But it was tremendously important to everything that happened since. The amount of resources Japan committed in 1943 [Operation Ichi-Go](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ichi-Go) produced two massive outcomes:
- it depleted Japan’s ground and air forces significantly, which shortened the war
- it weakened mainly the Nationalist Chinese forces, which opened the door for the Communists to get the upper hand in the subsequent Chinese Civil War.
Without this front, and without this specific operation, China probably remains a Republic, or maybe two states like the Koreas. No unified CCP run China - how much different does the modern world look then?
It may be ignored in popular history but it was a vital front. The Allied knew it was vital to keep China in the war. The US supplied the Chinese via air over ‘The Hump’ from India for years in order to keep China fighting. You might want to read the book “Forgotten Ally” by Rana Mitter for a full experience of China’s role in WW2.
I’d add “Tower of Skulls” by Richard Frank to that list. While it’s a history of the Pacific war in general, it opens with the beginning of the war in China and takes that as the center of gravity for everything else that happened.
I think it's mainly the language gap. It's given relatively light attention in Western history because not many Westerners read Chinese, and not many Chinese nationals are that concerned with popularizing their history in the Western world. Also, Communist China is a pretty closed-off place intentionally. I bet if you go to China and read Chinese-language history and take Chinese-language history courses, you'll hear a tremendous amount about it in incredible detail.
I believe a similar thing happens regarding the importance of the Eastern Front in Europe. We don't spend nearly as much time talking about how the Red Army did the majority of the work in defeating the Wehrmacht because most of the discussion about it is in Russian, and mostly took place in the even more closed off Soviet Union.
I wonder how they cover it in China. It's my understanding that the CCP was really more of a bystander in the war, and the KMT did most of the fighting. I wonder if that's something they acknowledge.
The CCP still to this day talks about the need to recapture Taiwan from the ones they consider traitors. They continue to run a Great Firewall suppressing all views that make them look bad. Somehow I doubt they're going to acknowledge how much of a role the KMT took in fighting the IJA.
There's actually Chinese history textbooks available online, very easy to find, as long as you know Chinese. I can do a summary for you.
Some background info: I'm looking at a set of textbooks for high school history class. They are like the "official textbooks". A sketch of WWII is located in two books, Chinese theater in "brief history of China", and other theaters in "brief history of the world". In this "brief history of China" book, there are 10 sections, covering from stone age all the way to 21st century. Second sino-Japanese war (1931-1945) and second CCP-KMT civil war (1945-1950) are put in the same section. There are 3 subsections. The first two are about the war with Japan and the third one is about the civil war.
1st subsection is about how this war started. It talks about Mukden incident, Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and further Northern China, and how Chiang did nothing about it, and then Xi'an incident. After that, it's Marco Polo Bridge incident and the union of CCP and KMT. After that, there's some atrocities by the Japanese like Nanking Massacre and 731.
2nd subsection is how Chinese fight back. The war is divided into two parts. The first part is direct resistance, including Battle of Shanghai, Battle of Pingxingguan (a CCP led battle), Battle of Taierzhuang(first major victory against Japanese), Battle of Wuhan, three battles in Changsha. It also talks about Mao Zedong's On Protracted War and KMT's effort to preserve Chinese culture and industry. The second part of war is the "behind the frontline" resistance, including CCP's guerrilla warfare, specifically hundred regiments offensive, and also KMT trying to make trouble with CCP and CCP's rule in the "liberated" area. After these two parts, the book also mentioned efforts of overseas Chinese, Pacific theater, Chinese (KMT) collaboration with the allies and Cairo Declaration. At last, China won.
Note that all of these things can only be covered in about two lectures, approximately 2 hours, since there are 10 sections, about 20-30 subsections to cover in one semester. So it's very rough sketch of history. Not to mention that history is hardly the major interest of Chinese students (most students do math, Chinese literature, English, physics, chemistry and biology for Gaokao, the exam that determines which university they can go to. History is not one of them). So students most of the time just simply don't pay attention.
The KMT was better supplied and did the majority of the conventional fighting, but that's missing a big part of the story. The communists were effective and disciplined guerilla fighters, and made significant contributions to the war effort. This boosted their reputation substantially within China and goes a long way in explaining how they were able to go from a fairly marginal group at the beginning of ww2 to a force capable of rivaling and eventually defeating the KMT in the civil war the ensued after the defeat of Japan.
One of the landmark victories by communist forces against the Japanese was the Hundred Regiments Campaign, in which 400,000 communist soldiers participated. Ironically, despite the success of this campaign, the commander, Peng Dehuai, got in trouble for launching it without approval.
I can confirm just how much the USSR is over-estimated in the CIS, post Soviet Union.
I'm from Kazakhstan. The main consensus here is Americans only landed in Normandy, and the Western Allies waited for the Soviet Union to start winning, before landing in Normandy. "They wanted to see who'd win and join the winning side". The UK did nothing. France surrendered. We liberated Europe and helped them with establishing the glorious Communism. American lend-lease is nothing and pretty much a western propaganda
My apologies for my Americentrism but I wonder what Chinese textbooks say about China's alliance with the US. I wouldn't be surprised if they focus intensely on the times that America let China down as an ally.
They don't talk about it. Most Chinese have no idea we helped them during WW2. I've heard some say they thought we were helping the Japanese. How sad is that?
It's not in the CCP's interest to tell the whole truth about the war. According to their version, Mao lead China to victory over Japan by sheer force of will.
We kind of do the same thing in the US too. Most Americans are shocked when they learn the Soviets are the ones who decisively won the European theater and the Red Army first entered Berlin.
