ranted a diff er ent response. Chiang also did not always notify his high- level
officials of the directions he was giving to local commanders, a practice that
sometimes created confusion among commanders at diff er ent levels. In ad-
dition, the Chinese lacked supplies and often were not adequately nour-
ished. As during earlier phases of the war, Japan’s soldiers were better
trained, better equipped, and more disciplined. Chiang Kai- shek acknowl-
edged that the battles of 1944 were the most disappointing and discour-
aging of all the campaigns of the war.
By January 1945 the Japa nese had accomplished most of their goals for
the campaign. They had wiped out several airfields the United States could
have used for bombing Japan. They had opened the transport route from
Nanning into Southeast Asia and defeated all the Chinese troops that stood
in their way. But in their strategic goal of defending Japan from air raids,
they failed, for two months after the Ichigo Campaign began, U.S. forces
advanced into the Mariana Islands, including Saipan, where they built sev-
eral airfields that were close enough to Japan to be used for massive bombing
attacks. In the Ichigo Campaign the Japanese sacrificed great numbers of
men. However, in the end, it was the Allied forces, led by the Americans,
conducting air raids and then dropping two atomic bombs, that caused the
Japanese to surrender.
The Ichigo Campaign had a far larger impact on China’s Nationalists
than it had on the Communists because it focused on areas where there were
many Nationalist forces and few Communists. The Nationalist forces suf-
fered such heavy losses during these battles that they were in a much weaker
position when the Civil War broke out in China in the middle of 1946.
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china and japan
The Japa nese Homefront
The war- making capacity of Japan was extraordinary. The Japa nese people,
living on four islands with a total area that is smaller than Montana, had
taken on China, Southeast Asia, and the United States and held them at
bay until August 1945. When Japan first put its Zero airplanes into battle
over Chongqing, no American warplane was its equal, and U.S. pi lots were
instructed not to take them on in one- to- one encounters. Not until the
Grumman fighter planes became available in September 1943 did the United
States have a plane that could outmaneuver the Zero.
Japan had loyal citizens who were willing to sacrifice and do what they
were told. Soldiers and citizens at home did not revolt, even when faced with
the deaths of family members and crackdowns on free expression of
opinion. The government controlled all information in Japan, so the public
learned only of the military’s glorious successes and did not learn of the hor-
rible deeds committed by Japa nese troops, or of their failures. When the
Japa nese were defeated in the Battle of Midway in 1942, in the midst of the
Pacific War, those who had survived the battle were kept isolated and treated
in separate hospitals so that the public would not learn of the defeat. In 1945,
as air raids were destroying Japan’s cities, Japa nese propaganda, claiming that
Japan’s strategy was to draw the enemy closer to its shores so as to defeat it,
began to ring hollow. Yet people continued with their daily lives and their
daily work.
Some Japa nese officials were smart enough to see that Japan would lose
the war, but they could not say so publicly. In 1943 and 1944 Japan was still
heavi ly dependent on Manchuria for supplies of coal, iron ore, and bauxite,
but in February 1945, when Japa nese planners had to adjust to the destruc-
tion of their ships bringing supplies from mainland China, they de cided that
importing soybeans and salt had priority because they would be needed to
feed the Japa nese population after the war ended. In July 1945, a small group
began meeting to begin economic planning for the period after defeat. Under
war time politics, they could not refer to their work as postwar economic
reconstruction, so they called themselves the Study Group for Japa nese Self-
Sufficiency. The day after Japan’s surrender, the group held its first publi-
cized meeting and changed the name of the organ ization to the Committee
for Research into Postwar Prob lems.
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The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
On the eve of the Sino- Japanese War, top leaders in Japan did not have
the empathy to think through how the Chinese people, with their growing
sense of nationalism, would respond to Japan’s ambitions for conquest. They
did not have the wisdom to see the long- term hostility that would be cre-
ated by their aggression in China. Nor did they have the understanding
needed to properly evaluate how the Americans would respond to the at-
tack on Pearl Harbor. Once Japan began losing the war, Japa nese people re-
mained loyal to their country, but their leaders did not have the courage to
surrender and thereby stop the massive loss of Japa nese lives and the dev-
astation of their cities.
The Legacy
Atrocities committed by Japa nese troops during the war became better
known to the outside world after the conflict. The atrocities in Nanjing,
which had been reported briefly in the West by journalists in 1937 as they
occurred, were recounted more fully during the Tokyo War Crimes Trials,
and they received even fuller attention after the 1990s. The destruction by
the Japa nese of entire Chinese villages suspected of harboring guerrillas had
been reported during the war and continued to receive attention afterward.
