "major portion of the petroleum and petroleum products now imported into Japan."[145] War essentials exports from the United States to Japan increased by 124% along with a general increase of 41% of all American exports from 1936 to 1937 when Japan invaded China. Japan's war economy was fueled by exports to the United States at over twice the rate immediately preceding the war.[146] According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Japan corresponded to the following share of American exports.

A "blood chit" issued to American Volunteer Group pilots requesting all Chinese to offer rescue and protection

Japan invaded and occupied the northern part of French Indochina in September 1940 to prevent China from receiving the 10,000 tons of materials delivered monthly by the Allies via the Haiphong–Yunnan Fou Railway line.

On 22 June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. In spite of non-aggression pacts or trade connections, Hitler's assault threw the world into a frenzy of re-aligning political outlooks and strategic prospects.

On 21 July, Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina (southern Vietnam and Cambodia), contravening a 1940 gentlemen's agreement not to move into southern French Indochina. From bases in Cambodia and southern Vietnam, Japanese planes could attack Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. As the Japanese occupation of northern French Indochina in 1940 had already cut off supplies from the West to China, the move into southern French Indochina was viewed as a direct threat to British and Dutch colonies. Many principal figures in the Japanese government and military (particularly the navy) were against the move, as they foresaw that it would invite retaliation from the West.

On 24 July 1941, Roosevelt requested Japan withdraw all its forces from Indochina. Two days later the US and the UK began an oil embargo; two days after that the Netherlands joined them. This was a decisive moment in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The loss of oil imports made it impossible for Japan to continue operations in China on a long-term basis. It set the stage for Japan to launch a series of military attacks against the Allies, including the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

In mid-1941, the United States government financed the creation of the American Volunteer Groups (AVG), of which one the "Flying Tigers" reached China, to replace the withdrawn Soviet volunteers and aircraft. The Flying Tigers did not enter actual combat until after the United States had declared war on Japan. Led by Chennault, their early combat success of 300 kills against a loss of 12 of their newly introduced Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighters heavily armed with six 0.50-inch caliber machine guns and very fast diving speeds earned them wide recognition at a time when the Chinese Air Force and Allies in the Pacific and SE Asia were suffering heavy losses, and soon afterwards their "boom and zoom" high-speed hit-and-run air combat tactics would be adopted by the United States Army Air Forces.[147]

Disagreements existed both between the United States and the Nationalists, and within the United States military, about the form of aid.[59]: 35 Chennault contended that aid should be in the form of building on the success of the Flying Tigers and go to the US Fourteenth Air Force in China.[59]: 35 Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, who was in charge of training Nationalist divisions equipped by the United States, became increasingly frustrated by the Nationalists' refusal to use them to fight the Japanese in Burma or in southeastern China.[59]: 35

The Sino-American Cooperative Organization[148][149][150] was an organization created by the SACO Treaty signed by the Republic of China and the United States of America in 1942 that established a mutual intelligence gathering entity in China between the respective nations against Japan. It operated in China jointly along with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America's first intelligence agency and forerunner of the CIA while also serving as joint training program between the two nations. Among all the wartime missions that Americans set up in China, SACO was the only one that adopted a policy of "total immersion" with the Chinese. The "Rice Paddy Navy" or "What-the-Hell Gang" operated in the China-Burma-India theater, advising and training, forecasting weather and scouting landing areas for USN fleet and Gen Claire Chennault's 14th AF, rescuing downed American flyers, and intercepting Japanese radio traffic. An underlying mission objective during the last year of war was the development and preparation of the China coast for Allied penetration and occupation. Fujian was scouted as a potential staging area and springboard for the future military landing of the Allies of World War II in Japan.

### United Kingdom

[edit]

Further information: Mission 204 and British Army Aid Group

After the Tanggu Truce of 1933, Chiang Kai-Shek and the British government would have more friendly relations but were uneasy due to British foreign concessions there. During the Second Sino-Japanese War the British government would initially have an impartial viewpoint toward the conflict urging both to reach an agreement and prevent war. British public opinion would swing in favor of the Chinese after Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen's car which had Union Jacks on it was attacked by Japanese aircraft with Hugessen being temporarily paralyzed with outrage against the attack from the public and government. The British public were largely supportive of the Chinese and many relief efforts were untaken to help China. Britain at this time was beginning the process of rearmament and the sale of military surplus was banned but there was never an embargo on private companies shipping arms. A number of unassembled Gloster Gladiator fighters were imported to China via Hong Kong for the Chinese Air Force. Between July 1937 and November 1938 on average 60,000 tons of munitions were shipped from Britain to China via Hong Kong. Attempts by the United Kingdom and the United States to do a joint intervention were unsuccessful as both countries had rocky relations in the interwar era.[151]

In February 1941 a Sino-British agreement was forged whereby British troops would assist the Chinese "Surprise Troops" units of guerrillas already operating in China, and China would assist Britain in Burma.[152]

British and Australian troops from 'Mission 204' march to the front in Jiangxi province in June 1942

When Hong Kong was overrun in December 1941, the British Army Aid Group (B.A.A.G.) was set up and headquartered in Guilin, Guangxi. Its aim was to assist prisoners of war and internees to escape from Japanese camps. This led to the formation of the Hong Kong Volunteer Company which later fought in Burma.[153] B.A.A.G. also sent agents to gather intelligence – military, political and economic in Southern China, as well as giving medical and humanitarian assistance to Chinese civilians and military personnel.[154]

A British-Australian commando operation, Mission 204 (Tulip Force), was initialized to provide training to Chinese guerrilla troops. The mission conducted two operations, mostly in the provinces of Yunnan and Jiangxi.

The first operation commenced in February 1942 from Burma on a long journey to the Chinese front. Due to issues with supporting the Chinese and gradual disease and supply issues, the first phase achieved very little and the unit was withdrawn in September.[155]

Another phase was set up with lessons learned from the first. Commencing in February 1943 this time valid assistance was given to the Chinese 'Surprise Troops' in various actions against the Japanese. These involved ambushes, attacks on airfields, blockhouses, and supply depots. The unit operated successfully before withdrawal in November 1944.[156]

Commandos and members of SOE who had formed Force 136, worked with the Free Thai Movement who also operated in China, mostly while on their way into Thailand.[157]

After the Japanese blocked the Burma Road in April 1942, and before the Ledo Road was finished in early 1945, the majority of US and British supplies to the Chinese had to be delivered via airlift over the eastern end of the Himalayas known as "The Hump". Flying over the Himalayas was extremely dangerous, but the airlift continued daily to August 1945, at great cost in men and aircraft.

## French Indochina

[edit]

See also: Japanese invasion of French Indochina and Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina

French colonial troops retreating to the Chinese border after the Japanese coup d'état in March 1945

The Chinese Kuomintang also supported the Vietnamese Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD) in its battle against French and Japanese imperialism. In Guangxi, Chinese military leaders were organizing Vietnamese nationalists against the Japanese. The VNQDD had been active in Guangxi and some of their members had joined the KMT army.[158] Under the umbrella of KMT activities, a broad alliance of nationalists emerged. With Ho at the forefront, the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Independence League, usually known as the Viet Minh) was formed and based in the town of Jingxi.[158] The pro-VNQDD nationalist Ho Ngoc Lam, a KMT army officer and former disciple of Phan Bội Châu,[citation needed] was named as the deputy of Phạm Văn Đồng, later to be Ho's Prime Minister. The front was later broadened and renamed the Viet Nam Giai Phong Dong Minh (Vietnam Liberation League).[158]

The Viet Nam Revolutionary League was a union of various Vietnamese nationalist groups, run by the pro Chinese VNQDD. Chinese KMT General Zhang Fakui created the league to further Chinese influence in Indochina, against the French and Japanese. Its stated goal was for unity with China under the Three Principles of the People, created by KMT founder Dr. Sun and opposition to Japanese and French Imperialists.[159][160] The Revolutionary League was controlled by Nguyen Hai Than, who was born in China and could not speak Vietnamese[citation needed]. General Zhang shrewdly blocked the Communists of Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh from entering the league, as Zhang's main goal was Chinese influence in Indochina.[161] The KMT utilized these Vietnamese nationalists during World War II against Japanese forces.[158] Franklin D. Roosevelt, through General Stilwell, privately made it clear that they preferred that the French not reacquire French Indochina (modern day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) after the war was over. Roosevelt offered Chiang Kai-shek control of all of Indochina. It was said that Chiang Kai-shek replied: "Under no circumstances!"[162]

After the war, 200,000 Chinese troops under General Lu Han were sent by Chiang Kai-shek to northern Indochina (north of the 16th parallel) to accept the surrender of Japanese occupying forces there, and remained in Indochina until 1946, when the French returned.[163] The Chinese used the VNQDD, the Vietnamese branch of the Chinese Kuomintang, to increase their influence in French Indochina and to put pressure on their opponents.[164] Chiang Kai-shek threatened the French with war in response to maneuvering by the French and Ho Chi Minh's forces against each other, forcing them to come to a peace agreement. In February 1946, he also forced the French to surrender all of their concessions in China and to renounce their extraterritorial privileges in exchange for the Chinese withdrawing from northern Indochina and allowing French troops to reoccupy the region. Following France's agreement to these demands, the withdrawal of Chinese troops began in March 1946.[165][166][167][168]

## Central Asian rebellions

[edit]

In 1937, then pro-Soviet General Sheng Shicai invaded Dunganistan accompanied by Soviet troops to defeat General Ma Hushan of the KMT 36th Division. General Ma expected help from Nanjing, but did not receive it. The Nationalist government was forced to deny these maneuvers as "Japanese propaganda", as it needed continued military supplies from the Soviets.[169]

As the war went on, Nationalist General Ma Buqing was in virtual control of the Gansu corridor.[170] Ma had earlier fought against the Japanese, but because the Soviet threat was great, Chiang in July 1942 directed him to move 30,000 of his troops to the Tsaidam marsh in the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai.[171][172] Chiang further named Ma as Reclamation Commissioner, to threaten Sheng's southern flank in Xinjiang, which bordered Tsaidam.

