CHINA'S ROLE IN WWII.   Term Paper ID:25426 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: U.S. policy toward China, China-Japan conflict, internal Chinese conflicts & military, political & economic weaknesses.... More...

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Paper Abstract: U.S. policy toward China, China-Japan conflict, internal Chinese conflicts & military, political & economic weaknesses. Paper Introduction: CHINA'S ROLE IN WORLD WAR II This research paper discusses the role of China in the origin, course and the outcome of World War II. Because of internal Chinese divisions, weaknesses in the Chinese Nationalist government and the priorities accorded to other theaters of war, China never played the role envisaged for it by some Allied leaders and war planners; nevertheless, events there served to enmesh Japan in an unsustainable military adventure on the Asian mainland and to weaken its overall war effort. 1937-1941 World War II began at different times for different nations. For Britain, France, Poland and Germany, it began in 1939, for Italy in 1940, for Russia in June 1941, for the United States with the Pearl Harbor attack and the German declaration of war in Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The objectives of Japan's militarists progressively became moreunlimited in the 193 s and their power and influence in the government inTokyo grew stronger. . Hsiung and Steven I. What had happened at Tehran to induce this comment by FDR is thatJosef Stalin had agreed to enter the war in the Far East after Germany wasdefeated. E. asymbol of American-sponsored resistance to Japanese aggression" (17). . Commander in Chief. . and Annalee Jacoby. Conclusion Japan bit off more than she could chew by letting herself becomeinvolved in the endless Chinese quagmire, which contributed to the outbreakof World War II in Asia and tied up a large portion of some of its bestground troops, which were never available to defend the rest of its Empireagainst the American assault on the islands. Ever since it enunciated its Open Door policy toward China at theturn of the century, the United States had supported the territorial andpolitical integrity of China and opposed its dismemberment at first by theEuropean colonial powers and later Japan. The Chinesewere not consulted. Hsiung and Steven I. CHINA'S ROLE IN WORLD WAR II This research paper discusses the role of China in the origin, courseand the outcome of World War II. Works CitedChi, Hsi-cheng. Consider, for example, the followingstatements: "This fighting nation [Communist-controlled areas] constitutesthe closest approach to political, economic and social democracy that theChinese have ever seen;" (289) and "real 'communism' was never establishedin China" (29 ). Levene. 157-184.Crozier, Brian. 1944-1945 During the years 1944-1945, the relative strategic unimportance ofChina to Allies and to final victory became more apparent as did theweaknesses of the Chungking regime which further weakened its ties withWashington. FDR had fostered the notion in order to keep China in the war and topreserve it as a force for stability later that China was a great power. Chiang said that "the Japanese are a disease of the skin. W. of the treatyports was partly eclipsed. Now isolated far inland, the Nationalist government reliedincreasingly on support on large landlords and regional military commanders who controlled whole provinces(125). Larabee in his study of FDR asCommander in Chief comments: "China could be regarded as a key to thePacific war, and it would have been a rash analyst, in the Washington of1942 and early 1943, who dared suggest that China might prove to be, asultimately it did, almost irrelevant" (543). They were apprehensive over the rise of Chinesenationalism and the united front between the Chinese Nationalist Governmentheaded by Chiang Kai-shek (Chiang) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)headed by Mao Tse-tung (Mao) which was announced in early 1937. ForBritain, France, Poland and Germany, it began in 1939, for Italy in 194 ,for Russia in June 1941, for the United States with the Pearl Harbor attackand the German declaration of war in December 1941. The American army and FDR more sensibly saw China as tying up hugenumbers of Japanese soldiers who otherwise would be deployed against theAllies. People On Our Side. They failed primarily because of Chiang's intransigence.However, there were also significant divisions within the American camp.Some advocates of collaboration, such as Snow drew an overly flattering andinaccurate portrait of Mao's forces. Sharpe. They were expected to agree to granting autonomy toOuter Mongolia which they and the Russians had contested for centuries, thelease to the Soviets of a naval base at Port Arthur, theinternationalization of the city of Dairen and joint control with theRussians over the Sino-Soviet Manchurian railroad. Levene (Eds.) 135-156.