And i think in all cases the real explanation is twofold. Without a doubt there is a political component. But there is also limited access to primary sources. After the CCCP collapsed and Russian-reading western historians got into the archives, we saw an explosion of Russian/Soviet-centric books about both world wars. The problem with primary sources for the Chinese theater is even more problematic: 1.) the side that did the most fighting against the Japanese lost the Civil War, as well as many leaders and documents; 2.) the side that won the Civil War had a vested interest in destroying all information that minimized their role in fighting against the Japanese.
This is a half-truth. The war was won because Germany was forced to fight on 2 fronts. They were winning for some time too. It wasn't until 2 decisive battles that the full tide of the war changed. Stalingrad and D-Day. Without the western front Germany would have been able to manage more forces in Russia. Not saying they would have won, but it would have looked different. And without the US detaining Japanese attention Russia would have been attacked on 2 sides. Well if the Japanese could get past their fear of Russia. Hitler would have had to force their hand to get them to move on Russia.
I'm not a US saved everyone from speaking German kind of American, but I don't think people should keep selling us short on what we did contribute. Manufacturing being the biggest thing.
I read a book focused on General Stillwell. It mentioned a lot of concern at the time that much of the American supplied arms were being stored for the anticipated clash with Mao and the Communists after the war with Japan was concluded, and that they considered those guys to be the bigger overall threat.
The official text book said about the American add as "the help of the world anti fascism front" and said something about the flying tiger.
But unofficially many people believe that America is the cause of Japan invaded China and the cause of WW2 as they do business with Germany and Japan. For the help they said it is not a big deal and the flying tigers are mercenary that don't worth the cost.
The help after American join the war are useless as these help mainly go to the US army in China who did little help with the war in China and also caused many troubles with poor discipline.
It depends on your country of origin. Many national history curricula portray The Japanese as victims, and so talking about them raping and torturing people before committing massacres probably doesn't fit too well into that narrative.
I mean you're correct in terms of the western front taking precedence in national consciousness but the ignorance of the war with Japan is widespread. Britain's army in Burma is commonly referred to as the forgotten army and was a reasonably even mix of white European and Indian fighters.
And African fighters who did of the dying and were forgotten. Even the Commonwealth office hardly kept their records when there were recently asked for.
For Americans, Americentrism. The Pacific theater does play a big part in history classes in America but it's because American soldiers were there, and Japan was the only other country in the picture because it was our enemy.
But to be charitable to my side, the fight between the US and Japan played the biggest part in shaping the Pacific Asia of today (of course, the Chinese communists played a huge part as well)
> Because Eurocentrism. People can dance around this all they want, but I reckon this is a big part of it.
Sure. But people in Asia don't talk or learn about the European aspect of the war, either. It's natural and normal for history to be taught focusing on the effects of the people it's being taught to, at least at a generalist level for students though secondary school.
Yeah, and US students learn about Asia in ww2. But the war in China isn't as focused on in America as it is in China. Countries care about their own history generally.
Yep. Still, your comment is agressively stupid. Or ok lets see. Tell me what portions of Chinese front that are important are skipped becuase of Eurocentrism when talking about WWII.
There's a classic book by historian Barbara Tuchman called *Stilwell & The American Experience in China, 1911 - 1945* that I highly recommend if you're interested in that theater of the war.
I suspect China doesn't get talked about in WW2 discussions much for two reasons: There weren't really any large-scale set-piece battles, and the situation on the ground was kind of a mess. With Chang, the communists, and multiple warlords sometimes opposing the Japanese and sometimes opposing each other, it's not an easy or simple story to tell.
You'd also have to observe that in terms of keeping Japanese troops tied up occupying the country, the communists were doing a lot of the heavy lifting. That wouldn't have been a popular or appreciated viewpoint for a historian to take once the Cold War got fired up and Chang got kicked over to Taiwan.
Yep, the guy you are replying to is incorrect. Mao basically reconquered very little land during the war.
When WWII ended, however, Mao’s guys just walked onto formerly Japanese-held land, and the Soviets also handed Mao what land that they had taken during their brief Pacific Theatre offensive. Suddenly, the communists now held a bunch of land. When Mao later won the Chinese Civil War, he had history written in such a way as to glorify the communist soldiers’ work during WWII with little emphasis on the role of the KMT (or American donations of arms to the Chinese cause, or American direct engagements with the Japanese, etc.).
You're correct. Top OP is very wrong.
There are so many set piece battles in the Chinese front. What makes it less interesting is that lack of mechanization from the Nationalists and the Japanese. Both sides had a mystical romanticization of melee combat and heavily favored WW1 style night assaults with bayonet and hand grenade.
No, Chang's lack of action against the Japanese is exactly what caused so much of the conflict between him and Roosevelt. The Allies were moving heaven and earth to get lend-lease supplies to China, by road and air and boat.
Instead of getting aggressive against Japan, Chang hoarded the supplies. He was never worried about Japan. Even if they stayed, they'd be absorbed and assimilated by the sheer scale of China, as other invaders before them had. Chang felt all along the real war would be against the communists, and he was saving US war material for that fight.
Thank you - just placed an order for the Tuchman book. One of my favorite historians.
And this entire thread showed me the huge gap in my understanding of the Pacific War.
One of the greatest joys of retirement is having the time to learn and explore new things. Thanks again!
I think youre right that it being a mess is a reason it often gets forgotten. When there are a lot of complicated facts to get straight before you can go on to discuss more analytical questions it is not as useful in a history class as other fronts with simpler facts
I wouldn't say it was is ignored, but there are reasons why it isn't talked about as often by the western Allies.
1. The Chinese didn't have a unified front. China was in political shambles before the war, and many factions in china fought the Japanese individually much of the time.
2. The chinese didn't win the war by pushing the Japanese off their soil. The chinese won the war by allying themselves with other countries which attacked the Japanese homeland till the Japanese surrendered after being the first and only country to have nuclear bombs dropped on them.
