8 replies to this topic

[hansioux]

I need to know specific important details about China war effort in WWII, like what did the Chinese do exactly, how much territory and battles did they fight against the Japanese, and what was the extent of American actions in China, since i honestly can't find any real detailed information on the subject.

The most important thing China did was helped out the Brits in India and Burma. They tied the Japanese down in South East Asia.

[Liang Jieming]

Extracted from my Chronology of Chinese History & Culture.

1931-1945

A.D. 1931 Mukden Incident. Japan invades Manchuria renaming it Manchukuo. Fierce Chinese resistance in Shanghai prevent a Japanese occupation of the city.
A.D. 1931 Mao Zedong proclaims the Chinese People's Republic.
A.D. 1933 Japanese troops take Chengteh (Jehol).
A.D. 1934-1935 Communist Long March to escape the Guomindang.
A.D. 1936 Nationalist troops mutiny in Xian, kidnapping Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) forcing him to cease hostilities against the Communists and unite against the Japanese.
A.D. 1937 Japanese take Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai.
A.D. 1937 Maoist fighters defeat Japanese at Pingxingguan Pass in Shanxi.
A.D. 1937 The capital Nanjing falls to the Japanese. 40,000 Chinese die in the "Rape of Nanking". Capital moves to Chongqing.
A.D. 1938 Twelve Chinese fighter planes dropped bombs on Japan in the first ever air attack on Japan.
A.D. 1938 Chinese troops stop the Japanese advance towards Xuzhou at Taierzhuang. [Taierzhuang]
A.D. 1939 Dikes are broken by military engineers, drastically altering the course of the Huang He in an attempt to stop the Japanese advance.
A.D. 1940 Hundred Regiments Offensive launched by the Communist Red Army commanded by Peng Dehuai against the Japanese in central China.
A.D. 1941 China declares war on the Axis powers, Japan, Germany and Italy on the side of the Allies.
A.D. 1942 Nationalist troops stop and repel advancing Japanese armies from Changsha, effectively halting the Japanese penetration of the interior. [Changsha]
A.D. 1944-1949 Uighur rebels in southwest Xinjiang declare the Eastern Turkestan Republic.
A.D. 1945 Japan surrenders. End of the second World War.
A.D. 1945 Jiang Jieshi's troops reclaim Taiwan island from Japanese rule.

[ahxiang]

This is about American involvement. Not pretty. People like John Fairbank could survice as a closet communist all along. In another perspective, you have to admire the extraordinary efforts of the Third Communists International agents. They pulled out the job. Millions of Chinese died in vain.


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<A HREF="http://www.uglychine...lwar">1945-1949 Civil War</A>
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<A HREF="http://www.uglychine...shen">Liao-Shen Campaign</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.uglychine...m#korea">Korean War</A>
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<A HREF="http://www.uglychine...nam">Vietnamese War</A>


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Rifts Between US & China Over War Against Japan
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<a href=http://www.uglychinese.org/war.htm#amerasia>CCP Relationship With US, & The Amerasia Case</a>
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<a href=http://www.uglychinese.org/war.htm#Yalta>Yalta Betrayal</a>: <a href=http://www.uglychinese.org/war.htm#betrayal>At China's Expense</a>
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<b>Related Readings</b>:
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<a target=new href="http://en.wikipedia....i/Amerasia">The Amerasia Case & Coverup By US Government</a>
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<a target=new href="http://www.umsl.edu/...gaynst.htm">The Legend of Mark Gayn</a>
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<a target=new href="http://theoccidental...rsion.html">The Reality of Red Subversion: The Recent Confirmation of Soviet Espionage in America</a>
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<a target=new href=http://www.spongobongo.com/her9984.htm>Notes on Owen Lattimore</a>
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It would not be strange that Stilwell and Marshal were closet communists as well !!!
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Stilwell, before his kickout from China, paid a visit to Mme Sun Yat-sen the No. 1 Comintern agent in China.
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George Marshal returned Zhou Enlai's address book to Zhou Enlai, while never alerting Chiang Kai-shek of communist spy like Xiong Xianghui. This is how CHINA WAS LOST.
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CCP Relationship With US

On Oct 31st, Wedemeyer arrived in Chongqing. Wedemeyer, who had met with Chiang Kai-shek at the Nov 1943 Cairo Meeting, had served served under regiment chief Marshal together with Stilwell in Tientsin around mid-1920s. After arriving in Chongqing, Wedemeyer immediately established the “chief-of-staff” office that Stilwell did not even bother to work on. In Nov 1944, Chiang Kai-shek adopted the American advice in reforming the "jun [military] ling [order] bu [department" of the military commission by replacing Heh Yingqin with Chen Cheng, which led to the transformation of the military commission to the Defense Department after Japanese surrender.

