During World War II, China was involved in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which spanned from July 7, 1937 to September 9, 1945, and even in the 6 years prior to that, they were fighting with Japan, totaling 14 years of constant conflict with the Japanese. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the biggest Asian war in the 20th century and contributed to more than 50 percent of casualties in the Pacific War. This origins of this conflict between the Chinese and the Japanese can be traced back to the First Sino-Japanese War, which took place in 1894 to 1895. The end of the First Sino-Japanese War forced China to cede Formosa (present day Taiwan) and made Korea a part of Japan. Attracted by cheap labor forces and vast resources, Japan sent its troops along a railroad from Manchuria (a region in China) to Korean ports-of-trade. Japanese troops controlled this railway and wanted more free resources from Manchuria. As a result, the Japanese attacked the Chinese troops stationed in the area and succeeded in gaining control of Manchuria.
Manchuria
The war officially started on the night of July 7, 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing, in which a small skirmish turned into an exchange of shots, which then escalated into a full scale battle. Soon Beijing and its port city, Tianjin fell to Japanese forces, and this served as a pretext for Tokyo to launch a large-scale invasion. Later that year, on December 13th, Japanese troops entered the former Nationalist capital of Nanjing and unleashed a “reign of terror,” (known later as the Nanking Massacre) executing prisoners of war and civilians, raping tens of thousands of women while burning and looting the city.
Nanking Massacre
Japan’s strategy was mainly to take all of China’s roads railroads and cities in order to eventually gain complete control of the nation. However, guerrilla fighting by the Chinese put a great resistance. Although the Chinese had no mechanized divisions, lacked significant military industrial strength, and had few armed forces, small pockets of resistance groups were strategically utilized. However, this was insufficient, and China largely depended on the League of Nations to come to provide aid against Japan’s attacks. To add on, China was further troubled by tensions between the Nationalists and Communists who were in a temporary but unstable alliance. (Learn more on the Key Figures page)
Chinese women receiving basic training in guerrilla warfare (1939)
China officially entered World War II within a few days of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, where they joined the Allied forces and officially declared war against the Japan, Germany and Italy. Prior to that, just 8 hours after the bombing, Japan attacked Hong Kong and destroyed the Allied forces’ aircrafts stationed there. With the help of financial and military support from the United States and Great Britain, Japan was forced to retreat and divert its troops elsewhere. Even so, China’s military strength was not fit to go up against the powerful Japanese forces and winning the war did not seem promising.
However, the series of events at the end of the second world war finally led to Japanese surrender and Chinese victory. First, on August 6, 1945 the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days after that, the Soviet Union attacked the Japanese in Manchuria. And finally, on August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki, and Japan formally surrendered to the Allies on August 15, 1945.
Leaflets declaring the Japanese surrender, which was dropped all over China