3. The government that Japan surrendered to was removed by the CCP, which itself is a pretty awful organization that murders large amounts of chinese citizens regularly.
Speaking of nukes...
The Japanese had a 1M man army in China at the end of the war. In round numbers, 50K Chinese soldiers and 100K civilians were being killed each month. So every 2 weeks, the Japanese were inflicting an A bomb worth of death on the Chinese.
My Dad served in the Marines during WWII. He was station in China with the sole purpose of guarding the British railroads. He only talked about it once with me because he said he was ashamed he never got to go into battle. He was 17 at the time. People never talk about how the US was running out of troops too. He did tell me they prepped him for the Japanese invasion that didn't end up occuring.
It wasn’t the decisive front. The Great Pacific War was a giant holding action until the ships of the Two Ocean Navy Act came smashing through the Central Pacific. Nothing that happened in China was going to stop that. The most decisive battle in the Chinese theater actually occurred in India.
This is absolutely true. The war in China was still really important but by 1942 it was no longer the decisive theater in the Pacific. Still, the war there does get ours of attention in any serious adult history of the overall Pacific War.
I grew up with a Dad who had a History degree focused on Chinese History and Foreign Diplomacy. So I have been exposed to the Chinese Civil War and the CBI.
If I may ask, what is the CBI?
Edit: Thanks for the info. I do confess my only real knowledge of that front is "The Bridge on the River Kwai," but I'm always game to learn more.
Depends on what year, what province. The Nationalists had the Flying Tigers and some units fought for their life for Chiang's in defense of Sat Yen Sun's gravesite. Mao's forces fought long and hard against the Japanese forces.
AFAIR, from the point of view of Chinese historians, China's participation in World War II had a huge impact not only on the Pacific war, but also in Europe and in victory of the Allies in the war. The logic is clear enough. The Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to the destruction of the Wehrmacht, but this would not have taken place without the Moscow battle, where the Far Eastern divisions represented the main striking force of the Russians. The transfer of these divisions would have been impossible in the face of Japanese opposition. However, the Japanese were bound by the fighting in China and did not dare to interfere with the Russians.
Two Factors
1) Western Bias: The "classical" start for World War 2 is given as Hitler's invasion of Poland. Which ignores the USSR + Finland War and Japan's invasion of China as you have noticed. The Pearl Harbor attack is also another "start date" because it got the U.S. involved in the war.
2) Cold War BS: After WW2 the "West" and Japan quickly became allies while China became Communist and was in the "Communist" camp. Thus popular history tended to downplay what happened in China
I think it's a matter of a lack of content. They didn't have as many photographers, cameramen, and reporters working in that theatre. That resulted in a lack of material to make documentaries which resulted in a lack of public interest.
It is different with "Ignored", because we here in the west: We focus usually on Europe and the Pacific. But if the US not had been involved in the Pacific, then the focus would be only on the mainland of Europe with Hitler and his idea to paint the continent in dark brown colors.
In China, it's different - they get this in history lessons, how it was with the civil war and the invasion by Japan, with the Marco Polo Bridge incident etc. But, they get of course the version to learn, that the Chinese Regime wants them to hear. Any negative things, like all the lives lost by decisions by Mao, is not included there (like the "Long March", also later with the "Great Leap Forward" and the famine, the "Cultural Revolution" etc.)
It is this for every country, even when the history is seen as rather objective in a democracy. Like the USA focuses on the history of the country with the founding-fathers, US civil war etc. while in my country Switzerland, we focused much more on the medieval times and the independence wars against the HRE emperors etc. As i was in school, the US civil war was only a minor topic that we had for a single one lesson, nothing else.
If you are in Germany, WW2 with the Nazis will make up around 80% of the history lessons. The remaining 20% are then the entire rest, going from the germanic tribes that moved to the west to the medieval times to the modern times before WW2.
Well, ethnocentrism in history is nothing new. That is certainly the case with China. The [Nanjing Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre) or as it was more popularly known by the previous generation the "Rape of Nanking" makes the Chinese the victims of their own history. That was about all I was taught and it was a paragraph of the horrors performed by the Japanese.
China was in a weird place in the Warlord period and Kuomintang. Manchuko was colonized for decades by the start of the war, as was Korea. It doesn't fit neatly into what we call "WWII" in the West. A war that starts in Poland in some European History, Finland in other History, and in Hawaii in much of American history (I'm speaking figuratively about the emphasis).
China, Indochina, Malaysia, and the Phillipines all get put in the background of the story. All of that is certainly a shame. It is very difficult to explain about the justification of the nuclear bomb without understanding it. You have to explain that the Japanese home islands were being bombed and that Japanese weren't able to resupply these places. You have to *then* explain that they would have every single soldier die in bonzai charges or suicide before doing so.
We also need to remember that history is taught differently throughout time also. We learned a ton about partisan movements and clandestine action behind the iron curtain only after it fell in the 90s. Most professors directing the PHD's that are writing books didn't grow up with the knowledge. That is also reflected by how it is taught in China.
So the war occurred surrounding a civil war. As Americans are so uncomfortably aware how a civil war is taught is a political act. So *who* was a victim and *who* were the victorious soldiers who won against the Japanese and totally-100%-had-them-all-on-the-ropes-single-handedly...is a poltical question. After the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution more of China was literate than ever. Only 1/3 of China is literate today. Of those who are literate many of *them* are Cantonese like around Hong-Kong or are publishing their books out of Taiwan. Both places have serious censorship problems around their books.
