Second Sino-Japanese War

Chinese In both China's Mainland and Taiwan, the war is most commonly known as the "War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression" (), and the name of it is usually shortened to "Resistance against Japanese Aggression" () or the "War of Resistance" (). The countries also use the term "Eight Years' War of Resistance" (), a traditional view which dates the war's beginning to the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937. Since 2017, the Chinese Communist Party's official view of Chinese historiography has held the 18 September 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria as the start of the" Fourteen Years' War of Resistance" (十四年抗战; 十四年抗戰). The 1931–1937 period is viewed as the "partial" war, which includes the "Northeast War of Resistance" (东北抗战), while 1937–1945 is viewed as a period of "total" war. and domestically for the role of northeast China in the War of Resistance. Japanese In contemporary Japan, the name "Japan–China War" () is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. Dating the beginning of the war may also vary in Japanese context, with one Japanese historiographical view regarding the war as a "Fifteen-Year War" (Jyugonen Sensô), covering the period beginning with the invasion of Manchuria through the atomic bombings, and including both the war in China and the Pacific war. 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. In Japanese propaganda, the invasion of China became a holy war (), the first step of the "eight corners of the world under one roof" slogan (). 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" (). Although the Japanese government still uses the term "China Incident" in formal documents, the word Shina is considered derogatory by China and therefore the media in Japan often paraphrase with other expressions like "The Japan–China Incident" (), 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 (), rather than the First Sino-Japanese War. ==Background==

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) concluded with the defeat of China, then under the rule of the Qing dynasty, by Japan. Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, China was forced to cede Taiwan and recognize the full and complete independence of Korea. 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. 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. 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 In 1911, factions of the Qing Army uprose against the government, staging a revolution that swept across China's southern provinces. The Qing responded by appointing Yuan Shikai, commander of the loyalist Beiyang Army, as temporary prime minister in order to subdue the revolution. 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. 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 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. 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. Following World War I, Japan acquired the German Empire's sphere of influence in Shandong province, 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. 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. 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. Relations between the Chinese Nationalist government and Japan severely worsened as a result of the Jinan incident. Reunification of China (1928) 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. 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. 1929 Sino-Soviet war 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. 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. Chinese Communist Party conflict with the Kuomintang 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 focused its efforts on suppressing the Chinese Communists instead of opposing the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek reasoned that only a unified command could resist foreign powers, leading to his defensive policy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance" (), through its encirclement campaigns against the Communists. Following the 1931 Mukden Incident, Nationalist planners identified critical vulnerabilities in the Guomindang's urban-centric economic base, particularly the concentration of heavy industry in vulnerable coastal cities. Chiang Kai-shek’s policy of 'internal pacification' was not just a military campaign against the communists, but also a major economic reorganization project. Recognizing that China lacked the industrial base for a localized total war in 1930, the Nationalist government sought to consolidate the southwestern interior as a strategic base while attempting to modernize the national currency and military before a full-scale confrontation with Japan became inevitable. To address these weaknesses, the central government initiated projects to modernize and solidify the Guomintang's control over the national currency and industrial structure, while planning for the eventual redistribution of factories and arsenals to the interior. Nationalist forces prioritized the destruction of Communist soviets, driving the CCP out of their enclaves and onto the Long March to Yan'an by 1934. On 1 August 1935, the Communist Party issued the August First Declaration. ==Invasion of Manchuria and Northern China==

during the Mukden Incident The chronic 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, 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". 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 However, Chiang had recognized the incoming threat of a Japanese invasion, and had secretly begun war preparations since 1932, such as creating the National Defense Planning Council, recruiting German military advisors, and purchasing foreign arms. Incessant fighting followed the Mukden Incident. In 1932, Chinese and Japanese troops clashed in Shanghai during 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. Under Chi Shi-ying and his protégé Lo Ta-yu's leadership, the Kuomintang also established the Northeast Anti-Manchukuo and Anti-Japanese Association as well as the September 18th Alliance. These organizations developed an extensive underground intelligence network and coordinated anti-Japanese activities in Manchuria. 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 (), 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. ==1937: Start of full-scale war==