Lethal chemical and biological experiments on human subjects, largely Chi-
nese and Korean prisoners, carried out by Japan’s Unit 731 in Harbin were
publicized by the Chinese, but they were not publicly acknowledged by the
Japa nese until 1993, when Japan fi nally admitted the existence of Unit 731
facilities. In 2018 the Japa nese government released the names of 3,607
Japa nese individuals who had worked in such facilities in Harbin, and the
NHK tele vi sion network aired a program giving a full picture of the ex-
periments and acknowledging their existence.
The Japa nese policy of forcing women (“comfort women”) from East
Asian countries, primarily China and Korea, to go to “comfort stations”
where they were required to provide sexual ser vices for Japa nese soldiers
began to receive wide attention in 1991, and former comfort women who
were still alive at the time demanded compensation for their suffering. At
the time, some Japanese officers believed it was better for sexual activities
to be confined at comfort stations rather than having troops stir up local
opposition by raping women in the countryside. After the war, Japanese
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china and japan
officials initially denied that the government had played a role, but by 1993
Japa nese officials were acknowledging the existence of this program and they
had begun to offer compensation to the victims. The Chinese who have col-
lected information about the program have estimated that between 50
,000
and 200,000 young women were forced to leave their homes to work in
brothels to ser vice Japa nese troops. The impact of the publicity about these
brutalities put the Japa nese people living de cades after the war on the de-
fensive for the cruelties committed by Japa nese troops during the war.
Impact of the War on China
Chinese losses in the war were immea sur able. Some have estimated that as
many as 3 million soldiers and 18 million civilians died and that as many as
100 million people were left homeless.8 Cities and industries were devas-
tated and yet, because of the subsequent Chinese Civil War, serious re-
building could not begin until after 1949.
The Japa nese invasion had led Chinese people in each region to recog-
nize that to resist the invader it was necessary to cooperate with people in
other regions. The invasion and occupation by Japan led to the spread of a
strident nationalism, which had blossomed among the urban educated elite
in major cities during World War I and then spread to residents of smaller
inland cities and peasants in the countryside. Resisting the Japa nese required
local groups to subordinate themselves to those who represented broader
national interests. The war thus strengthened the Nationalists compared
with the warlords. The war enabled the Communists to transform them-
selves from a small group of rebels into a large group of patriots poised to
compete for the right to govern China. It gave them the time and space to
develop plans for fighting the Civil War and the outlines of the programs
they would use for governing China. It provided an opportunity for the
Communists to expand their key organ izations, the army and the party,
which would later serve as a basis for unifying all of China.
In the end, it was the United States that won the war and caused the
Japanese to surrender but the Nationalists proclaimed victory over Japan.
They could point to their endurance in tying down more than four million
Japa nese troops. But it was difficult to find other areas of national achieve-
ment during the war to which they, as the responsible ruling party, could
. 282 .
The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
point with pride. It was difficult to take pride in an army that had been de-
feated in virtually all major battles. The defeats had taken a toll on Nation-
alist morale. At the end of the China War, the Nationalists still had far
more officials and troops than the Communists, including some who were
very dedicated and capable. But even as the party in power, they could not
easily match the appeal of the Communists, who advocated lowering rents
in order to win the support of ordinary peasants and make them willing to
let their sons serve in the Communist army. Nor could the Nationalists
easily counter the Communists’ demand that taxes be lowered.
When the Communists took power on October 1, 1949, they made use
of the visions and orga nizational structure they had created in Yan’an during
the war. After 1949, they placed in impor tant positions those whom they
had trained in Yan’an. Yan’an had been, in effect, a training and building
ground for the people and the programs that brought to China the first truly
national government since the fall of the Qing dynasty. And after being de-
feated and settling in Taiwan in 1949, the Nationalists similarly drew on
the structure they had built and the people who had worked together in
Chongqing. Although the Communists killed or discarded in po liti cal cam-
paigns many of the remaining high- level Nationalists, China was so large,
and the Communists needed so many people, that they put in lower- level
positions many individuals who had been trained by the Nationalists be-
fore and during the war.