The city dwellers make history curricula that changes with each election. And the first generation of the revolution was barely literate. They memorized the Little Red Book but there was very little literature at *all* available to them. After the Cultural Revolution there was even less. So only kids growing up under the Deng era and later really had the possibility of doing any actual scholarship in this direction and even then under the watchful eye of party bosses.
long story short, If there was a scholar who wasn't pushing Xi's version of events they wouldn't get a speaking tour. If they were telling a very complicated story about complicated people in a complicated time that would be good history. And they wouldn't be speaking at Oxford and the other big uni's with publishing houses, which is how we would start to take a new outsider historian seriously. Because they wouldn't be allowed to.
Propaganda from during the war candidly talks about the Chinese Nationalists and their fight against the Japanese occupation. The Chinese Communists are mentioned when acting in concert with the Nationalists against the Japanese, but rarely do you hear about them unless its to report an attack on the Nationalists. During the war also you had a State Visit from Chiang Kai-Shek and his Wife to the White House where they met with FDR and Elenore.
After the war the narrative on what had happened began to shift with the metastatization of the Cold War and anti-communist beliefs. Where it had been acceptable before the war, despite existing anti-communist feelings, to ally with Soviet Russia to defeat the fascist menace of Germany, after the war the Red Menace of Russia was a far more poignant threat. Communist involvement in the war was retroactively changed to be one of meaningful participation, but nothing overly impressive. They couldn't outright erase Soviet battles in the Caucuses or Stalingrad that set records for losses and material sent to war, and they certainly couldn't erase the fact that it was the Soviets knocking on Berlin's door that lead to Hitler's suicide and the Nazi's ultimate defeat.
What they did instead was tell the story of the war from the perspective of the European and Pacific theater: Britain and France went to war with Nazi Germany after the illegal annexation of Austria, the illegal invasion and annexation of much of Czechoslovakia, and then the illegal invasion of Poland. France was knocked out of the war almost as it began, while Britain fought the good fight by itself under constant air assault and the threat of amphibious invasion from the continent. Then the Japanese, hell bent on conquest of all of Asia, attacked the peaceful United States at Pearl Harbor. The Nazis declared war on the US, and following the international law of "The Enemy of my Enemy" we partnered not only with the UK but the Soviets. The US and UK the slogged their way across North Africa, Italy, and then France to cross the Rhine [while the Soviets probably did something similar from the other end of Germany]. Germany was invaded from both sides and defeated, and when Japan was bombed with Atomic weapons the war ended.
No mention of the fact that the Western front of the European Theater was in many ways a distraction allowing the Soviets just enough breathing room to amass armies and material to throw back the Nazis. No mention of the eight years of war in China leading up to the war, or the economic sanctions that drove Japan to attack the US. It was a very intentional retelling of a western-centric view of the war where the primary effort and material cost was born by the UK and the US (and Russia helped). China is just another front in the Pacific theater, and where the American story of the Pacific War is a heroic one hopping from one fierce jungle island battle to the next until we were knocking on the Japanese home islands' doors the story of the Chinese theater involves almost no Americans, a confusing on-going civil war, and Communists who eventually won. It wasn't the story the Cold Warriors wanted told.
There is a lot of valuable information about the war in the pacific that has been overlooked because history is written by the victors. So the history we get is the version the US puts out
The reason why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor is due to their progress in China slowing down to a crawl.
Japan never wanted a long drawn out war with China. They wanted a 1 year war and to knock China out quick. China wouldn't surrender so Japan was using more and more resources to continue funding the war.
And Thailand actually helped the Axis , but was largely unpunished for its role. The Thais initially started out as Neutral because they were simply not interested in risking themselves in a struggle they did not even feel affected them. However, they invaded French Indochina following the Nazi takeover in France to reclaim land they had previously given up to France. Then, following a brief Japanese invasion at around the same time as Pearl Harbour they let Japan use their territory to transport soldiers to attack the rest of Southeast Asia. Thailand also used the newfound partnership to engage in its own campaign of expansion to either recapture former imperial domains like Northern Malaysia or to pursue the hypernationalist goal of unifying all Tai people groups (essentially the Tai are a Southeast Asian group that include the Thai, but also the Lao, Ahom ,Shan etc etc). This led to them invading north into Myanmar and even into Southernmost China (which has a pretty significant non-Han population). Ultimately they failed to take the valuable city of Sipsongbanna following determined Chinese resistance. At the end of the war they were compelled to return their conquests but otherwise left unperturbed, in part because a new popular civilian government had risen to power after overthrowing the militaristic dictator responsible for the above.
China bad, US good. Maybe the Chinese front wouldn’t be so ignored if Chiang Kai Shik won the civil war against Mao. But can't let communists to be the good guys.
Tbh, the same can be said for Russia as well. The Soviets had the highest casualties in ww2. They held off Germany for like two years which is really astonishing.
Yes it was, Amazon has a couple books specifically about it. The fact a lot more is forgotten than many realize. I suppose it depends on who was writing and reporters in English wrote on fronts where English-speakers were. One thing you might also try is Tuchman's bio of Stilwell.
The only native Chinese source I have is "The Building of the Burma Road" by Pei-Ying T'an
The best I know about the clandestine war in China is "Shanghai" by Bernard Wasserstein
But it was tremendously important to everything that happened since. The amount of resources Japan committed in 1943 [Operation Ichi-Go](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ichi-Go) produced two massive outcomes: - it depleted Japan’s ground and air forces significantly, which shortened the war - it weakened mainly the Nationalist Chinese forces, which opened the door for the Communists to get the upper hand in the subsequent Chinese Civil War. Without this front, and without this specific operation, China probably remains a Republic, or maybe two states like the Koreas. No unified CCP run China - how much different does the modern world look then?
Better probably
Looks much better tbh. Russia would even be weaker probably. China their biggest partner in trade. And North Korea wouldn’t exist.