The Ili Rebellion broke out in Xinjiang when the Kuomintang Hui Officer Liu Bin-Di was killed while fighting Turkic Uyghur rebels in November 1944. The Soviet Union supported the Turkic rebels against the Kuomintang, and Kuomintang forces fought back.[173]

## Ethnic minorities

[edit]

Main article: Chinese Muslims in the Second Sino-Japanese War

Chinese Muslim cavalry

Japan attempted to reach out to Chinese ethnic minorities in order to rally them to their side against the Han Chinese, but only succeeded with certain Manchu, Mongol, Uyghur, and Tibetan elements.

The Japanese attempt to get the Muslim Hui people on their side failed, as many Chinese generals such as Bai Chongxi, Ma Hongbin, Ma Hongkui, and Ma Bufang were Hui. The Japanese attempted to approach Ma Bufang but were unsuccessful in making any agreement with him.[174] Ma Bufang ended up supporting the anti-Japanese Imam Hu Songshan, who prayed for the destruction of the Japanese.[175] Ma became chairman (governor) of Qinghai in 1938 and commanded a group army. He was appointed because of his anti-Japanese inclinations,[176] and was such an obstruction to Japanese agents trying to contact the Tibetans that he was called an "adversary" by a Japanese agent.[177]

### Hui Muslims

[edit]

Hui cemeteries were destroyed for military reasons.[178] Many Hui fought in the war against the Japanese such as Bai Chongxi, Ma Hongbin, Ma Hongkui, Ma Bufang, Ma Zhanshan, Ma Biao, Ma Zhongying, Ma Buqing and Ma Hushan. Qinghai Tibetans served in the Qinghai army against the Japanese.[179] The Qinghai Tibetans view the Tibetans of Central Tibet (Tibet proper, ruled by the Dalai Lamas from Lhasa) as distinct and different from themselves, and even take pride in the fact that they were not ruled by Lhasa ever since the collapse of the Tibetan Empire.[180]

Xining was subjected to aerial bombardment by Japanese warplanes in 1941, causing all ethnicities in Qinghai to unite against the Japanese. General Han Youwen directed the defense of the city of Xining during air raids by Japanese planes. Han survived an aerial bombardment by Japanese planes in Xining while he was being directed via telephone by Ma Bufang, who hid in an air-raid shelter in a military barracks. The bombing resulted in Han being buried in rubble, though he was later rescued.

John Scott reported in 1934 that there was both strong anti-Japanese feeling and anti-Bolshevik among the Muslims of Gansu and he mentioned the Muslim generals Ma Fuxiang, Ma Qi, Ma Anliang and Ma Bufang who was chairman of Qinghai province when he stayed in Xining.[181]

## Conclusion and aftermath

[edit]

### End of the Pacific War and the surrender of Japanese troops in China

[edit]

Main articles: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and Japanese Instrument of Surrender

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese had consistent tactical successes but failed to achieve strategic results.[61]: 70 Although it seized the majority of China's industrial capacity, occupied most major cities, and rarely lost a battle, Japan's occupation of China was costly.[61]: 70 Japan had approximately 50,000 military fatalities each year and 200,000 wounded per year.[61]: 70

WWII victory parade at Chongqing on 3 September 1945

In less than two weeks the Kwantung Army, which was the primary Japanese fighting force,[182][183] consisting of over a million men but lacking in adequate armour, artillery, or air support, had been destroyed by the Soviets. Japanese Emperor Hirohito officially capitulated to the Allies on 15 August 1945. The official surrender was signed aboard the battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, in a ceremony where several Allied commanders including Chinese general Hsu Yung-chang were present.

After the Allied victory in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur ordered all Japanese forces within China (excluding Manchuria), Taiwan and French Indochina north of 16° north latitude to surrender to Chiang Kai-shek, and the Japanese troops in China formally surrendered on 9 September 1945, at 9:00.[184] The ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month was chosen in echo of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 (on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) and because "nine" is a homophone of the word for "long lasting" in Chinese (to suggest that the peace won would last forever).[185]

Chiang relied on American help in transporting Nationalist troops to regain control of formerly Japanese-occupied areas.[74]: 3 Non-Chinese generally viewed the behavior of these troops as undercutting Nationalist legitimacy, and these troops engaged in corruption and looting, leading to widespread views of a "botched liberation".[74]: 3

The Nationalist government seized Japanese-held businesses at the time of the Japanese surrender.[74]: 92 The Nationalist government made little effort to return these businesses to their original Chinese owners.[74]: 92–93 A mechanism existed through which Chinese and foreign owners could petition for the return of their former property.[74]: 92 In practice, the Nationalist government and its officials retained a great deal of the seized property and embezzling property, particularly from warehouses, was common.[74]: 93 Nationalist officials sometimes extorted money from individuals in liberated territories under threat of labeling them as Japanese collaborators.[74]: 93

Chiang's focus on his communist opponents prompted him to leave Japanese troops or troops of the Japanese puppet regimes to remain on duty in occupied areas so as to avoid their surrender to Communist forces.[74]: 3

### Post-war struggle and resumption of the civil war

[edit]

Main article: Chinese Civil War

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong in 1945

In 1945, China emerged from the war nominally a great military power [citation needed] but economically weak and on the verge of all-out civil war. The economy was sapped by the military demands of a long costly war and internal strife, by spiraling inflation, and by corruption in the Nationalist government that included profiteering, speculation and hoarding.

The poor performance of Nationalist forces opposing the Ichi-go campaign was largely viewed as reflecting poorly on Chiang's competence.[74]: 3 Chiang blamed the failure on the United States, particularly Stilwell, who had used Chinese forces in the Burma Campaign and in Chiang's view, left China insufficiently defended.[74]: 3

As part of the Yalta Conference, which allowed a Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria, the Soviets dismantled and removed more than half of the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese before handing over Manchuria to China. Large swathes of the prime farming areas had been ravaged by the fighting and there was starvation and famine in the wake of the war. Many towns and cities were destroyed, and millions were rendered homeless by floods.

The problems of rehabilitation and reconstruction after the ravages of a protracted war were staggering, and the war left the Nationalists severely weakened, and their policies left them unpopular. Meanwhile, the war strengthened the Communists both in popularity and as a viable fighting force. At Yan'an and elsewhere in the communist controlled areas, Mao Zedong was able to adapt Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions. He taught party cadres to lead the masses by living and working with them, eating their food, and thinking their thoughts.

In Japanese-occupied areas, the Communists had established military and political bases from which it carried out guerilla warfare.[59]: 35 The Communists built popular support in these areas, returning land to poor peasants, reducing peasant's rent, and arming the people.[59]: 35 By Spring 1945, there were 19 Communist-governed areas in China in which 95 million people lived.[59]: 36 In Fall 1945, the Communist armies had 1.27 million men and were supported by 2.68 million militia members.[59]: 36

Mao also began to execute his plan to establish a new China by rapidly moving his forces from Yan'an and elsewhere to Manchuria. This opportunity was available to the Communists because although Nationalist representatives were not invited to Yalta, they had been consulted and had agreed to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in the belief that the Soviet Union would cooperate only with the Nationalist government after the war.

However, the Soviet occupation of Manchuria was long enough to allow the Communist forces to move in en masse and arm themselves with the military hardware surrendered by the Imperial Japanese Army, quickly establish control in the countryside and move into position to encircle the Nationalist government army in major cities of northeast China. Following that, the Chinese Civil War broke out between the Nationalists and Communists, which concluded with the Communist victory in mainland China and the retreat of the Nationalists to Taiwan in 1949.

### Aftermath

[edit]

China War of Resistance Against Japan Memorial Museum on the site where the Marco Polo Bridge Incident took place

The Nationalists suffered higher casualties because they were the main combatants opposing the Japanese in each of the 22 major battles (involving more than 100,000 troops on both sides) between China and Japan. The Communist forces, by contrast, usually avoided pitched battles with the Japanese, in which their guerrilla tactics were less effective, and generally limited their combat to guerrilla actions (the Hundred Regiments Offensive and the Battle of Pingxingguan are notable exceptions).[186] The Nationalists committed their strongest divisions in early battle against the Japanese (including the 36th, 87th, 88th divisions, the crack divisions of Chiang's Central Army) to defend Shanghai and continued to deploy most of their forces to fight the Japanese even as the Communists changed their strategy to engage mainly in a political offensive against the Japanese while declaring that the CCP should "save and preserve our strength and wait for favourable timing" by the end of 1941.[187]

## Legacy

[edit]

### China-Japan relations

[edit]

Today, the war is a major point of contention and resentment between China and Japan. The war remains a major roadblock for Sino-Japanese relations. Issues regarding the current historical outlook on the war exist. For example, the Japanese government has been accused of historical revisionism by allowing the approval of a few school textbooks omitting or glossing over Japan's militant past, although the most recent controversial book, the New History Textbook was used by only 0.039% of junior high schools in Japan[188] and despite the efforts of the Japanese nationalist textbook reformers, by the late 1990s the most common Japanese schoolbooks contained references to, for instance, the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and the comfort women of World War II, all historical issues which have faced challenges from ultranationalists in the past.[189]

In 2005, a history textbook prepared by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform which had been approved by the government in 2001, sparked huge outcry and protests in China and Korea. It referred to the Nanjing Massacre and other atrocities such as the Manila massacre as an "incident", glossed over the issue of comfort women, and made only brief references to the death of Chinese soldiers and civilians in Nanjing.[190] A copy of the 2005 version of a junior high school textbook titled New History Textbook found that there is no mention of the "Nanjing Massacre" or the "Nanjing Incident". Indeed, the only one sentence that referred to this event was: "they [the Japanese troops] occupied that city in December".[191]

### Taiwan

[edit]

Main article: Political status of Taiwan

The Taiwan Strait and the island of Taiwan

Taiwan and the Penghu islands were put under the administrative control of the Republic of China (ROC) government in 1945 by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.[192] The ROC proclaimed Taiwan Retrocession Day on 25 October 1945. However, due to the unresolved Chinese Civil War, neither the newly established People's Republic of China in mainland China nor the Nationalist ROC that retreated to Taiwan was invited to sign the Treaty of San Francisco, as neither had shown full and complete legal capacity to enter into an international legally binding agreement.[193] Since China was not present, the Japanese only formally renounced the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan and Penghu islands without specifying to which country Japan relinquished the sovereignty, and the treaty was signed in 1951 and came into force in 1952.