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. The initial confused and sporadic skirmishing was escalated into the first full-scale battle weeks later. However, negotiations continued even past the Battle of Shanghai with the Trautmann mediation and Nine Power Treaty Conference. Total war began after the Battle of Nanking and Nanjing Massacre, when Fumimaro Konoe declared that Japan would no longer negotiate with Chiang Kai-Shek. Unlike Japan, China was unprepared for total war and had little military-industrial strength, no mechanized divisions, and few armoured forces. Soon after 1937, local Chinese guerilla forces organized spontaneously. Since October 1936, Moscow continuously proposed a mutual security pact with China, but the deal was never accepted, even after the Xi'an Incident. On 5 June 1937, Joseph Stalin again proposed a mutual security pact to China, but Foreign Minister Wang Chonghui only submitted it to Chiang a day after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Chiang immediately tried to accept the mutual security offer, but by then the USSR considered it too late and instead proposed a non-aggression pact. On 16 July, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull issued a public statement of principles advocating for the "sanctity of treaties" and the "abstinence by all nations from use of force." Chiang Kai-shek had been closely monitoring Western reactions, and relied on a long-term strategy of obtaining support from the League of Nations and the world at large to punish Japan. However, as American policy followed what Hull summed up as "keeping this country out of war," the diplomatic signals were intentionally vague to retain impartiality. On 17 July, Chiang Kai-shek delivered the Lushan Statement, framing the incident as a struggle for the nation's survival and declaring that China had reached its "limit of endurance." Chiang outlined his demands for peace to Japan, including that the 29th Army be allowed to move freely in the area. This statement essentially transformed the local incident into a national cause of resistance. Although Chiang was ready to accept the local ceasefire, he slowed the withdrawal from the area to gauge international response. After the Tongzhou mutiny on 29 July, Chinese soldiers assigned to a Japanese-backed puppet government mutinied and killed approximately 200 Japanese and Korean civilians. This inflamed anti-Chinese sentiments in Japan, convinced many in the military that escalation in China was necessary. On August 6, 1937, Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky reportedly assured Chinese officials that if the United States, England, and France offered mediation and Japan rejected it, "the Soviet Union would go to war on the side of China." Chiang Kai-shek, bolstered by these continued Russian promises of armed assistance, "personally wished to fight" rather than accept a diplomatic compromise with Japan. Foreign Minister Kōki Hirota attempted to bring the conflict to a close through the "Funatsu Operation" on August 7. The plan was entrusted to Funatsu Tatsuichirō, a former consul-general. The Japanese hoped for the establishment of a larger demilitarized zone from Beiping to Tianjin, possible reecognition of Manchukuo, and a Sino-Japanese anti-communist pact. However, negotiations collapsed after the Ōyama Incident on 9 August, which occurred on the same day Funatsu arrived to meet with Chinese officials. Battle of Shanghai , 1937 The Imperial General Headquarters (GHQ) in Tokyo was 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. However, the situation in Shanghai reached a breaking point on 9 August 1937, when the Ōyama Incident occurred with the shooting of two Japanese officers who were attempting to enter the Hongqiao military airport. 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. , defending a street intersection, Shanghai, 1937. 88th Division (National Revolutionary Army) Chiang Kai-shek and his generals were influenced by assurances from Soviet Ambassador Dmitry Bogomolov, who had promised that China could expect support from the Soviet Union if it undertook armed resistance. The Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed on 21 August 21. The USSR delivered military aid through Operation Zet, including aircraft, tanks, equipment, and military advisors. However, the Soviet Union never directly intervened in the war like Chiang had hoped. In late August, the Japanese Army landed reinforcements in northern Shanghai. Chinese commanders quickly rushed forces to counter the landings, resulting in heavy fighting including trench and urban warfare. Both sides suffered high casualty rates in the attrition. As the battle in Shanghai continued, Japan advanced along railway lines in the North, until they reached Jinan and the Yellow River. Alongside Mengjiang forces, Japan invaded Taiyuan and the North China area. By 26 October, the IJA had captured Dachang, a key strong-point within Shanghai, and on 5 November, additional reinforcements from Japan landed in Hangzhou Bay behind Chinese lines. On November 9, the 10th Army reinforced Hangzhou Bay, and the NRA began a general retreat. 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. 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. The Japanese military's non-expansion policy was discarded when Japanese generals disobeyed orders and began to pursue retreating Chinese forces past the restriction line on November 19, aiming to encircle Nanjing. The Japanese Army General Staff then authorized the capture of Nanjing on November 28, 1937, to force a conclusion to the conflict. '' In November 1937, the Japanese concentrated 220,000 soldiers and began a campaign against Nanjing . 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. 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. The Japanese atrocities in Nanjing, especially following the Chinese defense of Shanghai, increased international goodwill for the Chinese people and the Chinese government. ==1938: Japanese advances and Chinese strategic retreat==

