Second Sino-Japanese War

Second Sino-Japanese War 1937-45, conflict between Japanese and Chinese forces for control of the Chinese mainland. The war sapped the Nationalist government's strength while allowing the Communists to gain control over large areas through organization of guerrilla units. Thus, it was an important factor in the eventual Communist defeat of the Nationalist forces in 1949. In its early stage, the war was often called the China Incident.

Origins

Following the Manchurian Incident (Sept., 1931), the Japanese Kwantung army occupied Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo (Feb., 1932). Japan pressed China to recognize the independence of Manchukuo, suppress anti-Japanese activities, and form autonomous regional governments in N China. The Japanese were partially successful in 1933 and 1935 when they forced China to form two demilitarized autonomous zones bordering Manchuria.

Outbreak of War

Growing domestic opposition to the Nationalist government's policy of self-strengthening before counterattacking in N China and Manchuria led to the kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped at Xi'an in Dec., 1936, by Chang Hsüeh-liang . Chiang was forced to agree to a united anti-Japanese front with the Communists as a condition for his release. The situation was tense, and in 1937 full war commenced. A clash (July, 1937) between soldiers of the Japanese garrison at Beijing and Chinese forces at the Marco Polo Bridge was the pretext for Japanese occupation at Beijing and Tianjin. Chiang Kai-shek refused to negotiate an end to hostilities on Japanese terms and placed crack troops outside the Japanese settlement at Shanghai. After a protracted struggle Shanghai and the national capital, Nanjing, fell to the Japanese. The Chinese broke the Huang He dikes (June, 1938) to slow the enemy advance. In late 1938, Hankou and Guangzhou were taken.

Japanese strategy was aimed at taking the cities, the roads, and the railroads, thereby gaining a net of control. Thus, although the Japanese by 1940 had swept over the eastern coastal area, guerrilla fighting still went on in the conquered regions. The Nationalist government, driven back to a temporary capital at Chongqing, struggled on with little help from outside. Chinese resources were inadequate, and the supplies sent over the Burma Road were far from sufficient. The Chinese cause continued to decline despite vast resistance and bloody fighting. Dubious of China's ability to sustain a protracted war, Wang Ching-wei broke with Chiang Kai-shek and established a collaborationist regime at Nanjing (1940).

World War II

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war and merged the Sino-Japanese War into World War II as China declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. American and British loans and supplies, the establishment of military air bases in China, and the aid of an increasing number of U.S. and British advisers helped relieve China as Japan diverted armies elsewhere. Nevertheless, China's military position continued to deteriorate until Apr., 1945. In May the Chinese launched a successful offensive at Zhijiang (Chihkiang) that lasted until Japanese capitulation on Aug. 14. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered Sept. 9, 1945. By the provisions of the Cairo Declaration, Manchuria, Taiwan, and the Pescadores were restored to China.

Bibliography

See H. Feis, The China Tangle (1953); F. C. Jones, Japan's New Order in East Asia (1954); D. J. Lu, From the Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor (1961); J. H. Boyle, China and Japan at War, 1937-1945 (1972); L. Li, The Japanese Army in North China (1975).

Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) Although the Japanese had occupied Manchuria since 1931 and created the colony of Manchukuo there, the attention of the National Government under Chiang Kai-shek had been diverted by its attempt to overcome the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chiang was eventually forced by his own generals (led by Chang Hsüeh-liang) at Xi'an to declare a truce with the Communists and form a United Front against the Japanese. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937 provided the trigger for hostilities, leading to the rapid advance of the well-equipped Guandong Army. Within six months, the Japanese had taken most of the Yangtze Valley, Guangzhou (Canton), and the capital of the National Government, Nanjing (Nanking). Chiang recognized, however, that ultimately the Japanese lacked the numbers to conquer the whole of China, and by 1939 their advance had halted. Chiang's National Republican Army engaged the Japanese in open warfare, while Mao Zedong's Communist Red Army weakened the Japanese through guerrilla attacks. War was formally declared only after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thereafter, the Japanese were diverted in military operations throughout the Pacific and south-eastern Asia, while Chiang received some US aid. The Japanese were eventually defeated in World War II. The main significance of the war for China lay in the reversal of relative strength between Communist and Nationalist forces. While the Communists grew in strength through peasant support, secured through effective administration and land reforms, the Nationalists' strength declined rapidly during the war through heavy losses incurred in frontal assaults against the Japanese. In this sense, it served as a prelude to the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War (1946–9).

Yan'an

Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) A conflict on the Chinese mainland between combined nationalist and communist Chinese forces and Japan. China had been the target of Japanese expansionism since the late 19th century, and after the MUKDEN INCIDENT of 1931 full-scale war was only a matter of time. Hostilities broke out, without any formal declaration of war by either side, after a clash near the Marco Polo bridge just west of Beijing in 1937. The Japanese overran northern China, penetrating up the Yangtze and along the railway lines, capturing Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Hankou by the end of 1938. In the ‘Rape of Nanjing’, over 100,000 civilians were massacred by Japanese troops. The invaders were resisted by both the KUOMINTANG army of the nationalist leader CHIANG KAI-SHEK and the communist 8th Route Army, the former being supplied after 1941 by Britain and the USA. By the time the conflict had been absorbed into World War II, the Sino-Japanese War had reached a state of near stalemate, Japanese military and aerial superiority being insufficient to overcome tenacious Chinese resistance and the problems posed by massive distances and poor communications. The Chinese kept over a million Japanese troops tied down for the entire war, inflicting a heavy defeat upon them at Jiangxi in 1942 and successfully repelling a final series of offensives in 1944 and 1945. The Japanese finally surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek on 9 September 1945, leaving him to contest the control of China with MAO ZEDONG's communist forces.