Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War had a significant impact on the course of the Chinese Revolution. Known in China as the ‘War of Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression’, it was a catastrophic conflict for the Chinese people, causing up to 20 million casualties. It also had serious political repercussions for the nationalist Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party.

Japanese troops were notorious for their brutal treatment of civilians and military prisoners. The Japanese occupation of Nanjing from December 1937, is often referred to as the "Rape of Nanjing" led around 300,000 Chinese civilians to be massacred. Thousands of civilians were buried alive, machine-gunned or used for bayonet practice. The Japanese also conducted human experimentation in secret bases in China. Unit 731 in the country’s northeast was the largest biological and chemical warfare testing facility. Prisoners there were injected with diseases like anthrax, smallpox, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. Other experiments studied the effects of food deprivation and extreme cold; amputation without anesthesia; and the effects of chemical weapons and flamethrowers. The Japanese also air-bombed cities like Ningbo and Changde with fleas carrying bubonic plague.

While Jiang Jieshi had some early assistance from Soviet Russian leader Joseph Stalin, the Nationalists had little support from foreign powers. In June 1938 Jiang ordered the embankment of the Yellow River dam to be blown, a desperate attempt to slow the advance of the Japanese invasion. While this ploy worked, it also caused a devastating flood that killed between 500,000 to one million Chinese civilians, rendered up to ten million homeless and ruined millions of acres of important farmland. The resulting food shortages, famine and human suffering only contributed to rising peasant hatred of Jiang Jieshi and the Nationalist regime.

Beyond 1938 the Sino-Japanese war reached a virtual stalemate. China’s geographical size, her lack of infrastructure and scattered pockets of resistance all helped to slow the Japanese advance. By 1940, the Japanese installed a puppet government in Nanjing under Wang Jingwei, a former Guomindang leader and political rival to Jiang Jieshi. Foreign assistance for the Chinese finally came after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941. As the United States was drawn into World War II, China became an important theatre in the war against the Japanese. In 1942 US general Joseph Stillwell was sent to China to assist with training, reorganization, and equipment. Jiang’s authoritarianism, however, hampered their collaboration.

The Second Sino-Japanese War came to an end in August 1945, after the United States detonated nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. China emerged from the war politically unsettled, economically exhausted and damaged by the mass casualties.