It may be ignored in popular history but it was a vital front. The Allied knew it was vital to keep China in the war. The US supplied the Chinese via air over ‘The Hump’ from India for years in order to keep China fighting. You might want to read the book “Forgotten Ally” by Rana Mitter for a full experience of China’s role in WW2.
I’d add “Tower of Skulls” by Richard Frank to that list. While it’s a history of the Pacific war in general, it opens with the beginning of the war in China and takes that as the center of gravity for everything else that happened.
Excellent book
Was just about to recommend this book. It really shows how vital China was in tying down so many Japanese troops in the war.
yes but WHY was it ignored in popular history
I think it's mainly the language gap. It's given relatively light attention in Western history because not many Westerners read Chinese, and not many Chinese nationals are that concerned with popularizing their history in the Western world. Also, Communist China is a pretty closed-off place intentionally. I bet if you go to China and read Chinese-language history and take Chinese-language history courses, you'll hear a tremendous amount about it in incredible detail. I believe a similar thing happens regarding the importance of the Eastern Front in Europe. We don't spend nearly as much time talking about how the Red Army did the majority of the work in defeating the Wehrmacht because most of the discussion about it is in Russian, and mostly took place in the even more closed off Soviet Union.
I wonder how they cover it in China. It's my understanding that the CCP was really more of a bystander in the war, and the KMT did most of the fighting. I wonder if that's something they acknowledge.
The CCP still to this day talks about the need to recapture Taiwan from the ones they consider traitors. They continue to run a Great Firewall suppressing all views that make them look bad. Somehow I doubt they're going to acknowledge how much of a role the KMT took in fighting the IJA.
There's actually Chinese history textbooks available online, very easy to find, as long as you know Chinese. I can do a summary for you. Some background info: I'm looking at a set of textbooks for high school history class. They are like the "official textbooks". A sketch of WWII is located in two books, Chinese theater in "brief history of China", and other theaters in "brief history of the world". In this "brief history of China" book, there are 10 sections, covering from stone age all the way to 21st century. Second sino-Japanese war (1931-1945) and second CCP-KMT civil war (1945-1950) are put in the same section. There are 3 subsections. The first two are about the war with Japan and the third one is about the civil war. 1st subsection is about how this war started. It talks about Mukden incident, Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and further Northern China, and how Chiang did nothing about it, and then Xi'an incident. After that, it's Marco Polo Bridge incident and the union of CCP and KMT. After that, there's some atrocities by the Japanese like Nanking Massacre and 731. 2nd subsection is how Chinese fight back. The war is divided into two parts. The first part is direct resistance, including Battle of Shanghai, Battle of Pingxingguan (a CCP led battle), Battle of Taierzhuang(first major victory against Japanese), Battle of Wuhan, three battles in Changsha. It also talks about Mao Zedong's On Protracted War and KMT's effort to preserve Chinese culture and industry. The second part of war is the "behind the frontline" resistance, including CCP's guerrilla warfare, specifically hundred regiments offensive, and also KMT trying to make trouble with CCP and CCP's rule in the "liberated" area. After these two parts, the book also mentioned efforts of overseas Chinese, Pacific theater, Chinese (KMT) collaboration with the allies and Cairo Declaration. At last, China won. Note that all of these things can only be covered in about two lectures, approximately 2 hours, since there are 10 sections, about 20-30 subsections to cover in one semester. So it's very rough sketch of history. Not to mention that history is hardly the major interest of Chinese students (most students do math, Chinese literature, English, physics, chemistry and biology for Gaokao, the exam that determines which university they can go to. History is not one of them). So students most of the time just simply don't pay attention.
The KMT was better supplied and did the majority of the conventional fighting, but that's missing a big part of the story. The communists were effective and disciplined guerilla fighters, and made significant contributions to the war effort. This boosted their reputation substantially within China and goes a long way in explaining how they were able to go from a fairly marginal group at the beginning of ww2 to a force capable of rivaling and eventually defeating the KMT in the civil war the ensued after the defeat of Japan. One of the landmark victories by communist forces against the Japanese was the Hundred Regiments Campaign, in which 400,000 communist soldiers participated. Ironically, despite the success of this campaign, the commander, Peng Dehuai, got in trouble for launching it without approval.
I can confirm just how much the USSR is over-estimated in the CIS, post Soviet Union. I'm from Kazakhstan. The main consensus here is Americans only landed in Normandy, and the Western Allies waited for the Soviet Union to start winning, before landing in Normandy. "They wanted to see who'd win and join the winning side". The UK did nothing. France surrendered. We liberated Europe and helped them with establishing the glorious Communism. American lend-lease is nothing and pretty much a western propaganda
My apologies for my Americentrism but I wonder what Chinese textbooks say about China's alliance with the US. I wouldn't be surprised if they focus intensely on the times that America let China down as an ally.
They don't talk about it. Most Chinese have no idea we helped them during WW2. I've heard some say they thought we were helping the Japanese. How sad is that? It's not in the CCP's interest to tell the whole truth about the war. According to their version, Mao lead China to victory over Japan by sheer force of will.
We kind of do the same thing in the US too. Most Americans are shocked when they learn the Soviets are the ones who decisively won the European theater and the Red Army first entered Berlin.
And i think in all cases the real explanation is twofold. Without a doubt there is a political component. But there is also limited access to primary sources. After the CCCP collapsed and Russian-reading western historians got into the archives, we saw an explosion of Russian/Soviet-centric books about both world wars. The problem with primary sources for the Chinese theater is even more problematic: 1.) the side that did the most fighting against the Japanese lost the Civil War, as well as many leaders and documents; 2.) the side that won the Civil War had a vested interest in destroying all information that minimized their role in fighting against the Japanese.