In 1952, the Treaty of Taipei was signed separately between the ROC and Japan that basically followed the same guideline of the Treaty of San Francisco, not specifying which country has sovereignty over Taiwan. However, Article 10 of the treaty states that the Taiwanese people and the juridical person should be the people and the juridical person of the ROC.[192] Both the PRC and ROC governments base their claims to Taiwan on the Japanese Instrument of Surrender which specifically accepted the Potsdam Declaration which refers to the Cairo Declaration. Disputes over the precise de jure sovereign of Taiwan persist to the present. On a de facto basis, sovereignty over Taiwan has been and continues to be exercised by the ROC. Japan's position has been to avoid commenting on Taiwan's status, maintaining that Japan renounced all claims to sovereignty over its former colonial possessions after World War II, including Taiwan.[194]

Traditionally, the Republic of China government has held celebrations marking the Victory Day on 9 September (now known as Armed Forces Day) and Taiwan's Retrocession Day on 25 October. However, after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidential election in 2000, these national holidays commemorating the war have been cancelled as the pro-independent DPP does not see the relevancy of celebrating events that happened in mainland China.

Meanwhile, many KMT supporters, particularly veterans who retreated with the government in 1949, still have an emotional interest in the war. For example, in celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of war in 2005, the cultural bureau of KMT stronghold Taipei held a series of talks in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall regarding the war and post-war developments, while the KMT held its own exhibit in the KMT headquarters. Whereas the KMT won the presidential election in 2008, the ROC government resumed commemorating the war.

### Japanese women left in China

[edit]

Main article: Japanese people in China

Several thousand Japanese who were sent as colonizers to Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia were left behind in China. The majority of these were women, and they married mostly Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (zanryu fujin).[195][196]

### Korean women left in China

[edit]

Main article: Koreans in China

In China some Korean comfort women stayed behind instead of going back to their native land.[197][198] Most Korean comfort women who were left behind in China married Chinese men.[199]

### Commemorations

[edit]

Three major museums in China commemorate China's War of Resistance, including the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.[200]

## Casualties

[edit]

Casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese bombing of Chongqing. More than 5,000 civilians died during the first two days of air raids in 1939.[201]

The conflict lasted eight years, two months and two days (from 7 July 1937, to 9 September 1945). The total number of casualties that resulted from this war (and subsequently theater) equaled more than half the total number of casualties that later resulted from the entire Pacific War.[202]

### Chinese

[edit]

* Duncan Anderson, Head of the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, UK, writing for BBC states that the total number of casualties was around 20 million.[203]
* The official PRC statistics for China's civilian and military casualties in the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 are 20 million dead and 15 million wounded. The figures for total military casualties, killed and wounded are: NRA 3.2 million; People's Liberation Army 500,000.[citation needed]
* The official account of the war published in Taiwan reported that the Nationalist Chinese Army lost 3,238,000 men (1,797,000 wounded, 1,320,000 killed, and 120,000 missing) and 5,787,352 civilians casualties putting the total number of casualties at 9,025,352. The Nationalists fought in 22 major engagements, most of which involved more than 100,000 troops on both sides, 1,171 minor engagements most of which involved more than 50,000 troops on both sides, and 38,931 skirmishes.[204] The Chinese reported their yearly total battle casualties as 367,362 for 1937, 735,017 for 1938, 346,543 for 1939, and 299,483 for 1941.[205] Additionally, the Ministry of Military Affairs recorded a total of 10,322,934 losses from illnesses, reorganizations, and desertions.[206]
* The postwar investigation of Chinese losses by the Nationalist Government recorded a total of 3,407,931 military combat casualties (1,371,374 killed, 1,738,324 wounded, and 298,233 missing) and 422,479 military deaths from illnesses. Additionally, there were 2,313 casualties (1,042 killed and 1,271 wounded) from the Air Defense Service and 9,134,569 civilian casualties (4,397,504 dead and 4,737,065 wounded).[b] Yearly casualties for the army are 881,349 in 1937, 517,121 in 1938, 413,853 in 1939, 153,983 in 1940, 258,530 in 1941, 126,557 in 1942, 67,903 in 1943, 322,625 in 1944, and 649,503 in 1945.[c][207][208]
* The Ministry of Military Affairs recorded the losses of wounded and sick soldiers in hospital directly administrated by the Nationalist Government at 443,398 losses for wounded soldiers (45,710 dead, 123,017 crippled, and 274,671 deserted) and 937,559 losses for sick soldiers (422,479 dead, 191,644 crippled, and 323,436 deserted), for a total of 1,380,957 losses (468,189 dead, 314,661 crippled, and 598,107 deserted).[1]: 430
* An academic study published in the United States in 1959 estimates military casualties: 1.5 million killed in battle, 750,000 missing in action, 1.5 million deaths due to disease and 3 million wounded; civilian casualties: due to military activity, killed 1,073,496 and 237,319 wounded; 335,934 killed and 426,249 wounded in Japanese air attacks.[209] This estimate is based on the National Central Research Institute's study of China's losses in six years from 7 July 1937 until 6 July 1943.[210][211]
* According to historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta, at least 2.7 million civilians died during the "kill all, loot all, burn all" operation (Three Alls Policy, or sanko sakusen) implemented in May 1942 in north China by general Yasuji Okamura and authorized on 3 December 1941, by Imperial Headquarter Order number 575.[212]
* The property loss suffered by the Chinese was valued at 383 billion US dollars according to the currency exchange rate in July 1937, roughly 50 times the gross domestic product of Japan at that time (US$7.7 billion).[213]
* In addition, the war created 95 million refugees.[214]
* Rudolph Rummel gave a figure of 3,949,000 people in China murdered directly by the Japanese army while giving a figure of 10,216,000 total dead in the war with the additional millions of deaths due to indirect causes like starvation, disease and disruption but not direct killing by Japan.[215] China suffered from famines during the war caused by drought affected both China and India, Chinese famine of 1942–43 in Henan that led to starvation deaths of 2 to 3 million people, Guangdong famine caused more than 3 million people to flee or die, and the 1943–1945 Indian famine in Bengal that killed about 3 million Indians in Bengal and parts of Southern India.[216]

### Japanese

[edit]

The Japanese recorded around 1.1 to 1.9 million military casualties during all of World War II (which include killed, wounded and missing). The official death toll of Japanese men killed in China, according to the Japan Defense Ministry, is 480,000. Based on the investigation of the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun, the military death toll of Japan in China is about 700,000 since 1937 (excluding the deaths in Manchuria).[20]

Another source from Hilary Conroy claims that a total of 447,000 Japanese soldiers died or went missing in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Of the 1,130,000 Imperial Japanese Army soldiers who died during World War II, 39 percent died in China.[217]

Then in War Without Mercy, John W. Dower claims that a total of 396,000 Japanese soldiers died in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Of this number, the Imperial Japanese Army lost 388,605 soldiers and the Imperial Japanese Navy lost 8,000 soldiers. Another 54,000 soldiers also died after the war had ended, mostly from illness and starvation.[217] Of the 1,740,955 Japanese soldiers who died during World War II, 22 percent died in China.[218]

Japanese statistics, however, lack complete estimates for the wounded. From 1937 to 1941, 185,647 Japanese soldiers were killed in China and 520,000 were wounded. Disease also incurred critical losses on Japanese forces. From 1937 to 1941, 430,000 Japanese soldiers were recorded as being sick. In North China alone, 18,000 soldiers were evacuated back to Japan for illnesses in 1938, 23,000 in 1939, and 15,000 in 1940.[218][d] From 1941 to 1945: 202,958 dead; another 54,000 dead after war's end. Chinese forces also report that by May 1945, 22,293 Japanese soldiers were captured as prisoners. Many more Japanese soldiers surrendered when the war ended.[217][218]

Contemporary studies from the Beijing Central Compilation and Translation Press state that the Japanese suffered a total of 2,227,200 casualties, including 1,055,000 dead and 1,172,341 injured. This Chinese publication analyzes statistics provided by Japanese publications and claimed these numbers were largely based on Japanese publications.[219]

Both Nationalist and Communist Chinese sources report that their respective forces were responsible for the deaths of over 1.7 million Japanese soldiers.[220] Nationalist War Minister He Yingqin himself contested the Communists' claims, finding it impossible for a force of "untrained, undisciplined, poorly equipped" guerrillas of Communist forces to have killed so many enemy soldiers.[221]

The Nationalist Chinese authorities ridiculed Japanese estimates of Chinese casualties. In 1940, the National Herald stated that the Japanese exaggerated Chinese casualties, while deliberately concealing the true number of Japanese casualties, releasing false figures that made them appear much lower. The article reports on the casualty situation of the war up to 1940.[222]

### Use of chemical and biological weapons

[edit]

Despite Article 23 of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, article V of the Treaty in Relation to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare,[223] article 171 of the Treaty of Versailles and a resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May 1938, condemning the use of poison gas by the Empire of Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons during the war.

