Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 disputed.

xywdx said:

I think the KMT at the time calculated their contribution just enough so the allies won't lose.
Japan was at the time spending as much as over 70% of their income on the military, whereas the US was just warming up, once Japan lost their momentum the war was already decided.
Chiang did not need to risk his precious assets to kick the Japanese out of China, so he focused his attention on how to consolidate power after the war.

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nemo said:

I think that's rather unfair assessment -- grossly so. For example, the force China contribute to the Burma theater are the cream of the forces -- include the only mechanized division in Chinese army. And I mentioned before that China was out of ammo -- and an offensive may use up whatever reserve that was left. Before Burma road re-opened, Chinese army received less than one division worth of weapons, and total amount of ammo China received, even after Burma road reopened, wouldn't last a American division a weak in combat. In this kind of instances, just having forces would force the enemy to spend forces to keep watch -- both KMT and Communists use this strategy. If China actually initiated a big offensive and used up the reserves, the whole defensive line would be weakened, even if the offensive is successful.

As it is -- China still suffered devastating loss in the last Japanese offensive in 1944 -- something like 50% of the remaining war-making industrial capability is lost or damaged during the offensive. If they don't have the reserves, it would have been worse.

China was further weakened by internal politics and possibility of coups. And any of those could initiate a total collapse.

A lot of American criticism is for domestic consumption -- they want something to show for the money they spend. China had to worry about the stability of line and catastrophic collapse. China actually had something to lose, unlike the Americans.

A lot of English language books does not have a good appreciating of Chinese point of few, so you really need to keep that in mind.

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nemo said:

The reason why the performance was so bad for the Chinese armies during WW-2 was not cowardice, but something more mundane -- China run out of bullets.

China produced around 1.1 billion rounds of bullets in the war, and production was fairly constant, averaging about 175 million rounds a year. US Lend-Lease send around 700 million rounds during the war, and most of that arrived only after Burma Road reopened. So at most China had around 300 million rounds a year. That's less than 100 round per person per year -- which is not even enough to train a soldier on marksmanship.
Chinese soldiers usually carried only 30-50 rounds while Japanese carried 200 rounds per riflemen. Hence Chinese troops has less staying power. So you have instances of larger Chinese troops running from smaller Japanese troops -- why? because they run out of ammo!

It is less surprising, then, why PRC is able to fought US to a standstill in Korean war with essentially the same troop -- because they now have enough bullets!

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xywdx said:

I stand by my assessment, Chiang clearly said "the Japanese are a disease of the skin, the Communists are a disease of the heart". I don't know if there's any way he can make his intentions more obvious.
You even said it yourself, the reason for KMT contribution to the Burma theater is because they want to receive more supplies.
In terms of ammo China was limited, but I think you are exaggerating, there were more casualties in the Chinese civil war than there were in the Sino-Japanese War II, which tells me they had at least double the amount of ammo they fired at the Japanese.
In the final offensive of 1944 Japan committed a greater force than the KMT, with more infantry, more tanks, more naval ship, more aircrafts. Chiang decided that it better to simply sacrifice the outnumbered defensive force and gave Japan what they wanted without a big impact on the war, history has proven he was correct.

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solarz said:

What you describe as "running out of bullets" is simply the economic aspect of a war. That's exactly the reason why, even without US intervention, Japan would have inevitably collapsed in China. It simply could not keep up with its total-war economy. Eventually, its civilian population was going to give.

Meanwhile, while the Chinese army have been losing battle after battle, their fighting spirit remained. Even while the Japanese occupied important economic and industrial centers, they were facing sabotage and raids on their supply lines. Their violent excesses had alienated the entire Chinese people, and they were thus unable to effectively utilize their occupied resources.

The economic equation was simply too skewed in China's favor.

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solarz said:

You are a fool if you think hanging on to a past hatred is in any way beneficial to the Chinese nation. Today's Japan is not the Imperial Japan of 100 years ago. It is not a threat to China's national security, and there are far more benefits to cooperation than there is in stirring up old enmities.

You should use your head and think about the *real* threats and challenges facing China today.

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nemo said:

Chiang was prescient in judging communism as a greater threat -- history proved him correct. But judging from troops in combat, you cannot really make a case that Chiang focused more on Communist than Japanese.

Of course Nationalists had more ammo AFTER the war -- it has arms and ammunition imported from US, and Communist has no mean to blockade Nationalists. War is fought on available resources -- so this does not prove anything.

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