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

ABC78 said:

I think the thing that gets most of us rilled up is that France is some how a greater contributor to the Allied victory over the Axis than China on Wikipedia. USA UK and USSR absolutely made more of a difference than China but France no way. China is also a victim of the evolving strategy against Japan. The US's early strategy against Japan was to use air fields in China to bomb Japan and push throw China but with the US Navy's victories against the IJN and the island hoping campaign as well as the land grab of IJA Ichigo operation China is just left to hold out.

If any of you get the chance check out the book The Battle for China it is collection of essays from all sides of the conflict. Many of the Chinese victories were in defensive situations like The Battle of Taierzhaung.

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Well true, China's action during WW2 is very underestimated, and I don't think this is just a problem with Western people that tries to dismiss it on purpose, the Chinese themselves have done a bad job in publishing it due to the following reason I wrote earlier.

1. Most of the battle was fought by KMT, which lost the civil war, so their contributions are dismissed by the CCP. There were some major battles, but CCP is not talking about them for the obvious reasons.

2. Post civil war KMT's focus was to keep it is independence from China, so it have to stay good terms with USA, who is allied with Japanese against the CCP. So again, no one wants to talk about the past.

3. Mainland China was the bad guys during the cold war who have bad relationship with USA and USSR at same time, so of course, no Western nation will want to talk about it as well.


I personally believe in the up coming decades, you will hear more about battles during WW2, because mainland will want to improve relations with Taiwan, and one thing they can do is to talk about their common enemy the Japanese. And as China gets stronger in the future, it is history will be closer studied by everyone.

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I hope as people get more informed they will change their mind, however there is no mind to change if people refuse to listen because of their prejudice, we'll see how it goes.

Re: ¦^��: Re: Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 dispu

jobjed said:

You know what the best option would have been for the Japanese empire in the 1930s? Maintain the peace with the US and continue to receive oil while at the same time possessing a grand military, although not as large as the US. But no, they HAD to be aggressive idiots and attack the two strongest industrial complexes of the world, just pure genius.

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Not that easy, US was starting to squeeze Japan, it stopped exporting oil and steels to them. At same time US and Europe still have many interest they have in Asia, this prevents Japan from taking them over to utilizing those resources.

Many people, includes modern day right wing Japanese says US have pushed Japan back into a corner where if they don't expand, they would die off from sanction put in by US. I somewhat agree with that assessment, but still think what they did was stupid. The sanction was taking it's toll on Japan, but if they have just invested into harvesting resources from the areas that they already conquered more efficiently, they can still survive and even able expand their military slowly, and they can certainly increase control on their recently conquered territories. Then in another decade or so, when they have fully consolidated their control, then they can use what they got to fight bigger wars.

But once they attacked Pearl Harbor, it was no going back, even if Japan have sunk all of US carrier force there, in the end it still won't make a damn difference for USA victory. Because by the end of the war, the amount of military hardware US was producing as just totally outnumbering Japan 10-1. Go check Wikipedia, I think overall Japan produced about 30 carriers during the war, and by 1945, US have over 100 carriers commission, and this is NOT including about 20 or so hulls that are in the various stages of completion in US dockyards. US have absolutely dominance over Japan in anyway you can measure. US didn't need to win Midway or Coral Sea or Guadalcanal or anything, all they have to do is trade ship with Japanese in a 1 to 1 or even worse ratio, they would still utterly crash them in a few years. If you think US military dominance in the world today is overwhelming, it is NOT even close to their power when compare to rest of the world at the end of WW2.

As for today, I do see very similar parallel of Japan with modern day China. Where China is this juggernaut like WW2 USA with endless manpower and manufacturing, while Japan is very much limited by it is size, but for some reason, instead of making peace with China, they are poking it, which is a very stupid thing to do. Let's hope both nation won't have not to repeat the history again.

Re: ¦^��: Re: Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 dispu

jackliu said:

Not that easy, US was starting to squeeze Japan, it stopped exporting oil and steels to them. At same time US and Europe still have many interest they have in Asia, this prevents Japan from taking them over to utilizing those resources.