By January 1938, most conventional Kuomintang forces had either been defeated or no longer offered major resistance to Japanese advances. Following the fall of Shanghai and Nanjing in late 1937, the Nationalist military command began a war of attrition known as "trading space for time" ().By gradually withdrawing into China's vast interior and establishing the rugged southwestern province of Sichuan as a final defensive base, the Guomindang intended to over-extend Japanese supply lines while reconstituting its depleted central armies. Battles of Xuzhou and Taierzhuang 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. 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. 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. Battle of Wuhan 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. 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. After four months of intense combat, the Nationalists were forced to abandon Wuhan by October, and its government and armies retreated to Chongqing. Communist resistance 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. The Eighth Route Army carried out guerilla operations and established military and political bases. As the Japanese military came to understand that the Communists avoided conventional attacks and defense, it altered its tactics. 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. Aerial Bombardments on Chongqing 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 ==1939–1943: Chinese counter-offensives==

By 1939, the Nationalist army had withdrawn to the southwest and northwest of China and the Japanese controlled the coastal cities that had been centres of Nationalist power. 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. 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 unable to command his generals effectively, 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. 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. Second phase: October 1938 – December 1941 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. In April 1941, Soviet aid to China halted with the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. The CCP formally stated that the pact was "a great victory for Soviet diplomacy" and "was beneficial to liberation throughout China." The Three Alls Policy Japan had occupied much of north and coastal China by the end of 1941, 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. From 1941 to 1942, Japan concentrated most of its forces in China in an effort to defeat the CCP bases behind Japan's lines. 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 fostered the legitimacy of the CCP, but the level of support the central government would provide to the communists was 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. 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. 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". 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. Entrance of the Western Allies with Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell in 1942, British Burma Japan had expected to extract economic benefits of its invasions of China and elsewhere, including in the form of fuel and raw material resources. 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. 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. China was one of the "Big Four" Allied Powers during the war. 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. 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. Philippine and Japanese ocean weather was affected by weather originating near northern China. The base of SACO was located in Yangjiashan. 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. 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. During this campaign, the Imperial Japanese Army left behind a trail of devastation and also spread cholera, typhoid, plague and dysentery pathogens. Chinese estimates record 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. It caused more than 16 million civilians to evacuate far away deep inward China. Around 90% of Ningbo's population had already fled before battle started. , 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. 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). Chinese forces advanced to northern Burma in late 1943, besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina, and captured Mount Song. The British and Commonwealth forces had their operation in Mission 204 which attempted to provide assistance to the Chinese Nationalist Army. 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. ==1944-1945 and Operation Ichi-Go==

In 1944, the Communists launched counteroffensives from the liberated areas against Japanese forces. Japanese forces advanced along Chinese railway lines and targeted American airfields. Chinese armies were poorly supplied and unprepared, and consequently lost 300,000 casualties along with large swathes of territory. 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. ==Chinese industrial base and the CIC==

The Second Sino-Japanese War had quickly harmed China's economy, with one of the earliest attacks being the Battle of Shanghai in 1937. With Shanghai, being a major industrial and foreign relations port for the Chinese and now under Japanese control, the Chinese economy industry took a big hit. In an effort to rectify this, Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (CIC) were created in 1937, under the "Gung Ho" Movement, before becoming formalized in 1938. The creation of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives allowed the Chinese people to establish smaller industry centers in small towns across China, allowing for economic and industrial production away from battle or possible Japanese invasion. In addition to supporting the economy, more immediate efforts were placed on supporting the Chinese military in producing whatever materials were needed for the war. Chinese refugees and those displaced by the war were hired by CICs to help production. The CICs relied on foreign aid and contributions, which drew mixed reactions. Overall, the CIC program failed as they had a goal of creating 30,000 cooperatives, but only succeeded in making approximately 2,000 cooperatives instead. The name "Gung Ho" comes from the Americanization of the Chinese name for Chinese Industrial Cooperatives. The full name, "工業合作社" (gōng yè hé zuò shè) was often shortened to the term "工合" (gōng hé), which was mistaken by U.S. Marine Evans Fordyce Carlson to mean "work together". Carlson then went on to use this believed motto as his slogan throughout the war, generating that phrase "Gung Ho" that has come to be in the English language. ==Foreign aid==

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. 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, 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 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. 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. Korea The exiled Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (KPG) based in Chongqing allied with Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Army against the Japanese. The KPG established the Korean Liberation Army (KLA) to fight against the Japanese in China. Germany 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. 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. 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. Soviet Union 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. 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, and 227 of them died fighting there. The Soviet Union provided financial aid to both the Communists and the Nationalists. 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. 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, 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), 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. 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." 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. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Japan corresponded to the following share of American exports. " 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. Disagreements existed both between the United States and the Nationalists, and within the United States military, about the form of aid. 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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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==