----------------------- 6 James C. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, FDR agreed as the price forSoviet entry into the war in the Far East the military necessity for whichwas urged upon him by Marshall and MacArthur, FDR made territorialconcessions to the Soviets at Chinese and Japanese expense. According to Schaller, "the main advantage of Soviet entry intothe war, for both Churchill and Roosevelt, was that it reduced theirdependence on China's questionable strength" and led to "the realizationthat China's importance in the struggle with Japan had been increasinglymarginal" (152-153). In 1944-1945, the real strategic focus of the fighting shifted fromthe areas of Burma and Southern China where Stilwell's and the Japaneseoffensives, respectively, occurred, and to the infighting between Stilwelland Chiang which finally led to Stilwell's recall in the fall of 1944, tothe area where the fighting of real strategic significance would occur in1945, Manchuria. In a strategic sense, the American-Chineseeffort to retake northern Burma in 1944 and the British invasion ofsouthern Burma in 1944-1945 were strategically irrelevant to the ending ofWorld War II but, of course, of importance to the shape of the postwarworld in East Asia. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1941-1945. Over one million Japanese troops were stationed in China by 1941.When then Brig. Eds. There was no intention of tying down the cream of the Japanese army in a protracted occupation of all China (451-452). Sharpe, 1992. Schaller says that"now that most of Chiang's active supporters in Washington had either lostpower or influence, critical reporting from the field achieved realinfluence for the first time" (156). and Steven I. Two days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb onHiroshima, the Soviets invaded Manchuria in force. . Chiang's critics, of which there have been many before and since theWorld War II, have tended to foster the impression that if it hadn't beenfor the communist partisans, the Japanese would have rolled right over theNationalist Chinese. 1942-1943 Exaggerated optimism and early defeats. According to Schaller,"during 1938 the tide of opinion reversed and China emerged as . Spence says Japan's goal in its Chinese operations was to win an extensive base of natural resources that would fuel further industrial development . . Americans had received many reports, some from as early as 1937, thatthe Communists were putting up more effective resistance in the countrysideto the Japanese than the Nationalist Army; however, Chiang opposed anyformal contacts between the American government and the CCP until theAmerican Dixie Mission visited the guerrilla encampment in the summer of1944, really at the insistence of Vice President Henry Wallace. As Schaller points out, "duringthe first half of the twentieth century, an almost unimaginable chaosengulfed China," revolution, warlordism, famine, civil strife and since theJapanese had seized Manchuria in 1931 and parts of northern China between1933 and 1936, war with the formidable Japanese war machine (2). Levene (Eds.). At the ARCADIA Conference in Washington in late December, 1941,Winston Churchill commented on what he thought was the unrealistic natureof the Americans' expectations concerning the likely contribution of Chinato the Allied war effort: "I was conscious of a standard of values whichaccorded China almost an equal fighting power with the British Empire andrated the Chinese armies as a factor to be mentioned in the same breath asthe armies of Russia" (42). Chinese scholar Hsi-cheng Chi in 1992 has sought tocounterbalance that impression: Even under the Nationalist government and plagued bymultiple handicaps, China proved to be a formidable foe. Thunder Out of China. Armonk: M. China's Bitter Victory. The successful island-hopping campaign in the Pacific made Chineseair bases irrelevant. The beleaguered Nationalistswere delighted that the United States after the Pearl Harbor attack wouldcome to their rescue and deluged Washington with requests for military andfinancial assistance.White said that what was accomplished in the China-Burma-India theater(which was so christened in the spring of 1942) was "awarded lessrecognition, less honor, less support, less encouragement, than any otherphase of America's war effort" (146). Stilwell wanted American military assistance to goto the CCP. 1937-1941 World War II began at different times for different nations. Eds. FDR's decision in mid-summer to back Douglas MacArthur andseize the Philippines rather than the Formosa and the capture by theJapanese of Chennault's airfields all had the effect of downgrading thestrategic importance of China. For China and Japan, itbegan with the clash