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 (????).

Who really fought the Sino-Japanese War?

The question as to which political group directed the Chinese war effort and exerted most of the effort to resist the Japanese still remains a controversial issue.

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In the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War of Resistance Memorial near the Marco Polo Bridge, the People?s Republic of China emphasizes that it was the Communist Party that directed Chinese efforts in the war and did everything to resist the Japanese invasion. (Recently, however, with a change in the political climate, the CCP has admitted that certain Nationalist generals made important contributions in resisting the Japanese). This emphasis on the CCP's central role is partially reflected by the PRC?s labeling of the war as the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War of Resistance rather than merely the War of Resistance. According to the PRC official point of view, the Nationalists/Kuomintang mostly avoided fighting the Japanese in order to preserve its strength for a final showdown with the Communists.

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Leaving aside Nationalists sources, scholars researching third party Japanese and Soviet sources have documented quite a different view. Such studies claim that the Communists actually played a miniscule involvement in the war against the Japanese compared to the Nationalists and used guerilla warfare as well as opium sales to preserve its strength for a final showdown with the Kuomintang (Chang and Ming, July 12, 2005, pg. 8; and Chang and Halliday, pg. 233, 246, 286-287). The Communists were not the main participants in the 22 major battles between China and Japan. Soviet liaison to the Chinese Communists Peter Vladimirov documented that he never once found the Chinese Communists and Japanese engaged in battle during the period from 1942 to 1945. He also expressed frustration at not being allowed by the Chinese Communists to visit the frontline (Chang and Ming, July 12, 2005), although as a foreign diplomat Vladimirov may have been optimistic to expect to be allowed to join Chinese guerrilla sorties. The Communists usually avoided open warfare (the Hundred Regiments Campaign and the Battle of Pingxingguan are notable exceptions), preferring to fight in small squads to harass the Japanese supply lines. In comparison, the Nationalists sent their best troops to defend Shanghai from the Japanese, a third of whom were killed. The Japanese considered the Kuomintang rather than the Communists as their main enemy (Chang and Halliday, pg. 231) and bombed the Nationalist wartime capital of Chongqing to the point that it became the most heavily bombed city in the world to date (Chang and Halliday, pg. 232).

Related Topics:
Hundred Regiments Campaign - Battle of Pingxingguan

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A third perspective advocated by some historians is that the warlords actually did most of the fighting with the Japanese, considering that the majority of Chiang Kai Shek's army was actually led by warlords. While the Communists and Nationalists tried to preserve their troop strengths for a final showdown with each other and therefore failed to resist the Japanese to the fullest, the warlords had no choice but to commit everything to the defence of the territories that they jealously controlled. This perspective is not as well-known because both the Nationalists and Communists were against the warlords and the warlords were unlikely to have well-documented, extensive archives that the Nationalists and Communists have.

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