Many people, includes modern day right wing Japanese says US have pushed Japan back into a corner where if they don't expand, they would die off from sanction put in by US. I somewhat agree with that assessment, but still think what they did was stupid. The sanction was taking it's toll on Japan, but if they have just invested into harvesting resources from the areas that they already conquered more efficiently, they can still survive and even able expand their military slowly, and they can certainly increase control on their recently conquered territories. Then in another decade or so, when they have fully consolidated their control, then they can use what they got to fight bigger wars.

But once they attacked Pearl Harbor, it was no going back, even if Japan have sunk all of US carrier force there, in the end it still won't make a damn difference for USA victory. Because by the end of the war, the amount of military hardware US was producing as just totally outnumbering Japan 10-1. Go check Wikipedia, I think overall Japan produced about 30 carriers during the war, and by 1945, US have over 100 carriers commission, and this is NOT including about 20 or so hulls that are in the various stages of completion in US dockyards. US have absolutely dominance over Japan in anyway you can measure. US didn't need to win Midway or Coral Sea or Guadalcanal or anything, all they have to do is trade ship with Japanese in a 1 to 1 or even worse ratio, they would still utterly crash them in a few years. If you think US military dominance in the world today is overwhelming, it is NOT even close to their power when compare to rest of the world at the end of WW2.

As for today, I do see very similar parallel of Japan with modern day China. Where China is this juggernaut like WW2 USA with endless manpower and manufacturing, while Japan is very much limited by it is size, but for some reason, instead of making peace with China, they are poking it, which is a very stupid thing to do. Let's hope both nation won't have not to repeat the history again.

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The argument given by right-wingers in Japan presupposes that Japanese imperialism was a legitimate response to the resource and population contraints Imperial Japan had at the time. Let's just suppose for a moment then, that this line of reasoning was unflawed. Wouldn't the logical conclusion of such "might is right" policy be that the US had every right to cut off trade with Japan, because Japan was encroaching on its interests in the Asia Pacific, especially in China?

Can you see how self defeating the argument is? If they couldn't stand the heat, they should not have been in the kitchen, as the saying goes.

Also slightly OT, but I can see how it is very difficult for either Japanese or Chinese political leaders to back down. First of all, we know the desire on both sides to "save face". Neither wants to look weak to their electorates (yes, even though China is not a democratic state, the history of popular revolt against central government is not lost on the CCP). Perhaps next year, when leaders have more breathing room after their leadership transitions, relations will improve and people can start being reasonable again. I think that the unsettled reconciliation between China, Korea and Japan is one of the great challenges facing Asia, and creating a truly pan-Asian understanding based on Westphalian notions of nation-states. The current status quo leaves Asia vulnerable to manipulation of nationalist sentiment and such an opportunity should not be afforded when there are certain people out there hellbent on painting China as the big boogeyman or the neo-USSR.

The Chinese grand strategy is war of attrition(持久战). To use all means possible to delay the Japanese aggression, in order to bide for time. The strategy works. American and allied did enter the war with the Japanese. The rest is history.
Had China capitulate and put her vast resource into the hand of the Japanese war machine. Would Japanese attack pearl harbor? What would America/FDR do with his geopolitical consideration? Would Japanese coordinate an attack of USSR with Germany? or India through Burma or Tibet? Well, your guess is as good as mine. All I can say is, in warfare, every little bit counts even if it looks insignificant, that is why the will to fight is so very important.

Re: ¦^��: Re: Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 dispu

inanon said:

The argument given by right-wingers in Japan presupposes that Japanese imperialism was a legitimate response to the resource and population contraints Imperial Japan had at the time. Let's just suppose for a moment then, that this line of reasoning was unflawed. Wouldn't the logical conclusion of such "might is right" policy be that the US had every right to cut off trade with Japan, because Japan was encroaching on its interests in the Asia Pacific, especially in China?

Can you see how self defeating the argument is? If they couldn't stand the heat, they should not have been in the kitchen, as the saying goes.

