Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was the war fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945 as part of World War II. It is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century[25] and has been described as "the Asian Holocaust", in reference to the scale of Japanese war crimes against Chinese civilians.[26][27][28] It is known in Japan as the Second China–Japan War, and in China as the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
Second Sino-Japanese War
抗日戰爭
抗日战争
抗戰
抗战
八年抗戰
八年抗战
十四年抗戰
十四年抗战
第二次中日戰爭
第二次中日战争
（日本）侵華戰爭
（日本）侵华战争
- 支那事変
- 日支戦争
- 日中戦争
- しなじへん
- にっしせんそう
- にっちゅうせんそう
- シナジヘン
- ニッシセンソウ
- ニッチュウセンソウ
- Shina jihen
- Nisshi sensō
- Nicchū sensō
- Shina jihen
- Nisshi sensō
- Nicchū sensō
- Sina zihen
- Nissi sensou
- Nittyuu sensou
On 18 September 1931, the Japanese staged a false flag event known as the Mukden Incident, a pretext they fabricated to justify their invasion of Manchuria. This is sometimes marked as the beginning of the war.[29][30] From 1931 to 1937, China and Japan engaged in skirmishes in mainland China. Japan achieved major victories, capturing Beijing and Shanghai by 1937. Despite having fought each other in the Chinese Civil War since 1927, the Communists and Nationalists formed the Second United Front in late 1936 to resist the Japanese invasion together.
Tensions escalated after what would become the first battle of the war - the Marco Polo Bridge incident on 7 July 1937, in which the Japanese and Chinese opened fire upon each other after a Japanese soldier went missing. This prompted a full-scale Japanese invasion of the rest of China. This incident is widely regarded as the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Pacific theater of World War II.[31]
The Japanese captured the Chinese capital of Nanjing in 1937, which led to the Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanjing. After failing to stop the Japanese in the Battle of Wuhan, the Chinese central government relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. Following the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, material support bolstered the Republic of China Army and Air Force.
By 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with Japan's lines of communications stretched deep into the Chinese interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were unable to defeat Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces in Shaanxi, who waged a campaign of sabotage and guerrilla warfare. In November 1939, Chinese nationalist forces launched a large scale winter offensive, and in August 1940, CCP forces launched an offensive in central China.
In December 1941, Japan launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States. The US increased aid to China: the Lend-Lease act gave China a total of $1.6 billion (equivalent to $20 billion in 2023).[32] With Burma cut off, the US Army Air Forces airlifted material over the Himalayas. In 1944, Japan launched Operation Ichi-Go, the invasion of Henan and Changsha. In 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. China launched large counteroffensives in South China and repulsed a failed Japanese invasion of West Hunan and recaptured Japanese occupied regions of Guangxi.
Japan formally surrendered on 2 September 1945, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet declaration of war and subsequent invasions of Manchukuo and Korea. The war resulted in the deaths of around 20 million people, mostly civilians. China was recognized as one of the Big Four Allies, regained all territories lost, and became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.[33][34] The Chinese Civil War resumed in 1946, ending with a communist victory, which established the People's Republic of China.
Central Asian rebellions[edit]
In 1937, then pro-Soviet General Sheng Shicai invaded Dunganistan accompanied by Soviet troops to defeat General Ma Hushan of the KMT 36th Division. General Ma expected help from Nanjing, but did not receive it. The Nationalist government was forced to deny these maneuvers as "Japanese propaganda", as it needed continued military supplies from the Soviets.[158]
As the war went on, Nationalist General Ma Buqing, was in virtual control of the Gansu corridor,[159] Ma had earlier fought against the Japanese, but because the Soviet threat was great, Chiang in July 1942 directed him to move 30,000 of his troops to the Tsaidam marsh in the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai.[160][161] Chiang further named Ma as Reclamation Commissioner, to threaten Sheng's southern flank in Xinjiang, which bordered Tsaidam.
The Ili Rebellion broke out in Xinjiang when the Kuomintang Hui Officer Liu Bin-Di was killed while fighting Turkic Uyghur rebels in November 1944. The Soviet Union supported the Turkic rebels against the Kuomintang, and Kuomintang forces fought back.[162]
Legacy[edit]
China-Japan relations[edit]
Today, the war is a major point of contention and resentment between China and Japan. The war remains a major roadblock for Sino-Japanese relations.
Issues regarding the current historical outlook on the war exist. For example, the Japanese government has been accused of historical revisionism by allowing the approval of a few school textbooks omitting or glossing over Japan's militant past, although the most recent controversial book, the New History Textbook was used by only 0.039% of junior high schools in Japan[176] and despite the efforts of the Japanese nationalist textbook reformers, by the late 1990s the most common Japanese schoolbooks contained references to, for instance, the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and the comfort women of World War II, all historical issues which have faced challenges from ultranationalists in the past.[177]
In 2005, a history textbook prepared by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform which had been approved by the government in 2001, sparked huge outcry and protests in China and Korea. It referred to the Nanjing Massacre and other atrocities such as the Manila massacre as an "incident", glossed over the issue of comfort women, and made only brief references to the death of Chinese soldiers and civilians in Nanjing.[178] A copy of the 2005 version of a junior high school textbook titled New History Textbook found that there is no mention of the "Nanjing Massacre" or the "Nanjing Incident". Indeed, the only one sentence that referred to this event was: "they [the Japanese troops] occupied that city in December".[179]