Impact of the War on Japan
In 1945, the dream that began in the later part of the nineteenth century,
that Japan could play a leading role in bringing enlightenment and mod-
ernization to the countries of Asia, came crashing down and turned into a
nightmare. Japan’s extraordinary successes, beginning in the 1860s with the
building of a modern administrative structure, a modern educational system,
and a modern economy, ultimately did not lead to glory but to tragedy, for
both Japan and its neighbors. Millions of Japa nese died, not only in China
but also in Japan. Japa nese cities were destroyed and its industries lay in ruin.
The occupation of Manchuria had brought earlier economic benefits to
Japan, but the 1937–1945 Sino- Japanese War was for Japan an unmitigated
disaster. Japan had poured resources into its effort in China, but in the end,
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china and japan
it had nothing to bring home but defeated soldiers and settlers looking for
work and help.
Ordinary Japa nese citizens wanted to believe that their family members
who had gone to China to serve their nation were doing their duty and were
not doing evil things, and the government’s war time control of the media
in Japan had spared families from learning about the horrors their soldiers
committed in China. When Japan was forced to surrender, and the emperor
told them to endure the unendurable, they blamed the militarists and poli-
ticians who had brought on and sustained the war. In the years after the
war, they were dejected not only because of the destruction of their country,
the poverty, the malnutrition, and the lack of employment opportunities,
but also because they believed that the path Japan had been pursuing and
to which they had dedicated their lives had failed and was morally wrong.
The Japa nese people were determined that their country should give up its
militarism and follow a path of peace.
Japa nese habits of hard work did not end with defeat. The Japa nese, who
had worked hard before and during the war, began cleaning up the rubble
and rebuilding their country. With help from the United States, they turned
their swords into plowshares and they built a civilian economy, using the
skills that had been nurtured during war time. Companies that had made
lenses for weapons began making cameras for the consumer market. Nissan
and Toyota, which had made trucks for the troops, learned how to make
commercially viable automobiles. Shipbuilders who had produced warships
began building tankers and transport ships. Government institutions that
had been building for the war effort worked on building a domestic
infrastructure.
The Japa nese accepted the need to give up the authoritarian po liti cal
structure that had supported the military leaders; they were ready to pursue
democracy. They accepted the view that the emperor was not sacred. As a
country that had been the target of atomic weapons, they were determined
not to pursue atomic weapons. They de cided that they would undertake
po liti cal modernization, following the Western demo cratic countries, and
would cooperate with other countries to create and sustain a peaceful world.
The Japa nese who survived World War II wanted to take pride in their
friends and relatives who had been willing to make sacrifices fo
r what they
thought would bring good results for other people as well as for themselves.
. 284 .
The Sino- Japanese War, 1937–1945
They wanted to think of themselves as good people, doing good things not
only for themselves and their families and friends but also for the cause of
world peace, and they were willing to make sacrifices to do those good things.
12
The Second Sino- Japanese War ended the Japanese vision that they were
an enlightened, advanced nation helping the Chinese to modernize and
resist Western imperialism. The vision turned into a nightmare as the
Japa nese came to be viewed by other nations as well as by the Chinese as
ruthless, inhumane aggressors who had brought devastation to China.
Within China, hatred of the Japa nese for the cruelties committed by
their troops has helped to underpin patriotism and national unity. During
the Civil War in 1945–1949, the content of many of the complaints about
the cruelties committed by Nationalist soldiers overlapped with complaints
about cruelties enacted by Japa nese soldiers during the Sino- Japanese War.
But later, after Taiwan and the mainland reestablished contacts, mainland
publicity about Nationalist cruelties decreased. Publicity about Japa nese
cruelties during World War II in fact increased, beginning in the 1990s. The
Sino- Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 inflicted enormous tragedies on the
Japa nese but even more tragedies on the Chinese, tragedies that have con-
tinued to shape Chinese attitudes toward Japan.
. 285 .
chapter nine
The Col apse of the Japa nese Empire and the
Cold War, 1945–1972
In 1945 Japan lost not only the war but also its colonial empire, and it
began to shrink back to the size it was in 1894, prior to the Sino- Japanese
War. Manchuria became part of China, Korea became in de pen dent, and
Taiwan became Chinese. More than 100 million people were relocated,
mostly to their ancestral homes. Japa nese people returned from China and
elsewhere in Asia to their four home islands. Many of the Chinese who,
during World War II, had escaped the Japa nese and found refuge in
China’s southwestern and northwestern regions, and overseas, returned to
the regions in China where their parents had lived. The new national govern-
China and Japan Page 44