According to Walter E. Grunden, history professor at Bowling Green State University, Japan permitted the use of chemical weapons in China because the Japanese concluded that Chinese forces did not possess the capacity to retaliate in kind.[224] The Japanese incorporated gas warfare into many aspects of their army, which includes special gas troops, infantry, artillery, engineers and air force; the Japanese were aware of basic gas tactics of other armies, and deployed multifarious gas warfare tactics in China.[225] The Japanese were very dependent on gas weapons when they were engaged in chemical warfare.[226]

Japan used poison gas at Hankow during the Battle of Wuhan to break fierce Chinese resistance after conventional Japanese assaults were repelled by Chinese defenders. Rana Mitter writes,

> Under General Xue Yue, some 100,000 Chinese troops pushed back Japanese forces at Huangmei. At the fortress of Tianjiazhen, thousands of men fought until the end of September, with Japanese victory assured only with the use of poison gas.[227]

According to Freda Utley, during the battle at Hankow, in areas where Japanese artillery or gunboats on the river could not reach Chinese defenders on hilltops, Japanese infantrymen had to fight Chinese troops on the hills.[228] She noted that the Japanese were inferior at hand-to-hand combat against the Chinese, and resorted to deploying poison gas to defeat the Chinese troops.[228] She was told by General Li Zongren that the Japanese consistently used tear gas and mustard gas against Chinese troops.[228] Li also added that his forces could not withstand large scale deployments of Japanese poison gas.[228] Since Chinese troops did not have gas-masks, the poison gases provided enough time for Japanese troops to bayonet debilitated Chinese soldiers.[228]

During the battle in Yichang of October 1941, Japanese troops used chemical munitions in their artillery and mortar fire, and warplanes dropped gas bombs all over the area; since the Chinese troops were poorly equipped and without gas-masks, they were severely gassed, burned and killed.[229]

According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, the chemical weapons were authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself, transmitted by the Imperial General Headquarters. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the Battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.[230] They were also used during the invasion of Changde. Those orders were transmitted either by Prince Kan'in Kotohito or General Hajime Sugiyama.[231] Gases manufactured in Okunoshima were used more than 2,000 times against Chinese soldiers and civilians in the war in China in the 1930s and 1940s[232]

Bacteriological weapons provided by Shirō Ishii's units were also profusely used. For example, in 1940, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force bombed Ningbo with fleas carrying the bubonic plague.[233] During the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials the accused, such as Major General Kiyashi Kawashima, testified that, in 1941, some 40 members of Unit 731 air-dropped plague-contaminated fleas on Changde. These attacks caused epidemic plague outbreaks.[234] In the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, of the 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with the disease, about 1,700 Japanese troops died when the biological weapons rebounded on their own forces.[235][236] According to statistics from the Nationalist government, the Japanese army from July 1937 until September 1945 used poison gas 1,973 times. Based on available data, a total of 103,069 Chinese soldiers and civilians died from biological and chemical weapons.[237]

Japan gave its own soldiers methamphetamines in the form of Philopon.[238]

### Use of suicide attacks

[edit]

Chinese armies deployed "dare to die corps" (traditional Chinese: 敢死隊; simplified Chinese: 敢死队; pinyin: gǎnsǐduì) or "suicide squads" against the Japanese.[239]

Chinese suicide bomber putting on an explosive vest made out of Model 24 hand grenades to use in an attack on Japanese tanks at the Battle of Taierzhuang

Suicide bombing was also used against the Japanese. A Chinese soldier detonated a grenade vest and killed 20 Japanese at Sihang Warehouse. Chinese troops strapped explosives, such as grenade packs or dynamite to their bodies and threw themselves under Japanese tanks to blow them up.[240] This tactic was used during the Battle of Shanghai, where a Chinese suicide bomber stopped a Japanese tank column by exploding himself beneath the lead tank,[241] and at the Battle of Taierzhuang, where dynamite and grenades were strapped on by Chinese troops who rushed at Japanese tanks and blew themselves up.[242][243] During one incident at Taierzhuang, Chinese suicide bombers destroyed four Japanese tanks with grenade bundles.[citation needed]

## Combatants

[edit]

Main article: Combatants of the Second Sino-Japanese War

## See also

[edit]

Portals:

* Japan
* China
* History

* Aviation Martyrs' Cemetery
* Japan during World War II
* Japanese war crimes
* List of military engagements of the Second Sino-Japanese War
* Mao Zedong thanking Japan controversy
* Timeline of events leading to World War II in Asia
* Timeline of events preceding World War II
* War crimes in World War II#Crimes perpetrated by Japan
* Women in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ simplified Chinese: 抗日战争; traditional Chinese: 抗日戰爭
2. ^ Does not include civilian casualties in Communist-controlled lands
3. ^ The losses recorded in 1937 included losses in the Mukden Incident, January 28 Incident, and Defense of the Great Wall. The losses recorded in 1945 included losses in guerilla fighting from 1937 until 1945
4. ^ This number does not include the casualties of the large numbers of Chinese collaborator government troops fighting on the Japanese side.

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[edit]

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### Bibliography

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* MacKinnon, Stephen R., Diana Lary and Ezra F. Vogel, eds. China at War: Regions of China, 1937–1945. Stanford University Press, 2007. xviii, 380p. ISBN 978-0-8047-5509-2.
* MacLaren, Roy (1981). Canadians Behind Enemy Lines 1939–1945. UBC Press. ISBN 0-7748-1100-5. \- Book about the Chinese from Canada as well as Americans who fought against Japan in the Second World War.
* Macri, Franco David. Clash of Empires in South China: The Allied Nations' Proxy War with Japan, 1935–1941 (2015) online Archived 3 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine
* Mitter, Rana (2013). Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945. HMH. ISBN 978-0-547-84056-7. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
* Peattie, Mark. Edward Drea, and Hans van de Ven, eds. The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 (Stanford University Press, 2011); 614 pages
* Quigley, Harold S. Far Eastern War 1937 1941 (1942) online free
* Steiner, Zara. "Thunder from the East: The Sino-Japanese Conflict and the European Powers, 1933=1938": in Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History 1933–1939 (2011) pp 474–551.
* Stevens, Keith (March 2005). "A token operation: 204 military mission to China, 1941–1945". Asian Affairs. 36 (1): 66–74\. doi:10.1080/03068370500039151. S2CID 161326427.
* Taylor, Jay (2009). The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the struggle for modern China. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03338-2.
* Van de Ven, Hans, Diana Lary, Stephen MacKinnon, eds. Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II (Stanford University Press, 2014) 336 pp. online review Archived 26 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine
* van de Ven, Hans (2017). China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China, 1937–1952. London: Profile Books. ISBN 9781781251942. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
* Wilson, Dick (1982). When Tigers Fight: The story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-76003-X.
* Zarrow, Peter (2005). "The War of Resistance, 1937–45". China in War and Revolution 1895–1949. London: Routledge.
* China at war, Volume 1, Issue 3. China Information Committee. 1938. p. 66. Retrieved 21 March 2012. Issue 40 of China, a collection of pamphlets. Original from Pennsylvania State University. Digitized 15 September 2009

## External links

[edit]

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for World War II in China.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Second Sino-Japanese War.

* Biographical Dictionary of Occupied China
* Full text of the Chinese declaration of war against Japan on Wikisource
* "CBI Theater of Operations" – IBIBLIO World War II: China Burma India Links to selected documents, photos, maps, and books.
* "World War II Newspaper Archives – War in China, 1937–1945". Archived from the original on 29 November 2003. Retrieved 2004-08-19.
* Annals of the Flying Tigers
* Perry–Castañeda Library Map Collection, China 1:250,000, Series L500, U.S. Army Map Service, 1954– . Topographic Maps of China during the Second World War.
* Perry–Castañeda Library Map Collection Manchuria 1:250,000, Series L542, U.S. Army Map Service, 1950– . Topographic Maps of Manchuria during the Second World War.
* "Joint Study of the Sino-Japanese War, Harvard University". Archived from the original on 13 July 2001. Retrieved 2007-07-07. Multi-year project seeks to expand research by promoting cooperation among scholars and institutions in China, Japan, the United States, and other nations. Includes extensive bibliographies.
* Photographs of the war from a Presbyterian mission near Canton
* "The Route South"

* v
* t
* e

Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)