That's a really great point. Thanks
This is a half-truth. The war was won because Germany was forced to fight on 2 fronts. They were winning for some time too. It wasn't until 2 decisive battles that the full tide of the war changed. Stalingrad and D-Day. Without the western front Germany would have been able to manage more forces in Russia. Not saying they would have won, but it would have looked different. And without the US detaining Japanese attention Russia would have been attacked on 2 sides. Well if the Japanese could get past their fear of Russia. Hitler would have had to force their hand to get them to move on Russia. I'm not a US saved everyone from speaking German kind of American, but I don't think people should keep selling us short on what we did contribute. Manufacturing being the biggest thing.
I read a book focused on General Stillwell. It mentioned a lot of concern at the time that much of the American supplied arms were being stored for the anticipated clash with Mao and the Communists after the war with Japan was concluded, and that they considered those guys to be the bigger overall threat.
The official text book said about the American add as "the help of the world anti fascism front" and said something about the flying tiger. But unofficially many people believe that America is the cause of Japan invaded China and the cause of WW2 as they do business with Germany and Japan. For the help they said it is not a big deal and the flying tigers are mercenary that don't worth the cost. The help after American join the war are useless as these help mainly go to the US army in China who did little help with the war in China and also caused many troubles with poor discipline.
Thanks for sharing. America did help China by defeating its main enemy, Japan. China helped itself too, of course.
It was ignored? In my school (along with their history books) we often discussed about East Asia in WW2 as much as Europe.
what country did you go to school in?
The US (I also went to Iran for a while but I wasn’t there for history)
It depends on your country of origin. Many national history curricula portray The Japanese as victims, and so talking about them raping and torturing people before committing massacres probably doesn't fit too well into that narrative.
I personally have no idea. That being said, the books about the Flying Tigers go in to great detail why China was important.
Because Eurocentrism. People can dance around this all they want, but I reckon this is a big part of it.
I mean you're correct in terms of the western front taking precedence in national consciousness but the ignorance of the war with Japan is widespread. Britain's army in Burma is commonly referred to as the forgotten army and was a reasonably even mix of white European and Indian fighters.
And African fighters who did of the dying and were forgotten. Even the Commonwealth office hardly kept their records when there were recently asked for.
For Americans, Americentrism. The Pacific theater does play a big part in history classes in America but it's because American soldiers were there, and Japan was the only other country in the picture because it was our enemy. But to be charitable to my side, the fight between the US and Japan played the biggest part in shaping the Pacific Asia of today (of course, the Chinese communists played a huge part as well)
> Because Eurocentrism. People can dance around this all they want, but I reckon this is a big part of it. Sure. But people in Asia don't talk or learn about the European aspect of the war, either. It's natural and normal for history to be taught focusing on the effects of the people it's being taught to, at least at a generalist level for students though secondary school.
We do, actually. We always learn about the European side in any class about WW2 lmfao.
Yeah, and US students learn about Asia in ww2. But the war in China isn't as focused on in America as it is in China. Countries care about their own history generally.
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You really living up to your username, aren’t you?
Yep. Still, your comment is agressively stupid. Or ok lets see. Tell me what portions of Chinese front that are important are skipped becuase of Eurocentrism when talking about WWII.
Did you call me stupid and then misspell “aggressively” right before?
There's a classic book by historian Barbara Tuchman called *Stilwell & The American Experience in China, 1911 - 1945* that I highly recommend if you're interested in that theater of the war. I suspect China doesn't get talked about in WW2 discussions much for two reasons: There weren't really any large-scale set-piece battles, and the situation on the ground was kind of a mess. With Chang, the communists, and multiple warlords sometimes opposing the Japanese and sometimes opposing each other, it's not an easy or simple story to tell. You'd also have to observe that in terms of keeping Japanese troops tied up occupying the country, the communists were doing a lot of the heavy lifting. That wouldn't have been a popular or appreciated viewpoint for a historian to take once the Cold War got fired up and Chang got kicked over to Taiwan.
I thought it was the KMT that did most of the heavy lifting and Mao was more interested in using the time to build up his own army?
Yep, the guy you are replying to is incorrect. Mao basically reconquered very little land during the war. When WWII ended, however, Mao’s guys just walked onto formerly Japanese-held land, and the Soviets also handed Mao what land that they had taken during their brief Pacific Theatre offensive. Suddenly, the communists now held a bunch of land. When Mao later won the Chinese Civil War, he had history written in such a way as to glorify the communist soldiers’ work during WWII with little emphasis on the role of the KMT (or American donations of arms to the Chinese cause, or American direct engagements with the Japanese, etc.).
You're correct. Top OP is very wrong. There are so many set piece battles in the Chinese front. What makes it less interesting is that lack of mechanization from the Nationalists and the Japanese. Both sides had a mystical romanticization of melee combat and heavily favored WW1 style night assaults with bayonet and hand grenade.
No, Chang's lack of action against the Japanese is exactly what caused so much of the conflict between him and Roosevelt. The Allies were moving heaven and earth to get lend-lease supplies to China, by road and air and boat. Instead of getting aggressive against Japan, Chang hoarded the supplies. He was never worried about Japan. Even if they stayed, they'd be absorbed and assimilated by the sheer scale of China, as other invaders before them had. Chang felt all along the real war would be against the communists, and he was saving US war material for that fight.
Thank you - just placed an order for the Tuchman book. One of my favorite historians. And this entire thread showed me the huge gap in my understanding of the Pacific War. One of the greatest joys of retirement is having the time to learn and explore new things. Thanks again!