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. 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. The Revolutionary League was controlled by Nguyen Hai Than, who was born in China and could not speak Vietnamese. 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. The KMT utilized these Vietnamese nationalists during World WarII against Japanese forces. 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. 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. 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. ==Central Asian rebellions==

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. As the war went on, Nationalist General Ma Buqing was in virtual control of the Gansu corridor. 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. 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. ==Ethnic minorities==

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. Ma Bufang ended up supporting the anti-Japanese Imam Hu Songshan, who prayed for the destruction of the Japanese. Ma became chairman (governor) of Qinghai in 1938 and commanded a group army. He was appointed because of his anti-Japanese inclinations, and was such an obstruction to Japanese agents trying to contact the Tibetans that he was called an "adversary" by a Japanese agent. Hui Muslims Hui cemeteries were destroyed for military reasons. 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. 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. 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. ==Conclusion in 1945 and aftermath==

End of the Pacific War and the surrender of Japanese troops in China During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese had consistent tactical successes but they failed to achieve strategic results. 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 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. 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" ( jiǔ) is a homophone of the word for "long lasting" () in Chinese (to suggest that the peace won would last forever). Chiang relied on American help in transporting Nationalist troops to regain control of formerly Japanese-occupied areas. 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. The Nationalists committed their strongest divisions in early battle against the Japanese (including the 36th, 87th, 88th 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. During the course of the war, more than 200,000 Chinese women had been forced to become sex slaves of the Japanese military, known euphemistically as comfort women. ==Legacy==

Commemorations The days during which each country holds its respective commemorations relate to events surrounding the end of World War II. China observes September 3 as the Victory Day of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, marking when Japan officially surrendered in Tokyo. Japan observes August 15 as it is the day when Emperor Hirohito declared Japan's surrender. Major museums in China commemorate China's War of Resistance, including the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, the Nanjing Museum of the Site of the Lijixiang Comfort Stations, and the Chinese Comfort Women History Museum. The PRC also has organized projects to collect archival evidence and oral histories of people who witnessed atrocities by the Japanese forces, including a nationwide project begun in 2004 to collect data on casualties and property destruction. Museums such as the Yushukan Museum in Tokyo, which has an exhibit dedicated to the Second Sino-Japanese War containing artifacts of military elites, and memorial museums for Hiroshima and Nagasaki all allow the Japanese to remember the events of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. China-Japan relations , a Shinto shrine dedicated to honoring the Japanese killed in war. It was established in 1869 by Emperor Meiji and remains a popular site for the Japanese and tourists. The war remains a major obstacle for Sino-Japanese relations. Many in Japan recognize the country's war crimes, but as of 2025 denialists continue to be a significant force in the Japanese public sphere. 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 WarII, all historical issues which have faced challenges from ultranationalists in the past. 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. 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". Taiwan and the island of Taiwan During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan was a Japanese colony that was used as a strategic base for military operations against China and Southeast Asia. Native Han Chinese inhabitants on the island were given the option of moving back to the mainland, although few did, and some put up an armed resistance against the Japanese. This formed the backbone of the nascent Taiwanese independence movement. In the period before the war in the Pacific widened, Japan came to regard Taiwan as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" and an important stepping stone in its military expansion. There were indigenous Taiwanese who worked in Japan's defense and war-related industries in Taiwan that abetted Japan's war efforts. Many Taiwanese served in the Japanese military, including units that fought in China, resulting in the combat deaths of nearly 30,000. The future President, Lee Teng-hui (aa Kuomintang member) was one of those conscripted. After the surrender, 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. 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. 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. 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 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). The Japanese government claims that these women had willingly chosen to stay in China, believing that women thirteen years of age and older were capable of making the decision to stay or leave China. Due to this, many women faced legal and cultural concerns about returning to Japan, such as less employment opportunities, less governmental aid and discrimination. Many of these women had gotten married and started families with Chinese men, which produced children ineligible to enter Japan due to their lack of Japanese citizenship. Additionally, Japan created repatriation legislation determined by both based on age (if they were minors) and if the individual willfully stayed in China or was forcibly separated from Japan. Other factors such as poor Sino-Japanese relations as well as poorer communication to rural areas, where many of these women lived, also prevented many Japanese women from returning to Japan. Korean women left in China In China some Korean comfort women stayed behind instead of going back to their native land. Most Korean comfort women who were left behind in China married Chinese men. Korean women and young girls brought to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War were brought by the Japanese as comfort women. These women were used as a sexual outlet by Japanese soldiers. Since the early 1930s, the Japanese brought more than two hundred thousand women, mostly Korean women, to China; however some estimates reach up to five hundrend thousand women. Many of the women became pregnant and gave birth to children. Some women recall being raped by Japanese soldiers more than fifty times a day. While some of these Korean women also stayed in China and married Chinese men and started families, many were killed by the Japanese towards the end of the war. Those who returned to Korea faced social barring and stigmatism, making it difficult for these women to move on from their horrific pasts, and some knowing of the shame they would face stayed in China. ==Casualties==