Background

* Nanjing decade
* Chinese Civil War
* Mukden Incident
* Japanese invasion of Manchuria
* Pacification of Manchukuo
* January 28 incident
* Defense of the Great Wall
* Battle of Rehe
* Tanggu Truce
* Inner Mongolia Campaign
* 1935 currency reform
* North Chahar incident
* He–Umezu Agreement
* Chin–Doihara Agreement
* August 1 Declaration
* December 9th Movement
* Hebei–Chahar Political Council
* Wayaobu Manifesto
* Suiyuan campaign
* Xi'an Incident
* Second United Front
* Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Participants

| Governments|

| Chinese|

* Republic of China
* Kuomintang
* Communist China
* Chinese Communist Party

|

Japanese and collaborators|

* Empire of Japan
* Manchukuo
* Mengjiang
* East Hebei Autonomous Government
* Great Way Government
* Provisional Chinese Government
* Reformed Chinese Government
* Wang Jingwei regime

Armed forces|

| Chinese|

* Nationalist Armed Forces
* Army
* Air Force
* Navy
* Marine Corps
* Communist Armed Forces
* Eighth Route Army
* New Fourth Army
* Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army

|

Japanese and collaborators|

* Imperial Japanese Armed Forces
* Army
* Army Air Service
* Navy
* Navy Air Service
* Naval Infantry
* Manchukuo Armed Forces
* Army
* Air Force
* Navy
* Guards
* Inner Mongolian Army
* East Hebei Army
* Collaborationist Chinese Army

Political leaders|

| Chinese|

* Chiang Kai-shek
* Mao Zedong
* Lin Sen
* Kung Hsiang-hsi
* Soong Tse-ven
* He Yingqin
* Chen Cheng
* Zhang Wentian
* Wang Ruofei
* Ren Bishi

|

Japanese and collaborators|

* Hirohito
* Fumimaro Konoe
* Kiichirō Hiranuma
* Nobuyuki Abe
* Mitsumasa Yonai
* Hideki Tojo
* Kuniaki Koiso
* Kantarō Suzuki
* Naruhiko Higashikuni
* Seishirō Itagaki
* Shunroku Hata
* Korechika Anami
* Mitsumasa Yonai
* Zengo Yoshida
* Shigetarō Shimada
* Puyi
* Zhang Jinghui
* Yu Zhishan
* Demchugdongrub
* Wang Jingwei
* Chen Gongbo
* Chi Zongmo
* Wang Kemin
* Liang Hongzhi
* Ren Yuandao
* Bao Wenyue

Military leaders|

| Chinese|

* Bai Chongxi
* Yan Xishan
* Sun Li-jen
* Ma Zhanshan

|

Japanese and collaborators|

* Prince Kan'in Kotohito
* Hajime Sugiyama
* Yoshijirō Umezu
* Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu
* Osami Nagano
* Soemu Toyoda
* Koshirō Oikawa
* Li Shouxin
* Ye Peng
* Yang Kuiyi

Course of War

| Campaigns|

* Battle of Shanghai
* Battle of Jianqiao
* Bloody Saturday
* Battle of Taiyuan
* Battle of Nanjing
* Bombing of Chongqing
* Battle of Northern and Eastern Henan
* Battle of Wuhan
* Battle of Xuzhou
* Battle of Nanchang
* Battle of Suixian–Zaoyang
* 1939 Changsha campaign
* First Guangxi campaign
* 1939–1940 Winter Offensive
* Battle of Zaoyang–Yichang
* Hundred Regiments Offensive
* Battle of South Henan
* Battle of Shanggao
* Battle of South Shanxi
* 1941 Changsha campaign
* 1941-1942 Changsha campaign
* Japanese invasion of Burma
* Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign
* Linnan campaign
* Battle of Northern Burma and Western Yunnan
* Battle of West Hubei
* Changde campaign
* 1944 Burma campaign
* Operation Ichi-Go
* 1944-1945 Burma campaign
* West Henan–North Hubei campaign
* Zhijiang campaign
* Second Guangxi campaign
* Battle of Lanfeng
* Battle of Central Henan
* 1944 Battle of Changsha
* Siege of Myitkyina
* Battle of Mount Song
* Battle of Hengyang
* Battle of Guilin–Liuzhou

|

Incidents|

* Tientsin Incident (1931)
* January 28 incident
* Pingdingshan massacre
* North Chahar incident
* Xi'an Incident
* Murder of Pamela Werner
* Marco Polo Bridge Incident
* Langfang Incident
* Guanganmen incident
* Tongzhou mutiny
* Zhengding Missionary Murder
* Nanking Massacre
* USS Panay incident
* Kweilin incident
* 1938 Dalfram dispute
* Tientsin Incident (1939)
* Kaimingjie germ weapon attack
* Execution of Huang Yiguang
* New Fourth Army incident
* Panjiayu massacre
* Rape of Nancheng
* Zhejiang-Jiangxi massacres
* Changjiao massacre
* Gegenmiao massacre

Political events|

* Nine Power Treaty Conference
* Konoe Declarations
* Yan'an Rectification Movement
* Cairo Conference
* United Nations Conference on International Organization
* Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance
* Hirohito surrender broadcast
* Chongqing Negotiations
* Surrender of Japan

Aftermath

* Occupation of Japan
* Double Tenth Agreement
* Retrocession of Taiwan

*     * Retrocession Day
* Chinese Communist Revolution
* Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance
* Treaty of San Francisco
* Treaty of Taipei
* Murayama Statement
* Chinese hyperinflation

* Related topics

| Lists|

* Aerial engagements
* Army groups of the National Revolutionary Army
* Japanese Aircraft
* Japanese armoured fighting vehicles
* Japanese campaigns
* Japanese infantry weapons
* Military engagements

|

Military|

* Anti-Japanese resistance volunteers in China
* American Volunteer Group
* Flying Tigers
* Soviet Volunteer Group
* Soviet invasion of Manchuria

Political|

* Sino-German cooperation
* Free China
* Lend-Lease
* Declaration by United Nations

Others|

* Japanese propaganda
* Kumul Rebellion
* On Practice
* People's war
* On Protracted War
* Chinese Muslims in the Second Sino-Japanese War
* Japanese in the Chinese resistance to the Empire of Japan
* Ip Man
* 1939 Japanese expedition to Tibet
* Japanese occupation of Hong Kong
* Dixie Mission
* Wartime perception of the Chinese Communists
* Stubborn Army

* Category
* China Portal
* Japan Portal

* v
* t
* e

World War II

* Outline
* Battles
* Operations
* Leaders
* Allied
* Axis
* Commanders
* Casualties
* Conferences

General|

| Topics|

* Air warfare of World War II
* In Europe
* Blitzkrieg
* Comparative military ranks
* Cryptography
* Declarations of war
* Diplomacy
* Governments in exile
* Home front
* Australian
* United Kingdom
* United States
* Lend-Lease
* Manhattan Project
* British contribution
* Military awards
* Military equipment
* Military production
* Naval history
* Nazi plunder
* Opposition
* Technology
* Allied cooperation
* Mulberry harbour
* Total war
* Strategic bombing
* Puppet states
* Women
* Art and World War II
* Music in World War II
* Weather events during World War II

|

Theaters|

* Asia and Pacific
* China
* South-East Asia
* Pacific
* North and Central Pacific
* South-West Pacific
* Indian Ocean
* Europe
* Western Front
* Eastern Front
* Mediterranean and Middle East
* North Africa
* East Africa
* Italy
* West Africa
* Atlantic
* timeline
* Americas

Aftermath|

* Chinese Civil War
* Cold War
* Decolonization
* Division of Korea
* First Indochina War
* Expulsion of Germans
* Greek Civil War
* Indonesian National Revolution
* Keelhaul
* Marshall Plan
* Occupation of Germany
* Occupation of Japan
* Osoaviakhim
* Paperclip
* Soviet occupations
* Baltic
* Hungary
* Poland
* Romania
* Territorial changes of Germany
* Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
* United Nations

War crimes|

* Allied war crimes
* Soviet war crimes
* British war crimes
* United States war crimes
* German war crimes
* forced labour
* Wehrmacht war crimes
* The Holocaust
* Aftermath
* Response
* Nuremberg trials
* Italian war crimes
* Japanese war crimes
* Nanjing Massacre
* Unit 731
* Prosecution
* Croatian war crimes
* Genocide of Serbs
* Persecution of Jews
* Romanian war crimes
* Sexual violence
* German military brothels
* Camp brothels
* Rape during the occupation of Germany / Japan / Poland
* Rape during the liberation of France / Serbia
* Sook Ching
* Comfort women
* Rape of Manila
* Marocchinate

Participants|

| Allies|

* Algeria
* Australia
* Belgium
* Brazil
* Bulgaria (from September 1944)
* Canada
* China
* Cuba
* Czechoslovakia
* Denmark
* Ethiopia
* Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)
* Finland (from September 1944)
* France
* Free France
* Greece
* India
* Italy (from September 1943)
* Liberia
* Luxembourg
* Mexico
* Netherlands
* Newfoundland
* New Zealand
* Norway
* Philippines
* Poland
* Romania (from August 1944)
* Sierra Leone
* South Africa
* Southern Rhodesia
* Soviet Union
* Tuva
* United Kingdom
* British Empire
* United States
* Puerto Rico
* Yugoslavia

|

Axis|

* Albania protectorate
* Bulgaria (until September 1944)
* State of Burma
* Republic of China (Wang Jingwei)
* Independent State of Croatia
* Finland (until September 1944)
* German Reich
* Hungary
* Azad Hind
* Iraq
* Italy (until September 1943)
* Italian Social Republic
* Empire of Japan
* Manchukuo
* Mengjiang
* Philippines
* Romania (until August 1944)
* Slovak Republic
* Thailand
* Vichy France
* Guangzhouwan
* French Indochina
* French Madagascar
* Syria–Lebanon
* French North Africa
* French West Africa
* Collaboration