Also slightly OT, but I can see how it is very difficult for either Japanese or Chinese political leaders to back down. First of all, we know the desire on both sides to "save face". Neither wants to look weak to their electorates (yes, even though China is not a democratic state, the history of popular revolt against central government is not lost on the CCP). Perhaps next year, when leaders have more breathing room after their leadership transitions, relations will improve and people can start being reasonable again. I think that the unsettled reconciliation between China, Korea and Japan is one of the great challenges facing Asia, and creating a truly pan-Asian understanding based on Westphalian notions of nation-states. The current status quo leaves Asia vulnerable to manipulation of nationalist sentiment and such an opportunity should not be afforded when there are certain people out there hellbent on painting China as the big boogeyman or the neo-USSR.

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I think your argument is not what the Right winger Japanese today's central position, because trying to legitimize outright aggression due to whatever reasons such as population expansion is not the angle they are trying to spin, that maybe very well the true underline reason for their expansion as US did with their "manifest destiny", but no nation will admit it openly.

The main argument from modern day Japan right winger is that US pushed them into the war, and it was not their fault, that US was putting the squeeze on them to contain them, as a result I (the Japanese) felt that I was provoked, that US was the one that actually fired the 1st shot to ensure my downfall, so I did what I did in return to protect my interest. And like I said in the rest of my post, at the time, US was indeed trying to squeeze Japan, and Japan indeed felt the economic sanction was very well a declaration of war. However in my opinion, it was still a big mistake for Japan's reaction, they were too impatient and too assured of their own superiority, but in the end, they would never match up with US, so they miscalculated big time. But trust me, personally I liked the overall outcome of the war.

As for the modern times, yes nationalism, "face saving" plays the biggest role right now on the surface, but what I am talking about is beyond that. I am talking for Japan to change it is overall national shift to face the reality. They need to realize that the tide of fortune in the world is turning, and this is true especially in Asia. Asia overall is rapidly going back to the old days of sinocentric order with China at the center and everyone else doing business with it. Nations that can accept this reality will have a much easier time adopting to the future, and nations that refuse to accept it and even going against the tide will have hard time. Japan is doing exactly this, it still relies it is security on United States, and this is not a smart move. There are also nations that are playing smart, they see China's rise, but they are not quickly to join either camp, so that they can enjoy the patronage from both sides, this is the smartest move, Thailand and Indonesia is doing this and I applaud them for it.

The smartest thing for Japan to do is to shift it is position to Asia. Accept the reality that they cannot depend their security on US forever, that if they want to have a future in their home region they need to make peace with the big white elephant in the room.

Right now you may think if Japan do that, that means they have lost and China have won, this is far from the truth, in fact as early as 1980s China proposed to joint development of recourse in the disputed area and share the fruits, which Japan have refused it time and time again. If you actually go do some research, you will see that Japan's position over the island has been far more harsh and uncompromising than China's. And there are also examples of China setting border dispute with over a dozen nation surrounding them, they solved territorial dispute with Russia in the land they want to WAR with in the 1960s, Vietnam (land), Kazakhstan etc.. and in all of those resolution, China actually give up more land claims than what they originality disputed for. And all of those border resolution have one thing in common, it was not widely published in the media with constant coverage in the style of score card of who win and who looses.

So what I'm saying is face save and nationalism is only what you see after the government have made up their mind and act upon the policies, but if the government have not done this in the first place, those issues will not surface in the 1st place.

It is still not too late for both nation to turn it around, but if it goes down this path, I can only see bad things happen to Japan unfortunately.

U.S. Naval Academy professor Maochun Yu talked about his book, OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War, in which he examines the history of the Office of Strategic Services in China and its successes and failures.

This a short video interview.

[video]http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/OSSi[/video]

An interesting documentary series I saw on Hulu "Secrets of War" it's about secret spy operations in history. But the episode titled "Mao's Secrets" is probably the most interesting it covers the Chinese intelligence(Nationalist/Communist) in WW2. Chinese intelligence discovered and warned the USSR of Hitler's betrayal and the US of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and more.