of arms on the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking in July1937. James C. (2) antagonistic relationships between the Nationalists and the CCP.The temporary united front had broken down by 194 . New York: Harper & Row, 1987.Schaller, Michael. That warintensified with full scale land, air and sea attacks on China's majorcoastal and eastern cities which fell to the Japanese in 1937-1938. Because of internal Chinese divisions,weaknesses in the Chinese Nationalist government and the prioritiesaccorded to other theaters of war, China never played the role envisagedfor it by some Allied leaders and war planners; nevertheless, events thereserved to enmesh Japan in an unsustainable military adventure on the Asianmainland and to weaken its overall war effort. Some raids, including a few B-29 raids werelaunched from China in 1944; however, Chennault's 14th Air Force could besupported only be a herculean airlift effort over the Hump (the HimalayaMountains) and the Chinese Army proved incapable of defending Chennault'sairbases during the Japanese Ichigo offensive during the summer and fall of1944. Crusade in China, 1938-1945. The U.S. . The principal significance of the first phase of the Sino-Japan Warbetween 1937-1945 to the broader world war is that it helped draw Japan andUnited States into conflict in the Pacific. Armonk: M.E. Inlate 1943 the United States caused its Allies to abrogate the unequaltreaties and promise to return to China the territories conquered by Japan.Chiang and his wife were treated as equals at the November-December 1943Cairo Conference; however, Chiang's incessant financial demands, hisreluctance to support General Stilwell's military requirements in Burma andin general his oriental inscrutability, in the words of Admiral Mountbattenhad the effect on the assembled Allied leaders at Cairo of driving themcrazy. yet no matter how manyvictories the Japanese had won on the battlefield, there was no end insight to the war" (141-142). However, Stilwell facedinsuperable obstacles: (1) the immediate loss of his best supply route, over the Burma Road,which was lost to the Japanese in early 1942; the Japanese took advantageof British bumbling and the unpopularity of the British among the Burmese.Inter-allied wrangling among the Americans, the British and the Chinesebedeviled efforts in the China-Burma-India theater throughout the war, butit lessened after Vice Admiral Louis Mountbatten took over Southeast AsiaCommand (SEAC) in late 1943. When the Japanese wantonly sunk the American gunboatPanay in the Yangtze River in December 1937, the United States acceptedJapan's apology. "The War and After: World Politics in Historical Context." China's Bitter Victory. However, Tsou points out that a stickingpoint throughout the American-Japanese negotiations during the summer andfall of 1941 was that "the United States insisted on enforcing theprinciple of the integrity of China and demanded the withdrawal of Japanesetroops from China," a demand the Japanese could not accept (11). . The central political role playedin the KMT by bankers and the capitalists . . Hsiugsays "in the course of the war, China's fighting men were beset by manyproblems, including poor logistics, . No one doubted the courage ofthe Chinese soldier, but the army had no mobility, no strength, no leadership" (132). According to Tang Tsou, the United States prior to 1938, "made noattempt to enforce [its Open Door principles by the application of nationalpower" (7). TheCommunists are a disease of the heart" (Crozier 238). The Search for Modern China. 295-3 6.Hsiung, James C. America's Failure in China 1941-195 . They looted everythingthey could from Manchuria but also facilitated the entry of the PLA intothe area. It was the successful American offensive in the Pacific, thefirebombings of Japan, the interdiction of Japanese shipping, and the twoatomic bombs dropped on Japan, not the Russian invasion of Manchuria whichended the Pacific War. Schaller says that "before 1937 one of Roosevelt's diplomaticpriorities was avoiding conflict with Japan by limiting any danger of aconfrontation" (6). It tied down over a million and a half Japanesesoldiers, stood up to countless blows, and exacted an exceedinglyhigh toll from the enemy" (179).Williamson expressed it a little differently: "Chinese forces lost everymajor confrontation on the battlefield . and to expand the 'new order in Asia' . lack of material [and] the unevenquality of the officer corps" (295). China otherwise failed to liveup to its billing as a major theater of war. General Joseph Stilwell was sent to China as military headof Lend-Lease to China and Chief of Staff to Chiang in 1942, he wasinstructed by Chief of Army Staff George Marshall to do his best to build amodern Chinese army to fight the Japanese. In November 194 FDR hadapproved the gift to