. More than 5,000 civilians died during the first two days of air raids in 1939. 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. Chinese Figures for Chinese deaths in the Second Sino-Japanese War vary. Modern estimates fall between 10 million and 20 million deaths, with a consensus of 15 million to 16 million total Chinese deaths, military and civilian. Of these numbers, between 5 million and 6 million starved to death or died from disease. Official PRC statistics for China's civilian and military casualties in the Second Sino-Japanese War list over 35 million casualties, including over 20 million dead. Military casualties amounted to over 3.85 million out of the over 35 million figure. Based on data released by the Nationalists and Communists from 1945 to 1947, the total losses for Chinese military personnel and civilians in the Second Sino-Japanese War amounted to 22,782,959 casualties (9,530,317 dead, 9,905,880 wounded or crippled, 540,562 missing, and 2,806,200 captured). Dr. Bian Xiuyue, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, puts total Chinese losses between 1931 and 1945 at 20,620,939 dead and estimated the number of wounded at 20,692,246, for a total of 41,313,185 dead or wounded. One study showed a drop of 18 million in the Chinese population during the war. Rudolph Rummel gives a figure of 10,216,000 total dead in the war, of which 3,949,000 were murdered directly by the Japanese army, and the rest due to indirect causes like starvation, disease and disruption. Taiwanese official accounts of the war report the Nationalist Chinese Army lost 3,238,000 military casualties (1,797,000 wounded, 1,320,000 killed, and 120,000 missing) and 5,787,352 civilians putting total casualties at 9,025,352. The Ministry of Military Affairs recorded a total of 10,322,934 losses from illnesses, reorganizations, and desertions. Postwar Nationalist investigations 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. They recorded 2,313 casualties (1,042 killed and 1,271 wounded) in the Air Defense Service and 9,134,569 civilian casualties (4,397,504 dead and 4,737,065 wounded). The Ministry of Military Affairs recorded losses among hospitalized soldiers in institutions directly run by the Nationalist Government at 443,398 for their wounded (45,710 dead, 123,017 crippled, and 274,671 deserted) and 937,559 losses for their sick (422,479 dead, 191,644 crippled, and 323,436 deserted), with a total of 1,380,957 losses (468,189 dead, 314,661 crippled, and 598,107 deserted). This was based on the National Central Research Institute's study of China's losses from 7 July 1937 until 6 July 1943. 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, The Guangdong famine caused more than 3 million people to flee or die. Victor Hanson estimates total Chinese deaths from disease and starvation are between 5 million and 6 million. According to historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta, at least 2.47 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. The property losses suffered by the Chinese were 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). The war created 95 million refugees. Of the 1,740,955 Japanese soldiers who died during World WarII, 22 percent died in China. Around 900,000 Japanese soldiers were wounded in China. 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. Both Nationalist and Communist Chinese sources report that their respective forces were responsible for the deaths of over 1.7 million Japanese soldiers. 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. In 1940, the National Herald stated that the Japanese exaggerated Chinese casualties, while concealing the true number of Japanese casualties, releasing false figures that made them appear much lower. Use of chemical and biological weapons In contravention of 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, article 171 of the Treaty of Versailles and despite 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. 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. The Japanese were very dependent on gas weapons when they were engaged in chemical warfare. 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, 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. 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. 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. They were also used during the invasion of Changde. Those orders were transmitted either by Prince Kan'in Kotohito or General Hajime Sugiyama. 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 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. 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. 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. 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. Japan gave its own soldiers methamphetamines in the form of Philopon. Use of suicide attacks Chinese armies deployed "dare to die corps" () or "suicide squads" against the Japanese. 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. 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, 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. During one incident at Taierzhuang, Chinese suicide bombers destroyed four Japanese tanks with grenade bundles. ==Combatants==