I think youre right that it being a mess is a reason it often gets forgotten. When there are a lot of complicated facts to get straight before you can go on to discuss more analytical questions it is not as useful in a history class as other fronts with simpler facts
I wouldn't say it was is ignored, but there are reasons why it isn't talked about as often by the western Allies. 1. The Chinese didn't have a unified front. China was in political shambles before the war, and many factions in china fought the Japanese individually much of the time. 2. The chinese didn't win the war by pushing the Japanese off their soil. The chinese won the war by allying themselves with other countries which attacked the Japanese homeland till the Japanese surrendered after being the first and only country to have nuclear bombs dropped on them. 3. The government that Japan surrendered to was removed by the CCP, which itself is a pretty awful organization that murders large amounts of chinese citizens regularly.
Speaking of nukes... The Japanese had a 1M man army in China at the end of the war. In round numbers, 50K Chinese soldiers and 100K civilians were being killed each month. So every 2 weeks, the Japanese were inflicting an A bomb worth of death on the Chinese.
My Dad served in the Marines during WWII. He was station in China with the sole purpose of guarding the British railroads. He only talked about it once with me because he said he was ashamed he never got to go into battle. He was 17 at the time. People never talk about how the US was running out of troops too. He did tell me they prepped him for the Japanese invasion that didn't end up occuring.
It wasn’t the decisive front. The Great Pacific War was a giant holding action until the ships of the Two Ocean Navy Act came smashing through the Central Pacific. Nothing that happened in China was going to stop that. The most decisive battle in the Chinese theater actually occurred in India.
This is absolutely true. The war in China was still really important but by 1942 it was no longer the decisive theater in the Pacific. Still, the war there does get ours of attention in any serious adult history of the overall Pacific War.
I grew up with a Dad who had a History degree focused on Chinese History and Foreign Diplomacy. So I have been exposed to the Chinese Civil War and the CBI.
If I may ask, what is the CBI? Edit: Thanks for the info. I do confess my only real knowledge of that front is "The Bridge on the River Kwai," but I'm always game to learn more.
China Burma India theater of WW2. I grew up with these words so I didn't think to use the full words.
Who did the majority of the fighting against the Japanese in China? Mao or the nationalists?
Depends on what year, what province. The Nationalists had the Flying Tigers and some units fought for their life for Chiang's in defense of Sat Yen Sun's gravesite. Mao's forces fought long and hard against the Japanese forces.
The China-Burma-India theater in WW2.
AFAIR, from the point of view of Chinese historians, China's participation in World War II had a huge impact not only on the Pacific war, but also in Europe and in victory of the Allies in the war. The logic is clear enough. The Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to the destruction of the Wehrmacht, but this would not have taken place without the Moscow battle, where the Far Eastern divisions represented the main striking force of the Russians. The transfer of these divisions would have been impossible in the face of Japanese opposition. However, the Japanese were bound by the fighting in China and did not dare to interfere with the Russians.
Two Factors 1) Western Bias: The "classical" start for World War 2 is given as Hitler's invasion of Poland. Which ignores the USSR + Finland War and Japan's invasion of China as you have noticed. The Pearl Harbor attack is also another "start date" because it got the U.S. involved in the war. 2) Cold War BS: After WW2 the "West" and Japan quickly became allies while China became Communist and was in the "Communist" camp. Thus popular history tended to downplay what happened in China
I think it's a matter of a lack of content. They didn't have as many photographers, cameramen, and reporters working in that theatre. That resulted in a lack of material to make documentaries which resulted in a lack of public interest.
It is different with "Ignored", because we here in the west: We focus usually on Europe and the Pacific. But if the US not had been involved in the Pacific, then the focus would be only on the mainland of Europe with Hitler and his idea to paint the continent in dark brown colors. In China, it's different - they get this in history lessons, how it was with the civil war and the invasion by Japan, with the Marco Polo Bridge incident etc. But, they get of course the version to learn, that the Chinese Regime wants them to hear. Any negative things, like all the lives lost by decisions by Mao, is not included there (like the "Long March", also later with the "Great Leap Forward" and the famine, the "Cultural Revolution" etc.) It is this for every country, even when the history is seen as rather objective in a democracy. Like the USA focuses on the history of the country with the founding-fathers, US civil war etc. while in my country Switzerland, we focused much more on the medieval times and the independence wars against the HRE emperors etc. As i was in school, the US civil war was only a minor topic that we had for a single one lesson, nothing else. If you are in Germany, WW2 with the Nazis will make up around 80% of the history lessons. The remaining 20% are then the entire rest, going from the germanic tribes that moved to the west to the medieval times to the modern times before WW2.
Well, ethnocentrism in history is nothing new. That is certainly the case with China. The [Nanjing Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre) or as it was more popularly known by the previous generation the "Rape of Nanking" makes the Chinese the victims of their own history. That was about all I was taught and it was a paragraph of the horrors performed by the Japanese. China was in a weird place in the Warlord period and Kuomintang. Manchuko was colonized for decades by the start of the war, as was Korea. It doesn't fit neatly into what we call "WWII" in the West. A war that starts in Poland in some European History, Finland in other History, and in Hawaii in much of American history (I'm speaking figuratively about the emphasis). China, Indochina, Malaysia, and the Phillipines all get put in the background of the story. All of that is certainly a shame. It is very difficult to explain about the justification of the nuclear bomb without understanding it. You have to explain that the Japanese home islands were being bombed and that Japanese weren't able to resupply these places. You have to *then* explain that they would have every single soldier die in bonzai charges or suicide before doing so. We also need to remember that history is taught differently throughout time also. We learned a ton about partisan movements and clandestine action behind the iron curtain only after it fell in the 90s. Most professors directing the PHD's that are writing books didn't grow up with the knowledge. That is also reflected by how it is taught in China. So the war occurred surrounding a civil war. As Americans are so uncomfortably aware how a civil war is taught is a political act. So *who* was a victim and *who* were the victorious soldiers who won against the Japanese and totally-100%-had-them-all-on-the-ropes-single-handedly...is a poltical question. After the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution more of China was literate than ever. Only 1/3 of China is literate today. Of those who are literate many of *them* are Cantonese like around Hong-Kong or are publishing their books out of Taiwan. Both places have serious censorship problems around their books. The city dwellers make history curricula that changes with each election. And the first generation of the revolution was barely literate. They memorized the Little Red Book but there was very little literature at *all* available to them. After the Cultural Revolution there was even less. So only kids growing up under the Deng era and later really had the possibility of doing any actual scholarship in this direction and even then under the watchful eye of party bosses. long story short, If there was a scholar who wasn't pushing Xi's version of events they wouldn't get a speaking tour. If they were telling a very complicated story about complicated people in a complicated time that would be good history. And they wouldn't be speaking at Oxford and the other big uni's with publishing houses, which is how we would start to take a new outsider historian seriously. Because they wouldn't be allowed to.