On Nov 7th 1944, TV Soong suggested that Hurley go to Yenan after Russian consulate official hinted to Jiang Jingguo that Stalin might hold a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek in regards to Russian acknowledgment of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in preference over communists.1 Hurley flew to Yenan for establishing a joint KMT-CCP government that would be based on communist relinquishing administrative and military control in exchange for assumption of cabinet posts. Zhou Enlai, seeing Hurley's arrival, immediately went back to fetch Mao Te-tung for a reception at the airport. On Oct 8th, Hurley stated that Chiang Kai-shek was willing to acknowledge the communists and admit the communists to the high command military committee. Mao Tse-tung first rebutted Chiang Kai-shek's qualification for leading communist troops, and then proposed to establish a joint military committee for equal-footing consultation. Zhou Enlai softened the situation by claiming that 100 million people in “liberated area” would not agree with Chiang Kai-shek. Hurley produced a stack of documents, with five points as to CCP-KMT collaboration. Mao Te-tung countered Hurley by having Zhu De & Zhou Enlai draft with five modified points, stating that communists were willing to have unification of military and politics on the precondition that Chiang Kai-shek's National Government be converted to a “coalition government”.

On Nov 10h, Hurley brought the signed stipulations back to Chongqing. Zhou Enlai advised Hurley of bypassing TV Song in sending the document to Chiang Kai-shek.2 Chiang Kai-shek then countered with three points draft, which was to emphasize the unification of command under the military commission of the National Government in exchange for communist participation in such committee. On Nov 22nd, the new draft was presented to Zhou Enlai who hastily declined by demanding the precondition of forming a coalition government. Zhou Enlai, Dong Biwu and David Barnett flew to Yenan on Dec 7th.

Mao and communists had constrived the idea of a joint government as a precondition with more than likely inputs from “leftist” US State Department personnel. In addition to an expectation for a coalition government, the communist side had all along received private assurance from Stilwell and State Department personnel that US military aids could be shared between the Nationalist Army and the communist army. Mao Tse-tung certainly resented US support for Chiang Kai-shek by claiming to David Barnett that "there would be one day when you Americans could not prop up [KMT regime] any more". Separately, Mao Tse-tung claimed to John Service that each and every American soldier should be a live advertisement of democracy in China.3 Barnett, two days later, brought back a communist threat of taking initiative for establishing a different Chinese regime should 'coalition government' fail to take place. In a rage, Hurley kicked Davies out of China for producing the 'coalition government' idea.

On Dec 15th 1944, Hurley took over the ambassador job from Gauss. On Jan 9th 1945, Chinese communists, having determined that Hurley was not on their side, contacted the Dixie Mission for relaying a letter to Roosevelt direct, with a suggestion that Mao Tse-tung or Zhou Enlai could personally make a trip to USA for such an in-person meeting with Roosevelt. Wedemeyer revoked Barrett's chief post for Dixie delegation4 in mid-Jan. The fallout was due to Barrett and Bird's secret mission to Yenan on Dec 14th 1944, during which time Donovan's Office of Strategic Services promised to equip 25,000 communist guerrilla fighters. In Yenan [Yan'an], Mao Tse-tung and communists, with full knowledge that OSS had unlimited unvouched money5, had thought that they might really obtain a big sum loan from the US government for purchasing weapons and ammunition from puppet troops. On Jan 23nd, Zhu De requested for a loan of 20 million US dollars. Hurley consequently cautioned the embassy officials and officers that nobody should ever discuss the matter of military aid or financial aid for any Chinese party or military faction.6

Other than Wedemeyer's sending away Barrett, Hurley kicked out Jack Service and Ray Ludden from US embassy in Chongqing. The fallout was related to Service's instigating the embassy staff into a direct report to the Washington DC in the absence of Hurley who returned to Washington DC on Feb 19th 1945 for Yalta Agreement briefings. Service mentioned in the report that Chinese communist had undertaken actions in accordance with last summer's threat, i.e., expanding their domain southward by encroaching on KMT territories, including South China, with erupture of skirmishes against Central Government troops. After receiving Service-drafted letter, State Department attached it to a report for Secretary of State to pass on to the US President, basically stating that it was no longer a matter of choice between Chiang Kai-shek and Chinese communists but to force Chiang Kai-shek into allowing the US to arm whoever was willing to fight Japanese. Other than US State Department officials, some emissary under finance minister Morgenthau repeatedly attacked Hurley as someone who caused the Chinese communists distant from US. Inside of State Department, China section chief, while emphasizing the American elasticity policy to Chiang Kai-shek regime, had suggested that i) militarily equipping the Chinese army for fighting Japanese being the American short-term goal, any measures that would make China into a post-war strong power in Asia is unrealistic; ii) that United States should also make it a short-term agenda to army any Chinese fighting force whenever American military landed on the Chinese coasts; iii) that American long-term objective would be to help China to become a united, democratic and cooperating country, but not necessarily under Chiang Kai-shek; and iv) that elastic relationship with Chiang Kai-shek is essential to future US cooperation with other Chinese political forces.7