Neutral|

* Afghanistan
* Andorra
* Bhutan
* Ireland
* Liechtenstein
* Monaco
* Portugal
* San Marino
* Saudi Arabia
* Spain
* Sweden
* Switzerland
* Tibet
* Turkey
* Vatican City
* Yemen

Resistance|

* Albania
* Austria
* Belgium
* Bulgaria
* Czech lands
* Denmark
* Dutch East Indies
* Estonia
* Ethiopia
* France
* Germany
* Greece
* Hong Kong
* Italy
* Japan
* Jews
* Korea
* Korean Liberation Army
* Korean Volunteer Army
* Latvia
* Lithuania
* Luxembourg
* Malaya
* Netherlands
* Northeast China
* Norway
* Philippines
* Poland
* Romania
* Thailand
* Soviet Union
* Slovakia
* Western Ukraine
* Vietnam
* Quốc dân Đảng
* Viet Minh
* Yugoslavia

POWs|

* Finnish prisoners in the Soviet Union
* German prisoners
* Soviet Union
* Azerbaijan
* United States
* United Kingdom
* Italian prisoners in the Soviet Union
* Japanese prisoners
* Soviet Union
* German atrocities against Polish POWs
* Soviet prisoners
* Finland
* atrocities by Germans
* Polish prisoners in the Soviet Union
* Romanian prisoners in the Soviet Union

Timeline|

| Prelude|

* Africa
* Second Italo-Ethiopian War
* Asia
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* Battles of Khalkhin Gol
* Europe
* Remilitarisation of the Rhineland
* Anschluss
* Munich Agreement
* Occupation of Czechoslovakia
* Operation Himmler
* Italian invasion of Albania

|

1939|

* Invasion of Poland
* Battle of the Atlantic
* Phoney War
* First Battle of Changsha
* Battle of South Guangxi
* Winter War
* 1939–1940 Winter Offensive

1940|

* Norwegian campaign
* German invasion of Denmark
* Battle of Zaoyang–Yichang
* German invasion of Luxembourg
* German invasion of the Netherlands
* German invasion of Belgium
* Battle of France
* Dunkirk evacuation
* Battle of Britain
* Battle of the Mediterranean
* North Africa
* West Africa
* British Somaliland
* Hundred Regiments Offensive
* Baltic states
* Eastern Romania
* Japanese invasion of French Indochina
* Italian invasion of Greece
* Compass

1941|

* Battle of South Henan
* Battle of Shanggao
* Invasion of Yugoslavia
* German invasion of Greece
* Battle of Crete
* Anglo-Iraqi War
* Battle of South Shanxi
* Syria–Lebanon campaign
* East African campaign
* Invasion of the Soviet Union
* Summer War
* Finland (Silver Fox)
* Lithuania
* Battle of Kiev
* Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
* Second Battle of Changsha
* Siege of Leningrad
* Battle of Moscow
* Bombing of Gorky
* Siege of Sevastopol
* Attack on Pearl Harbor
* Japanese invasion of Thailand
* Fall of Hong Kong
* Fall of the Philippines
* Battle of Guam
* Battle of Wake Island
* Malayan campaign
* Battle of Borneo
* Japanese invasion of Burma
* Third Battle of Changsha
* Greek famine of 1941–1944

1942|

* Fall of Singapore
* Battle of the Java Sea
* St Nazaire Raid
* Battle of Christmas Island
* Battle of the Coral Sea
* Battle of Madagascar
* Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign
* Battle of Gazala
* Battle of Dutch Harbor
* Battle of Midway
* Aleutian Islands campaign
* Kiska
* Attu
* Blue
* First Battle of El Alamein
* Battle of Stalingrad
* Kokoda Track campaign
* Rzhev
* Jubilee
* Second Battle of El Alamein
* Guadalcanal campaign
* Torch
* Chinese famine of 1942–1943

1943|

* Black May
* Tunisian campaign
* Battle of West Hubei
* Battle of Attu
* Bombing of Gorky
* Battle of Kursk
* Allied invasion of Sicily
* Smolensk
* Solomon Islands campaign
* Cottage
* Battle of the Dnieper
* Allied invasion of Italy
* Armistice of Cassibile
* Burma
* Northern Burma and Western Yunnan
* Changde
* Second Battle of Kiev
* Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign
* Tarawa
* Makin
* Bengal famine of 1943

1944|

* Tempest
* Monte Cassino / Anzio
* Korsun–Cherkassy
* Narva
* U-Go
* Imphal
* Ichi-Go
* Kohima
* Overlord
* Neptune
* Mariana and Palau
* Bagration
* Western Ukraine
* Second Battle of Guam
* Tannenberg Line
* Warsaw Uprising
* Eastern Romania
* Liberation of Paris
* Dragoon
* Gothic Line
* Belgrade offensive
* Battle of San Marino
* Lapland
* Market Garden
* Estonia
* Crossbow
* Pointblank
* Vietnamese famine of 1944–1945
* Philippines (1944–1945)
* Leyte
* Syrmian Front
* Hungary
* Budapest
* Burma (1944–1945)
* Ardennes
* Bodenplatte
* Dutch famine of 1944–1945

1945|

* Vistula–Oder
* Battle of Manila
* Battle of Iwo Jima
* Indochina
* Vienna offensive
* Project Hula
* Western invasion of Germany
* Bratislava–Brno offensive
* Battle of Okinawa
* Second Guangxi campaign
* West Hunan
* Italy (Spring 1945)
* Battle of Berlin
* Prague offensive
* Surrender of Germany
* document
* Borneo
* Taipei
* Naval bombardment of Japan
* Manchuria
* Atomic bombings
* Debate
* South Sakhalin
* Kuril Islands
* Shumshu
* Surrender of Japan
* Potsdam Declaration
* document
* End of World War II in Asia

* World portal
* Bibliography
* Category

* v
* t
* e

History of World War II by region and country

Africa|

* Belgian Congo
* British Somaliland
* Egypt
* Ethiopia
* French Somaliland
* French West Africa
* The Gambia
* Gold Coast
* Kenya
* Liberia
* Madagascar
* North Africa
* Tunisia
* Morocco
* Nyasaland
* Sierra Leone
* South Africa
* Southern Rhodesia

North America|

* Canada
* Cuba
* El Salvador
* Greenland
* Mexico
* Newfoundland
* United States
* Arizona
* California
* Nevada
* New Mexico
* Puerto Rico
* Native Americans

South America|

* Argentina
* Brazil
* Colombia
* Latin America
* Suriname
* Uruguay
* Venezuela

Asia|

* Burma
* Ceylon
* China
* Manchuria
* Dutch East Indies
* New Guinea
* West Sumatra
* Hong Kong
* India
* Indochina
* Cambodia
* Iran
* Iraq
* Japan
* Malaya
* Mongolia
* Nepal
* Philippines
* Sarawak, Brunei, Labuan, and British North Borneo
* Singapore
* Thailand
* Tibet
* Turkey
* Tuva

Europe|

* Albania
* Austria
* Belgium
* Bulgaria
* Czechoslovakia
* Denmark
* Estonia
* Finland
* France
* Military history
* Basque Country
* Germany
* Greece
* Hungary (Carpathian Ruthenia)
* Iceland
* Ireland
* Italy
* Latvia
* Liechtenstein
* Lithuania
* Luxembourg
* Netherlands
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Slovakia
* Soviet Union
* Azerbaijan
* Byelorussia
* Ukraine
* Spain
* Basque Country
* Catalonia
* Galicia
* Sweden
* Switzerland
* United Kingdom
* British Empire
* Wales
* Channel Islands
* Gibraltar
* Vatican City
* Yugoslavia (Slovenia)

Oceania and
Antarctica|

* Antarctica
* Australia
* Gilbert Islands
* Nauru
* New Guinea
* New Zealand
* Solomon Islands
* Pacific Islands

* v
* t
* e

War crimes

* List of war crimes

International
humanitarian law|

| Sources|

* Lieber Code
* Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868
* Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907
* Geneva Protocol
* Geneva Conventions
* 1864
* First (1949)
* Second (1949)
* Third (1949)
* Fourth (1949)
* Protocol I (1977)
* Protocol II (1977)
* Responsibility to protect
* Rome Statute
* International Criminal Court

|

Topics|

* Civilians and non-combatants
* Civilian casualties
* Command responsibility / Superior orders
* Distinction
* Hors de combat
* Intent
* Joint criminal enterprise
* Medical neutrality
* Military necessity
* Prisoners of war
* Proportionality
* Protected persons
* Ruse de guerre
* Safe conduct

War crimes by type|

* Attacks on humanitarian workers / parachutists‡
* Child soldiers
* Collective punishment
* Criminal orders
* Death flights
* Death marches
* Desecration of graves
* Destruction of the healthcare system
* Enforced disappearances
* Extrajudicial killings
* Hostage-taking
* Human trophy collecting
* Indiscriminate attacks
* Looting
* Massacres
* Mass killings
* No quarter
* Perfidy
* Starvation
* Torture
* Use of human shields
* Wartime sexual violence

War crimes
committed by...|

* Croatia
* Germany
* Wehrmacht
* Israel
* Italy
* Japan
* Palestinians
* Russia
* Soviet Union
* Serbia
* Turkey
* United Arab Emirates
* United Kingdom
* United States