[video]http://www.hulu.com/watch/299179#i0,p40,s1,d0[/video]

Dear sinodefence fellows, this discussion took an unfortunate turn by calling for help here in order to bolster the numbers of users that create stress in wikipedia in order to highlight the Chinese role in WWII. All military history articles in the English wikipedia are part of the . This project is renown in wikipeduia for outstanding organization and quality. It's core trademark is writing about wars and not having (edit-)wars. As far as changing the assessment of Chinese contributions is concerned, you need quality sources in numbers. Afterwards in wikipedia, you try to write a summary of the content of these sources. Next time, you feel the Chinese role is underapprecitaed, you need a quality drive for scientific work by historians that helps to highlight this topic and naturall,y their assessments can differ wieldly.
If the majority of English speaking historians is for example of the opinion that "Nazi-Germany's military contributions to WWII were insignificant", wikipedia is oblieged to summarize their opinion and present it as the opinion of scholars in this field. Of course, you can disagree with such an assessment, but wikipedia is not the place for such a disagreement - publish your own research and opinion papers elsewhere on your blog, in a book or in a science magazine. Wikipedia is a place for disagreement if you think that someone does not reflect the whole field of important scholarly opinions on a subject. As usual, it's hard for someone unfamiliar with Chinese to assess Chinese publications - you need to find readable (English) sources that provide a summary on historians' opinions on China's role in WWII that can than be put in the field as the opinions within China.

I'd make a call to create here a list of (scientific) publications in English that better help to understand the Chinese perspective on that conflict and provide a good mutual base for the endless future discussions on this topic.

ABC78 said:

An interesting documentary series I saw on Hulu "Secrets of War" it's about secret spy operations in history. But the episode titled "Mao's Secrets" is probably the most interesting it covers the Chinese intelligence(Nationalist/Communist) in WW2. Chinese intelligence discovered and warned the USSR of Hitler's betrayal and the US of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and more.

[video]http://www.hulu.com/watch/299179#i0,p40,s1,d0[/video]

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Pretty everyone warned Stalin of Hitler's impeding attack because the massed German troops in Eastern Europe were not just going for a summer vacation camping with the local women. A core problem of dictatorships can be the man on top as every man has his faults and one of Stalin's faults seems to have been that he did not think Hitler would do that for a number of reasons. In intelligence there are always intentionally and unintentionally wrong, misleading, conflicting and correct news. The allied landing site in Western Europe was for example part of a massive misinformation campaign.

The Japanese had started their war on Imperial Russia neither with a declaration of war, they simply considered that part of Western etiquette an utter futility that could be skipped for tactical advantages. It's an ongoing discussion whether there was not some degree of understanding in the US that Japan would come without such a declaration. The utter "surprise" was politically needed for an effective war mobilization of a population that would be less willing without someone out of a sudden and "unprovoked" bombing their "homes". Asking a different question like, could the US win if Japan sank the whole Pacific fleet to the bottom of the sea and tried to conquer the West Coast? Industrial capacity of the competitors differed 10:1 and the UK was capable of holding out aganst Nazi Germany, while the Soviet Union fought at and behind the German frontline - making the German collapse a question of when and not if - even small US equipment convois would have an outstanding impact because they kept the Soviets in their defense. The point is in every world war the US was late and had an uninterrupted supply and manufacture that made them decisive.

You'll see an armament sprint in preparation of every major conflict and the later you start and the better you increase output in this sprint, the more powerful your military is. The US had commited to the sprint a few years prior to their war, sending equipment to field&battle tests among their future allies. The Soviets had started their sprint later than the Germans and were getting ready, while being overrun (transporting much industrial capacity east and producing military hardware on the frontlines), while the Italians had started very early for ego reasons and were quite tired during the later contest (the Spanish Civil or Ethiopian War rather highlight Italian might).

Re: ¦^��: Re: Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 dispu

jackliu said:

I think your argument is not what the Right winger Japanese today's central position, because trying to legitimize outright aggression due to whatever reasons such as population expansion is not the angle they are trying to spin, that maybe very well the true underline reason for their expansion as US did with their "manifest destiny", but no nation will admit it openly.