Hurley, having seen Service report on March 4th, cursed Service as a s.o.b. and promised to get rid of Service even though it meant his last action on job. Hurley obtained support from Wedemeyer and Dulles. Roosevelt, after Yalta, badly needed Hurley for fending off accusations that he had signed 'conspiracy' agreements with Stalin. On April 2nd, Hurley hosted a news conference and defended the US's China policy. Hurley, under Roosevelt's authorizations, flew to Moscow and London consecutively for lobbying for China's interests as a makeup for the secret betrayal at Yalta. On April 3rd, Hurley went to London. Churchill flatly declined Hurley's request to yield HK back to China as an international open port. On April 15th, en route to Moscow, Hurley heard about Roosevelt's death. Unlike bad experiences in London, Stalin assured Hurley that he would do everything possible to help China unite under the National Government.

Edited by ahxiang, 24 July 2005 - 09:29 PM.

[Grigori]

Had China sued for peace in the late 30's, Japan would be totally unchecked. Not only would it threaten British India, but an often forgotten issue was it's designs on the Russian Far East and Mongolia.

The reason Hitler allied with Japan was so Japan can help it defeat the Soviet Union. But Japan couldn't because most of the Japanese army was tied down in China. Nobody expected the Chinese to still be fighting by 1940.

If Japan was free to act against USSR in 1941, Germany would likely have defeated the Soviets and the European theater would be a very different story. Also imagine the danger to the Allied cause if Japan succeeded in reaching India and rallying the pro-independence groups to disrupt food supplies to Britain.

China's main role in WWII was to tie down the bulk of the Japanese ground troops to prevent WWII from getting much more complicated for the Allies.

[temujin77]

Alot more than 40,000 people died in The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang had estimated it to be 350,000 after a 6 week period.

I've seen numbers go as low as 30k and as high as almost 500k. They're all estimates and no one knows the exact number. German businessman John Rabe who was in the international zone in Nanjing at the time estimated 50,000 to 60,000 deaths. Missionary John Magee's estimate was around the same number. I generally regard those two as "probably near target" estimates since they had less incentive to sway estimates either way. Chinese estimates were generally very high, based on the fact of how many people originally lived in Nanjing and how many escaped into the city from north of the city. Japanese estimates were, naturally, generally on the lower side, claiming that bulk of the civilians had already fled the city and the Japanese troops could not possibly have killed so many people if they didn't exist. I don't think anybody can possibly know exactly how many died, all we know is that the terrible event happened and a lot of people died.

[temujin77]

Had China sued for peace in the late 30's, Japan would be totally unchecked. Not only would it threaten British India, but an often forgotten issue was it's designs on the Russian Far East and Mongolia.

The reason Hitler allied with Japan was so Japan can help it defeat the Soviet Union. But Japan couldn't because most of the Japanese army was tied down in China. Nobody expected the Chinese to still be fighting by 1940.

If Japan was free to act against USSR in 1941, Germany would likely have defeated the Soviets and the European theater would be a very different story. Also imagine the danger to the Allied cause if Japan succeeded in reaching India and rallying the pro-independence groups to disrupt food supplies to Britain.

China's main role in WWII was to tie down the bulk of the Japanese ground troops to prevent WWII from getting much more complicated for the Allies.

Well said. All Japan had to do was to not sign that armistice with Russia (or violate it the same time Hitler did with his) and Russia will need to maintain Zhukov in the east to fight the Japanese. That means Zhukov would never race back to Moscow and Moscow probably would've fallen to the German troops.

However, one must also realize the fact the Axis alliance was an alliance in name only; Germany and Japan cooperated next to nothing militarily. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hitler wasn't really informed. When Germany was developing the jet engine, Japan only started to receive this technology too late in the war. When German u-boats devastated shipping in the north Atlantic, had the Italian navy in the Red Sea (hence near Indian Ocean) and the Japanese submarines in the Pacific/Indian Oceans combined their efforts, the Allies would've had a much more difficult time with logistics. I think the Axis alliance, foundamentally, was a failure from the start anyway, adding to the long list of things (like the determined Chinese resistance) that led to its demise.