China of 1 P-4 fighters and the recruitment offoreign pilots and mechanics who became the legendary Flying Tigers. The military, political and economic weaknesses of the Nationalistregime became increasingly evident during 1944-1945. White's verdict was even harsher: The years of stalemate had made the Chinese army apulp, a tired, dispirited, unorganized mass, despised by the enemy,alien to its own people, neglected by its ridiculed by its allies. The capture of Saipan in 1944 provided B-29 bases inthe Pacific. Hsiung and Steven I. New York: W. Throughout the war,Chiang reserved some of his best troops (on the average 2 of his 9 divisions) for blockading the communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) innorthern Shensi province and other areas retaken by the communists from theJapanese. New York: Random House, 1944.Spence, Jonathan. . As, however, the Japanese army drove more deeply into China, forcingthe Chinese government to withdraw to the interior in 1938-1939, Japanesenational prestige became inextricably entangled with the subjugation ofChinese resistance. New York: Scribners, 1976.Hsiung, James C. Sharpe, 1992.Larabee, Eric. Schaller says that "neither Chinese norBritish commanders wished to sacrifice men and material for an area theyconsidered marginal" (93). . Meanwhile, Japan's terror bombings and atrocities in China's citiestogether with the march of the Axis powers in Europe was gradually wearingdown isolationist sentiment in the United States. New York: Columbia U P, 1945.Snow, Edgar. . . E. On his return from the Tehran Conference with Stalin, FDR toldStilwell that he "was fed up with Chiang and his tantrums" (Schaller 153). The American Army, as represented bymen such as Stilwell and Marshall, had been skeptical of Chiang and hisminions for some time. New York: Macmillan, 197 .White, Theodore H. Norton, 199 .Tsou, Tang. Efforts bymany Americans including Stilwell, his successor General Albert Wedemeyer,Ambassador Patrick Hurley and others to generate military cooperationand/or a political coalition between Nationalists and Communists during thewar all failed. Levene. (3) The weaknesses of the Chinese Nationalist state and its militarywhich included: a conscript army, which was ill-fed, and ill-led. Political reporting from the American embassy in Chungking and frommany American reporter stressed the weaknesses of the KMT and the lack ofpopular appeal of the regime which was usually contrasted unfavorably withthe acceptance of the CCP by the peasants in communist-controlled areas.The war itself seemed to have knocked the KMT off its formerly moremoderate moorings, as Schaller explained: After Japan's invasion, the KMT had surrendered its traditional base in the relatively prosperous coastallower Yangtze provinces. "The Military Dimension, 1942-1945." China's Bitter Victory. One misapprehension was that China would serve as a gigantic aircraftcarrier from which devastating decisive air raids would be launched againstthe Japanese home islands and its merchant marine. The Japanese decision to go to war was triggered by the Americanembargo of July 1941 on oil exports to Japan, which in turn flowed fromaggressive moves of the Japanese to occupy French bases in Indochina afterthe fall of France to the Nazis. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1963.Tuchman, Barbara. In return the Sovietspromised to recognize Chinese sovereignty and not to interfere in Chineseaffairs. The Man Who Lost China. Theircommander, Claire Chennault, sold Chiang and to a large extent FDR on theidea that airpower based on China could make a decisive contribution tovictory in the Pacific War. New York: William Sloane, 1946.Williamson, Marvin, "The Military Dimension, 1937-1941." China's Bitter Victory. WhileFranklin Roosevelt (FDR) endorsed the idea of supporting China, andauthorized small credits to the Nationalists in 1938 and larger amountsunder Lend-Lease in early 1941, there remained "deeply rooted fear ofprovoking Japan" and a desire in 1941 to postpone any Pacific war untilAmerican rearmament was further underway (Schaller 32). In 1939-194 , Japan formed a puppet Chinese governmentin Nanking and made some attempts without success to negotiate peace withChina which would leave it in control of the richest part of the country.Consistently victorious over Chiang's inferior forces, the Japanese foundthemselves increasingly drawn into a long battle of attrition in China'svast interior. China never played the role assigned to it by many American politicaland military leaders in final victory because those expectations were basedon faulty estimations of Chinese realities. James C. According to Tuchman, he thought that "the Chinese soldier,properly armed, trained and led, was the equal of any in the world" (416). Armonk: M. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.