War crimes by war|

* Afghanistan wars
* Soviet–Afghan War
* Second Chechen War
* Iraq War
* Korean War
* 2006 Lebanon War
* Libyan civil war (2011)
* Myanmar civil war (2021–present)
* Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
* First war
* Second war
* Gaza–Israel conflict
* 2008–2009
* 2023–present
* by Israel
* Russo-Ukrainian War
* War in Donbas
* Russian invasion of Ukraine
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* Manchukuo
* Sri Lankan civil war
* Sudanese civil war (2023–present)
* Syrian civil war
* Tigray war‎
* World War I
* World War II
* Allied
* Axis
* Yemeni civil war (2014–present)
* Yugoslav Wars
* Kosovo War

Related topics|

* War crimes trials
* War crime apologia
* List of global issues
* Post-conflict reception of war criminals

| Other international crimes|

* Atrocity crimes
* Crimes against humanity
* Crimes of aggression
* Genocide

|

‡ Does not apply to airborne forces (i.e. paratroopers)

* Category

* v
* t
* e

Empire of Japan

Overview|

* Agriculture
* Censorship
* Demographics
* Economy
* Economic history
* Education
* System
* Eugenics
* Foreign commerce and shipping
* Industrial production
* Militarism
* Nationalism
* Essentialism
* Politics
* Statism
* State Shinto
* Kazoku

Emperors|

* Meiji (Mutsuhito)
* Taishō (Yoshihito)
* Shōwa (Hirohito)

Symbols|

* Flag of Japan
* Rising Sun Flag
* National seals of Japan
* Imperial Seal
* Government Seal
* State Seal
* Privy Seal
* Kimigayo

Policies|

* Constitution
* Charter Oath
* Foreign relations
* Imperial Rescript on Education
* Imperial Rule Assistance Association
* Yokusan Sonendan
* Great Japan Youth Party
* Kokutai
* Mokusatsu
* National Spiritual Mobilization Movement
* Peace Preservation Law
* Political parties
* Supreme Court of Judicature
* Tokkō
* Tonarigumi
* Greater East Asia Conference
* Senbu
* Imperial Japanese Airways

Government|

Administration
(ministries)

* Imperial Household
* Home Ministry
* War
* Army
* Navy
* Treasury
* Foreign Affairs
* Agriculture and Commerce
* Commerce and Industry
* Munitions
* Colonial Affairs
* Greater East Asia
* East Asia Development Board (Kōain)

|

Legislative and
deliberative bodies

* Daijō-kan
* Privy Council
* Gozen Kaigi
* Imperial Diet
* Peers
* Representatives

Military|

Armed Forces

* Imperial General Headquarters
* Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office
* Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff
* Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors
* Senjinkun military code
* Nuclear weapons program
* Kamikaze
* War crimes
* Supreme War Council
* Conscription

|

Imperial Japanese Army

* General Staff
* Air Service
* Railways and Shipping
* Imperial Guard
* Imperial Way Faction (Kōdōha)
* Japanese holdout
* Taiwan Army of Japan
* Control Faction (Tōseiha)
* Kempeitai

Imperial Japanese Navy

* General Staff
* Air Service
* Marines
* Tokkeitai
* Fleet Faction
* Treaty Faction

History|

Meiji era

* Meiji Restoration
* Beipu uprising
* Boshin War
* Two Lords Incident
* Satsuma Rebellion
* First Sino-Japanese War
* Triple Intervention
* Boxer Rebellion
* Anglo–Japanese Alliance
* Russo-Japanese War
* Invasion of Taiwan (1874)
* Invasion of Taiwan (1895)

|

Taishō era|

* World War I
* Entry
* Siberian Intervention
* General Election Law
* Washington Naval Treaty
* Manchuria–Mongolia problem
* Taishō Democracy
* Taishō Roman
* Tapani incident
* Truku War
* Racial Equality Proposal

Shōwa era|

* Shōwa financial crisis
* Jinan incident
* London Naval Treaty
* Musha Incident
* Pacification of Manchukuo
* January 28 incident
* Motherland controversy
* Anti-Comintern Pact
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* Soviet–Japanese border conflicts
* Rape of Nanking
* Tripartite Pact
* Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact
* Japan during World War II
* Pacific War
* Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
* Soviet–Japanese War
* Surrender (Potsdam Declaration, Hirohito surrender broadcast)
* Occupation

Territories|

| Colonies|

* Karafuto (naichi after 1943)
* Chōsen
* Kantō-shū
* Nan'yō
* Taiwan

|

Puppet states|

* Manchukuo
* Mengjiang
* Wang Jingwei regime
* Second Philippine Republic
* Empire of Vietnam
* State of Burma
* Azad Hind

Occupied territories|

* Borneo
* Burma
* Dutch East Indies
* French Indochina
* Hong Kong
* Malaya
* Philippines
* Singapore
* Thailand

Ideology|

* Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
* Yen bloc

Other topics|

* Fukoku kyōhei
* German pre–World War II industrial co-operation
* Hakkō ichiu
* Hokushin-ron
* International Military Tribunal for the Far East
* Internment camps
* Japanese settlers in Manchuria
* Nanshin-ron
* Political dissidence
* Shinmin no Michi
* Shōwa Modan
* Socialist thought
* Sonnō jōi
* Taiwanese Imperial Japan Serviceman
* Yasukuni Shrine

* v
* t
* e

China–Japan relations

Diplomatic posts|

* Ambassadors of China to Japan

Diplomacy|

* Japanese missions to Imperial China
* Ryūkyū Disposition
* Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty
* Nishihara Loans
* Sino-Japanese Joint Defence Agreement
* Twenty-One Demands
* Treaty of Taipei
* Sino-Japanese Journalist Exchange Agreement
* Japan–China Joint Communiqué
* Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China
* State visit by Jiang Zemin to Japan
* Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration of 1998
* China–Japan–South Korea Free Trade Agreement
* China–Japan–South Korea trilateral summit
* Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat

Conflicts|

* First Sino-Japanese War
* Treaty of Shimonoseki
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* Manchukuo
* North China Buffer State Strategy
* Anti-Comintern Pact
* ABCD line
* Greater East Asia Conference
* He–Umezu Agreement
* Chin–Doihara Agreement
* Japanese war crimes
* Nanjing Massacre
* Japanese Instrument of Surrender
* Japanese repatriation from Huludao
* Association of Returnees from China
* Controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine
* Boycotts of Japanese products
* Senkaku Islands
* Senkaku Islands dispute
* 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident
* Baodiao movement
* Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands
* China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands
* Ryūkyū independence movement
* Exclusive economic zone of Japan

Incidents|

* Ningbo incident
* Jiajing wokou raids
* María Luz incident
* Imo Incident
* Gapsin Coup
* Convention of Tientsin
* Nagasaki incident
* Shandong Problem
* May Fourth Movement
* Racial Equality Proposal
* Lansing–Ishii Agreement
* Hankou incident
* Jinan incident
* Mao Zedong thanking Japan controversy
* Japanese history textbook controversies
* 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations
* Nobukatsu Fujioka
* 2012 China anti-Japanese demonstrations

Related|

* History of China–Japan relations
* Japan–Taiwan relations
* Chinese influence on Japanese culture
* Differences between Shinjitai and Simplified characters
* Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan
* Shina
* Anti-Japanese sentiment in China
* Guizi
* Jingri
* Xiao Riben
* China–Japan football rivalry
* 2004 AFC Asian Cup final
* China–Japan Friendship Hospital
* Bank of Taiwan Building
* Yokohama Specie Bank Building
* Japan-China Joint History Research Committee
* Japan–Ming trade-ship flag
* Emperor at home, king abroad
* TPE (cable system)
* Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China
* Pei Shiqing
* Kosei Fukunaga
* Yang Shoujing
* Satoru Mizushima
* Liu Lianren
* Zhapu
* Ling Ling
* Memoirs of a Geisha
* The Most Recent Biographies of Chinese Dignitaries
* New Life+: Young Again in Another World

Category:China–Japan relations

* v
* t
* e

China–United States relations

Diplomatic posts|

* Embassy of China, Washington, D.C.
* Ambassadors of China to the United States
* Embassy of the United States, Beijing
* Ambassadors of the United States to China
* Chinese Consulate-Generals
* New York
* Los Angeles
* Houston
* American Consulate-Generals
* Chengdu
* Guangzhou
* Hong Kong and Macau
* Shanghai
* Shenyang
* Wuhan
* Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
* Office of China Coordination

Diplomacy|

* Treaty of Wanghia
* Treaty of Tientsin
* Burlingame Treaty
* Gresham-Yang Treaty
* Shanghai International Settlement
* American Concession (Shanghai)
* United States Court for China
* Treaty between the United States and China for the Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China
* Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the United States of America and the Republic of China
* Marshall Mission
* Loss of China
* China White Paper
* PRC-US Ambassadorial Talks
* 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China
* Shanghai Communiqué
* Three Communiqués
* One-China policy
* Nixon goes to China
* Nixon's China Game
* Harvey Feldman
* Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing
* Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
* Goldwater v. Carter
* State visit by Deng Xiaoping to the United States
* Presidential Rule of Law Initiative
* Beijing–Washington hotline
* State visit by Xi Jinping to the United States
* 2015 United States–China Cybersecurity Agreement
* Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
* United States–China talks in Alaska
* United States–China Working Group

Conflicts|

* Boxer Rebellion
* Eight-Nation Alliance
* China Relief Expedition
* Chinese Civil War
* Korean War
* Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War
* Cross-Strait conflict
* First Taiwan Strait Crisis
* Operation King Kong
* Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
* Third Taiwan Strait Crisis
* CIA Tibetan program
* Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