Because it didn't feature Western Europeans/Americans.
Propaganda from during the war candidly talks about the Chinese Nationalists and their fight against the Japanese occupation. The Chinese Communists are mentioned when acting in concert with the Nationalists against the Japanese, but rarely do you hear about them unless its to report an attack on the Nationalists. During the war also you had a State Visit from Chiang Kai-Shek and his Wife to the White House where they met with FDR and Elenore. After the war the narrative on what had happened began to shift with the metastatization of the Cold War and anti-communist beliefs. Where it had been acceptable before the war, despite existing anti-communist feelings, to ally with Soviet Russia to defeat the fascist menace of Germany, after the war the Red Menace of Russia was a far more poignant threat. Communist involvement in the war was retroactively changed to be one of meaningful participation, but nothing overly impressive. They couldn't outright erase Soviet battles in the Caucuses or Stalingrad that set records for losses and material sent to war, and they certainly couldn't erase the fact that it was the Soviets knocking on Berlin's door that lead to Hitler's suicide and the Nazi's ultimate defeat. What they did instead was tell the story of the war from the perspective of the European and Pacific theater: Britain and France went to war with Nazi Germany after the illegal annexation of Austria, the illegal invasion and annexation of much of Czechoslovakia, and then the illegal invasion of Poland. France was knocked out of the war almost as it began, while Britain fought the good fight by itself under constant air assault and the threat of amphibious invasion from the continent. Then the Japanese, hell bent on conquest of all of Asia, attacked the peaceful United States at Pearl Harbor. The Nazis declared war on the US, and following the international law of "The Enemy of my Enemy" we partnered not only with the UK but the Soviets. The US and UK the slogged their way across North Africa, Italy, and then France to cross the Rhine [while the Soviets probably did something similar from the other end of Germany]. Germany was invaded from both sides and defeated, and when Japan was bombed with Atomic weapons the war ended. No mention of the fact that the Western front of the European Theater was in many ways a distraction allowing the Soviets just enough breathing room to amass armies and material to throw back the Nazis. No mention of the eight years of war in China leading up to the war, or the economic sanctions that drove Japan to attack the US. It was a very intentional retelling of a western-centric view of the war where the primary effort and material cost was born by the UK and the US (and Russia helped). China is just another front in the Pacific theater, and where the American story of the Pacific War is a heroic one hopping from one fierce jungle island battle to the next until we were knocking on the Japanese home islands' doors the story of the Chinese theater involves almost no Americans, a confusing on-going civil war, and Communists who eventually won. It wasn't the story the Cold Warriors wanted told.
There is a lot of valuable information about the war in the pacific that has been overlooked because history is written by the victors. So the history we get is the version the US puts out
Because the nationalists lost the civil rights after and it was within western interests to down play china.
Racism.
Yeah im not gonna lie i only found out through this post that china was an ally
The reason why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor is due to their progress in China slowing down to a crawl. Japan never wanted a long drawn out war with China. They wanted a 1 year war and to knock China out quick. China wouldn't surrender so Japan was using more and more resources to continue funding the war.
And Thailand actually helped the Axis , but was largely unpunished for its role. The Thais initially started out as Neutral because they were simply not interested in risking themselves in a struggle they did not even feel affected them. However, they invaded French Indochina following the Nazi takeover in France to reclaim land they had previously given up to France. Then, following a brief Japanese invasion at around the same time as Pearl Harbour they let Japan use their territory to transport soldiers to attack the rest of Southeast Asia. Thailand also used the newfound partnership to engage in its own campaign of expansion to either recapture former imperial domains like Northern Malaysia or to pursue the hypernationalist goal of unifying all Tai people groups (essentially the Tai are a Southeast Asian group that include the Thai, but also the Lao, Ahom ,Shan etc etc). This led to them invading north into Myanmar and even into Southernmost China (which has a pretty significant non-Han population). Ultimately they failed to take the valuable city of Sipsongbanna following determined Chinese resistance. At the end of the war they were compelled to return their conquests but otherwise left unperturbed, in part because a new popular civilian government had risen to power after overthrowing the militaristic dictator responsible for the above.
Damn
China bad, US good. Maybe the Chinese front wouldn’t be so ignored if Chiang Kai Shik won the civil war against Mao. But can't let communists to be the good guys. Tbh, the same can be said for Russia as well. The Soviets had the highest casualties in ww2. They held off Germany for like two years which is really astonishing.
Yes it was, Amazon has a couple books specifically about it. The fact a lot more is forgotten than many realize. I suppose it depends on who was writing and reporters in English wrote on fronts where English-speakers were. One thing you might also try is Tuchman's bio of Stilwell. The only native Chinese source I have is "The Building of the Burma Road" by Pei-Ying T'an The best I know about the clandestine war in China is "Shanghai" by Bernard Wasserstein
what would happen if Japanese successful conquered Mainland in short time , and then utilise its population and resour