Second Sino-Japanese War

The bloodiest war of 20th-century Asia was the Second Sino-Japanese War, or as it’s known in China, the War of Resistance Against Japan.  You know it as World War II.  (Okay, technically it eventually became part of WWII, but you get it.)  Notice the word “Resistance”, reminiscent of the European resistance against the Nazis.  Like Germany, Japan was looking to absorb neighboring lands to access natural resources needed to fulfill the needs of its densely populated homeland.  In so many ways, Japan was the Germany of the East during that era.

When we left off, Japan had gained footholds in East China (Shandong) and Northeast China (Port Arthur in Manchuria)  And don’t forget the civil war that had broken out between the KMT (Nationalists) and the CPC (Communists).  Additionally, bloody conflict had previously broken out between the KMT and Japanese forces in Shandong in 1928 while the KMT was heading north to address the Warlord Era situation in the Northern Expedition.  Thousands of Japanese civilians in Shandong were killed and tortured by the KMT.  This resulted in the lowest point in relations between China and Japan since the First Sino-Japanese War.

Eyeing China’s vastness, the Japanese knew they had an advantage as China was in turmoil, as it had been for the better part of a century now.  In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, claiming that the regional rights it had won as a result of the Russo-Japanese War were not being honored by China.  In 1932, the Japanese set up the puppet state of Manchukuo (“Manchu Country”), and installed our old friend, “Last Emperor” Puyi, now 23, as emperor of Manchukuo.  (You’ll remember that Puyi was the last of the Qing Dynasty emperors, who had originally been rebels from Manchuria.)  Over the next few years, Japan encroached further and further into northern China.  The KMT couldn’t do much about it.  They only had real power around their base in southern China.  They were still battling regional warlords, plus they had a civil war with the Communists going on.  By 1935, the KMT ceded most of northern China to Japan.  China continued to be not able to catch a break, it seems.

Everyone knows that WWII started when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.  But that was Europe.  Some historians claim that the War in the Pacific actually began over two years earlier on July 7, 1937 when a skirmish broke out between the Chinese and the Japanese outside Beijing.  The skirmish quickly accelerated into all-out war.  The Second Sino-Japanese War had begun.

Within days, Japan occupied Beijing and Tianjin.  By November, Japan captured Shanghai.  In December, Nanjing, the KMT’s capital, fell to the Japanese.  The horrific Rape of Nanking began.  The KMT retreated to Central China, with Japan occupying the major metropolitan centers of North, East, and South China.  Facing a common enemy, the KMT and the Red Army coordinated resistance forces.  Together, they were able to defend China’s interior and inflict more damage to Japanese forces than Japan had expected.  The frustrated Japanese imperial forces–at this point operating without much oversight by the government back in Tokyo–struck back with further atrocities on the Chinese citizenry.

In December of 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, attacked British Hong Kong, and invaded Southeast Asia.  Everyone declared war on everybody else.  The Second Sino-Japanese War was now officially part of WWII.  With Japan now at war with the free world, China was able to have some modest successes against Japan.  Within a few years, the tide was turning against Japan throughout the Pacific Theater.  August 9, 1945, the same day the US dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki (3 days after Hiroshima), the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria.  On August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced his intention to surrender.  For the first time in forever, China was on the winning side.  As victor, China won Taiwan back from Japan.

Victory notwithstanding, China lost 20-35 million military personnel and civilians in the war.  Destruction was widespread.  And now that war with Japan was over, the KMT and the CPC were able to resume full-scale civil war against each other.

[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]