Incidents|

* Rover incident
* Chy Lung v. Freeman
* Cheong Ah Moy v. United States
* Chae Chan Ping v. United States
* Twain–Ament indemnities controversy
* 1905 Chinese boycott
* USS Monocacy incident
* Red Scare
* Qian Xuesen
* 1946 United States Air Force C-47 Crash at Yan'an
* Shen Chong case
* Lamont v. Postmaster General
* Hu Na
* Project Sabre II
* Yinhe incident
* 1996 United States campaign finance controversy
* Johnny Chung
* Liu Chaoying
* United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
* Hainan Island incident
* Operation Shady RAT
* Operation Aurora
* United States diplomatic cables leak
* 2012 China anti-Japanese demonstrations
* Murder of Shao Tong
* Disappearance of David Louis Sneddon
* Trump–Tsai call
* Havana syndrome
* Animal Science Products v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceuticals
* China Initiative
* Trial of Anming Hu
* Concerns over Chinese involvement in 5G wireless networks
* Meng Wanzhou
* Extradition
* TikTok v. Trump
* U.S. WeChat Users Alliance v. Trump
* COVID-19 misinformation
* United States Department of Defense China Task Force
* 2022 visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan
* Chinese espionage in the United States
* Cyberwarfare and China
* Alleged Chinese spy cases persecuted in the United States
* Cox Report
* Timeline of the Cox Report controversy
* American espionage in China
* Cyberwarfare and the United States
* Hugh Francis Redmond
* Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay
* 2023 balloon incident
* Chinese interference in the 2024 United States elections

Military relations|

* Yangtze Patrol
* Alice Dollar incident
* Second Sino-Japanese War
* American Volunteer Group
* Black Cat Squadron
* Development of Chinese Nationalist air force (1937–1945)
* China Air Task Force
* China Marines
* Dixie Mission
* Flying Tigers
* Operation Beleaguer
* Sino-American Cooperative Organization
* RIMPAC

Legislation|

* United States sanctions against China
* U.S. immigration policy
* Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act
* Taiwan Relations Act
* Executive Order 12711
* Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992
* United States-Hong Kong Policy Act
* United States–Hong Kong Agreement for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders
* Forced Abortion Condemnation Act
* Taiwan Security Enhancement Act
* United States–China Relations Act of 2000
* Wolf Amendment
* Taiwan Travel Act
* EQUITABLE Act
* Hong Kong Be Water Act
* Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act
* Tibet Policy and Support Act
* Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act
* Proclamation 10043
* Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act
* Hong Kong Autonomy Act
* Executive Order 13936
* Executive Order 13959
* Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act
* Executive Order 14032
* United States Innovation and Competition Act
* Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act
* Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act

Economic relations|

* Old China Trade
* United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission
* Group of Two
* Strategic Economic Dialogue
* Summer Palace Dialogue
* U.S.–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue
* Senior Dialogue
* China–United States trade war
* Trump tariffs
* first
* second
* Permanent normal trade relations

Related|

* History of China–United States relations
* Hong Kong–United States relations
* Macau–United States relations
* Taiwan–United States relations
* Americans in China
* Chinese Americans
* Anti-American sentiment in China
* Ruguanxue
* Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
* Chimerica
* China Lobby
* Asia First
* Chinese Century
* China Hands
* China watcher
* Cold War in Asia
* Second Cold War
* Artificial Intelligence Cold War
* Ping-pong diplomacy
* Triangular diplomacy
* Peaceful Evolution theory
* Linkage (policy)
* String of Pearls (Indian Ocean)
* Thucydides Trap
* Hong (business)
* Air route authority between the United States and China
* Blue Team
* TPE (cable system)
* Protestant missions in China
* Elijah Coleman Bridgman
* Divie Bethune McCartee
* The 1990 Institute
* Boxer Indemnity Scholarship
* China Aid Society
* Chinese Educational Mission
* Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy
* Congressional-Executive Commission on China
* Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association
* Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China
* United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party
* Kissinger Institute on China and the United States
* National Committee on United States–China Relations
* Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association
* Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction
* US-China Business Council
* US–China Education Trust
* US–China Peoples Friendship Association
* Massachusetts International Academy
* Harvard Summit for Young Leaders in China
* International School of Beijing
* SARS conspiracy theory
* Yixian glazed pottery luohans
* Harvard Bixi
* William H. Hinton
* Human Rights Record of the United States
* USA pavilion at Expo 2010
* New Federal State of China
* China Human Rights Biweekly
* Far East Reporter
* Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit
* The Coming Conflict with China
* A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China
* The New Chinese Empire
* The Art of Investing in America
* Death by China
* On China
* Peaceful War
* The Transpacific Experiment
* Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept
* Red Chinese Battle Plan
* The China Hustle

Category:China–United States relations

* v
* t
* e

Anti-Chinese sentiment (Sinophobia)

Background|

* Anti-Han sentiment
* Coolie
* Yellow Peril
* Chinese emigration
* The Unparalleled Invasion
* Japanese nationalism
* Minzoku
* De-Sinicization

By persecutor|

* Adriaan Valckenier
* Andrew Jackson Bryant
* Denis Kearney
* Hideki Tojo
* Suharto
* Pol Pot
* Plaek Phibunsongkhram

By country|

* Hong Kong
* India
* Indonesia
* Japan
* Racism in Japan
* Korea
* Malaysia
* Racism in Malaysia
* Ketuanan Melayu
* Myanmar
* Nazi Germany
* Philippines
* Singapore
* Taiwan
* Thailand
* United States
* China Initiative
* Vietnam

By institution|

* Anti-Chinese Union
* Asiatic Exclusion League
* Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees
* Tsagaan Khas
* Uyoku dantai

By incident|

| 17th century|

* Sangley Rebellion (1603)
* Sangley Rebellion (1639)
* Sangley Massacre (1662)

|

18th century|

* 1740 Batavia massacre
* 1782 Saigon massacre

19th century|

* Buckland riot (1857)
* Lambing Flat riots (1860–1861)
* Anti-Coolie Act (1862)
* Los Angeles Chinese massacre of 1871
* Pigtail Ordinance (1873)
* Page Act of 1875
* Trout Creek Outrage (1876)
* San Francisco riot of 1877
* New Zealand head tax (1881–1944)
* Chinese Exclusion Act (1882–1943)
* Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration (1885)
* Chinese Immigration Act, 1885
* Attack on Squak Valley Chinese laborers, 1885
* Tacoma riot of 1885
* Rock Springs massacre (1885)
* 1885 Chinese expulsion from Eureka
* Chinese head tax (1885–1923)
* Seattle riot of 1886
* 1886 Vancouver anti-Chinese riots
* Hells Canyon massacre (1887)
* Scott Act (1888)
* Geary Act (1892–1943)
* Union Colliery Co of British Columbia v Bryden (1899)

20th century|

* White Australia policy (1901–1973)
* 1907 Vancouver anti-Asian riots
* Beipu uprising (1907)
* Torreón massacre (1911)
* 1918 Kudus riot
* Soviet deportations of Chinese people (1920s–1930s)
* Chinese Immigration Act, 1923
* Wanpaoshan Incident (1931)
* Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)
* Nanjing Massacre (1937–1938)
* Nanshitou massacre (1942–1945)
* Japanese war crimes
* Three Alls policy
* Sook Ching (1942)
* Changjiao massacre (1943)
* Home Office 213/926 (1945–1946)
* Bersiap (1945–1947)
* Mergosono massacre (1947)
* Legislation on Chinese Indonesians (1950s-)
* Chinese Confession Program (1956–1965)
* Internment of Chinese Indians (1962)
* 1964 race riots in Singapore
* Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66
* 1967 anti-Chinese riots in Burma
* Monosodium glutamate controversy (Chinese restaurant syndrome)
* 13 May incident (1969)
* 1969 race riots of Singapore
* Malari incident (1974)
* Cambodian genocide (1975–1979)
* 1997 Banjarmasin riot
* May 1998 riots of Indonesia

21st century|

* 2006 Nukuʻalofa riots
* Abacus Bank prosecution
* 2008 Kunming bus bombings
* July 2009 Ürümqi riots
* 2011 Kashgar attacks
* Wolf Amendment
* 2013 Tiananmen Square attack
* 2014 Vietnam anti-China protests
* 2014 Kunming attack
* April 2014 Ürümqi attack
* May 2014 Ürümqi attack
* 2015 Plaza Low Yat riot
* 2015 Aksu colliery attack
* China Initiative
* COVID-19 pandemic incidents
* 2021 Atlanta spa shootings
* 2021 Solomon Islands unrest
* 2024 Papua New Guinean unrest
* Boycotts of Chinese products

By victim|

| 19th century|

* Chae Chan Ping
* Fong Yue Ting
* Mary Tape
* Wong Kim Ark
* Yick Wo

|

20th century|

* Vincent Chin
* Ita Martadinata Haryono
* Qian Xuesen
* Velma Demerson
* Wen Ho Lee

21st century|

* Anming Hu
* Danny Chen
* Ee Lee
* Eileen Gu
* Feng "Franklin" Tao
* Gang Chen
* Haoyang Yu
* Jiansheng Chen
* Jiayang Fan
* Lee Chi-cheung
* Mi Gao Huang Chen
* Sherry Chen
* Teoh Beng Hock
* Xiaoxing Xi
* Yao Pan Ma
* Michelle Go

Slurs|

* Chinaman
* Chinaman's chance
* Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees
* Ching chong
* Chink
* Locust/Wongchung
* Shina/Zhina
* Sick man of Asia

Related|

* Anti-People's Republic of China
* Chinese imperialism
* Anti-Taiwanese sentiment
* Hong Kong nationalism

Authority control databases

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Japan
* Czech Republic
* Spain
* Israel

Artists|

* KulturNav

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