The main argument from modern day Japan right winger is that US pushed them into the war, and it was not their fault, that US was putting the squeeze on them to contain them, as a result I (the Japanese) felt that I was provoked, that US was the one that actually fired the 1st shot to ensure my downfall, so I did what I did in return to protect my interest. And like I said in the rest of my post, at the time, US was indeed trying to squeeze Japan, and Japan indeed felt the economic sanction was very well a declaration of war. However in my opinion, it was still a big mistake for Japan's reaction, they were too impatient and too assured of their own superiority, but in the end, they would never match up with US, so they miscalculated big time. But trust me, personally I liked the overall outcome of the war.

As for the modern times, yes nationalism, "face saving" plays the biggest role right now on the surface, but what I am talking about is beyond that. I am talking for Japan to change it is overall national shift to face the reality. They need to realize that the tide of fortune in the world is turning, and this is true especially in Asia. Asia overall is rapidly going back to the old days of sinocentric order with China at the center and everyone else doing business with it. Nations that can accept this reality will have a much easier time adopting to the future, and nations that refuse to accept it and even going against the tide will have hard time. Japan is doing exactly this, it still relies it is security on United States, and this is not a smart move. There are also nations that are playing smart, they see China's rise, but they are not quickly to join either camp, so that they can enjoy the patronage from both sides, this is the smartest move, Thailand and Indonesia is doing this and I applaud them for it.

The smartest thing for Japan to do is to shift it is position to Asia. Accept the reality that they cannot depend their security on US forever, that if they want to have a future in their home region they need to make peace with the big white elephant in the room.

Right now you may think if Japan do that, that means they have lost and China have won, this is far from the truth, in fact as early as 1980s China proposed to joint development of recourse in the disputed area and share the fruits, which Japan have refused it time and time again. If you actually go do some research, you will see that Japan's position over the island has been far more harsh and uncompromising than China's. And there are also examples of China setting border dispute with over a dozen nation surrounding them, they solved territorial dispute with Russia in the land they want to WAR with in the 1960s, Vietnam (land), Kazakhstan etc.. and in all of those resolution, China actually give up more land claims than what they originality disputed for. And all of those border resolution have one thing in common, it was not widely published in the media with constant coverage in the style of score card of who win and who looses.

So what I'm saying is face save and nationalism is only what you see after the government have made up their mind and act upon the policies, but if the government have not done this in the first place, those issues will not surface in the 1st place.

It is still not too late for both nation to turn it around, but if it goes down this path, I can only see bad things happen to Japan unfortunately.

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This is getting OT, but the US and China are not the only rising powers. Russia to the north and India to the south form an alliance as well and both of these are unlikely and too powerful to be aligned to China or the USA. Under such conditions Japan and other nations do have options of choosing between three major camps, each with advantages. Russia and India for example are most unlikely to meddle in internal affairs or be economic competitors. Furthermore, both sit along the shortest sea lines of communication to Europe, with the historic chance of ice-free passage along Russia's northern coast that global warming is going to improve and secure in the future - making Russia a true new seapower with vast new economic opportunities. Were it not for the mutual bickering and nitpicking since Port Arthur, currently over some islands - island disputes are a kind of fashion in East Asia, bot Russia and Japan would have a mutually most profitable relationship.

Japan would definitely align with China to divide up Russia's Siberian assets in the name of living space, energy resources self-sufficiency, and security of northern passage sea lanes.

The vast expanse of Siberia is too rich in resources, too sparsely populated, and too geographically isolated vis-a-vis Moscow to be left ignored on the geopolitical plans of China, Korea, and Japan, especially with the melting the icecaps in the waters north of Siberia, creating potentially the most important sealane in the world.

China and Japan aren't dumb. They know with the depletion of Middle East resources, the next best thing is Siberia, which Russia herself can't even develop because she lacks the demographic manpower and financial capital to develop. It's also geographically close too, so China/Japan would align to seize the riches of Siberia.