Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) was a major invasion of eastern China by Japan preceding and during World War II. It ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. In Chinese, the war is variously known as the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War of Resistance (????????), Anti-Japanese War of Resistance (????), War of Resistance (??), or Eight Years' War of Resistance (????).

Aftermath

As of mid 1945, all sides expected the war to continue for at least another year. However it was suddenly ended by the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan capitulated to the allies on August 14, 1945. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered on September 9, 1945 and by the provisions of the Cairo Conference of 1943 the lands of Manchuria, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands reverted to China. However, the Ryukyu islands were maintained as Japanese territory.

Related Topics:
Atomic bomb - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - August 14 - 1945 - September 9 - Cairo Conference - Manchuria - Taiwan - Pescadores Islands - Ryukyu

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In 1945 China emerged from the war nominally a great military power but actually a nation economically prostrate and on the verge of all-out civil war. The economy deteriorated, sapped by the military demands of foreign war and internal strife, by spiraling inflation, and by Nationalist profiteering, speculation, and hoarding. Starvation came in the wake of the war, and millions were rendered homeless by floods and the unsettled conditions in many parts of the country. The situation was further complicated by an Allied agreement at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 that brought Soviet troops into Manchuria to hasten the termination of war against Japan (Operation August Storm). Although the Chinese had not been present at Yalta, they had been consulted; they had agreed to have the Soviets enter the war in the belief that the Soviet Union would deal only with the Nationalist government. After the war, the Soviet Union, as part of the Yalta agreement's allowing a Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria, dismantled and removed more than half the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese. The Soviet presence in northeast China enabled the Communists to move in long enough to arm themselves with the equipment surrendered by the withdrawing Japanese army. The problems of rehabilitating the formerly Japanese-occupied areas and of reconstructing the nation from the ravages of a protracted war were staggering, to say the least.

Related Topics:
Civil war - Inflation - Starvation - Flood - Yalta Conference - Operation August Storm

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The war left the Nationalists severely weakened and their policies left them unpopular. Meanwhile the war strengthened the Communists, both in popularity and as a viable fighting force. At Yan'an and elsewhere in the "liberated areas," Mao was able to adapt Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions. He taught party cadres to lead the masses by living and working with them, eating their food, and thinking their thoughts. When this failed, however, more repressive forms of coercion, indoctrination and ostracization were also employed. The Red Army fostered an image of conducting guerrilla warfare in defense of the people. In addition, the CCP was effectively split into "Red" (cadres working in the "liberated" areas) and "White" (cadres working underground in enemy-occupied territory) spheres, a split that would later sow future factionalism within the CCP. Communist troops adapted to changing wartime conditions and became a seasoned fighting force. Mao also began preparing for the establishment of a new China, well away from the front at his base in Yan'an. In 1940 he outlined the program of the Chinese Communists for an eventual seizure of power and began his final push for consolidation of CCP power under his authority. His teachings became the central tenets of the CCP doctrine that came to be formalized as Mao Zedong Thought. With skillful organizational and propaganda work, the Communists increased party membership from 100,000 in 1937 to 1.2 million by 1945. Soon, all out war broke out between the KMT and CPC, a war that would leave the Nationalists banished to Taiwan and the Communists victorious on the mainland.

Related Topics:
Red Army - All out war - Taiwan - Mainland

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