China and Japan at War Learning Material PDF

5: China and Japan at War Learning Material Key Words 1. Militarism -​ Militarism is the belief that a strong military is essential for a nation's success and should play a central role in government and society. Countries with militarism prioritize military expansion, preparedn...

5: China and Japan at War Learning Material Key Words 1. Militarism -​ Militarism is the belief that a strong military is essential for a nation's success and should play a central role in government and society. Countries with militarism prioritize military expansion, preparedness, and influence in decision-making. -​ Examples of Militarism in China & Japan: -​ Japan (Meiji & Showa Periods) -​ Japan modernized its military under Meiji nationalism (late 1800s). -​ Became highly militaristic in the 1930s, leading to expansion into Manchuria & WWII. -​ China (20th Century) -​ Warlordism (1916–1928) showed regional military control. -​ The Communist victory (1949) established a strong military-led government under Mao. 2. Warlordism and warlords -​ From 1916-1928 China was ruled by warlords or military men who ruled through their army, period was identified with warlordism -​ Warlordism is when military leaders (warlords) control different regions of a country using their own armies, rather than a central government having full power. -​ The warlords began taxing their peasants harder and treating them even more harshly, due to the united military front making them mad. 3. Sun Yat-sen -​ Revolutionist that led the KMT - Kuomintang also known as the Guomindang (GMD) which is China;s Nationalist Party, founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen -​ Known as the father of the “Republic of China” as he played a major role in China;s pursuit of Nationalism and modernizatiom -​ Wanted to build a stronger China and expel foreigners. -​ He asked the Soviet Union for assistance in 1923, and received advice and training to restructure the Guomindang and to build a part army. 4. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Party (KMT) -​ Sun Yats-sen’s general and protege -​ Led the Nationalist Party (KMT) - Kuomintang after Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 -​ To make Belinda happy Chang Kai-shek can be referred to as the “Great Big Goon” because when he and KMT moved to Taiwan, he unleashed decades of military rule that devastated the people of Taiwan. -​ Wanted to build a stronger China and expel foreigners. -​ Chang Kai-shek is also known as Jiang Jieshi or Jiang Zhanogzhen. -​ He was sent by Sun to train in the Soviet Union. -​ Chiang oversaw a modest programme of reform in China but the government's resources were focused on fighting internal opponents, including the Communists. From 1931, Chiang also had to contend with a Japanese invasion in Manchuria, in the north-east of China. 5. Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -​ Mao Led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -​ Mao Tse-tung served as chairman of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1959, and led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death. Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and the Cultural Revolution were ill-conceived and had disastrous consequences, but many of his goals, including stressing China's self-reliance, were generally laudable. -​ Mao Tse-tung had supported both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, but over the next few years, he adopted Leninist ideas and believed that appealing to the farming peasants was the key to establishing communism in Asia -​ The CCP and KMT partnered together -​ 6. Comintern -​ The Communist International or Comintern, an organization established in Moscow to direct a world revolution, sent agents to China in 1920. -​ The Comintern decided that the best way to bring about this revolution was to join forces with the bourgeoisie (the middle class) and in China’s case, the KMT. -​ In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was formed with about 60 members and at the urging of the Comintern representative, they all joined the KMT. -​ For the next two years, the two groups (the CCP and KMT) formed an uneasy alliance against the imperialists and warlords. 7. The Northern Expedition, 1926 -​ An expedition led by Jiang (Chang Kai-shek). -​ In July 1926, he led his National Revolutionary Army and began the Northern Expedition to unit China. -​ This two-pronged campaign to unite a great part of China reached down to the Yangzi River and gained South and South Central China for the Guomindang. -​ Significance?: For the first time, more than half of China was united under one group. -​ The KMT was so successful because it had a powerful, Soviet-trained and disciplined nationalist army. -​ For the first time in Chinese warfare, it was also aided by peasants and labourers who helped them secure food, shelter, and served as scouts. The nationalists had the CCP to thank for the mass mobilization. -​ When did the CCP & KMT stop working together? It all came to a head in Shanghai in February 1927 due to the Shanghai Massacre/April 12th Incident -​ Shanghai was a major commercial centre and Jiang was interested in taking it over from a warlord. -​ Workers in the city started a strike to undercut the warlord’s power, which was crashed by the warlord’s troops. -​ In response, the CCP and its supporters mobilized thousands and thousands of workers.  -​ Always suspicious of Communist strength, Chiang began to act. As his forces entered the city, forces loyal to Chiang attacked all union headquarters and NRA (National Revolutionary Army) soldiers fired on civilians. This was known as the Shanghai Massacre or the April 12th Incident. -​ Chiang due to suspension of the Communist Strength used the opportunity of them initially working together to surprise attack them leading to the massacre, and the discontinuation of the parties (CCP, AND KMT) partnership. 8. Long March, 1934-1936 -​ The Long March was an epic retreat led by Mao (the CCP leader) from 1934 to 1936. -​ The retreat saw Mao and his followers brave China’s most difficult terrains over a 8,000 mile march while dodging tenacious KMT attacks led by Chiang. -​ When they finally reached the seclusion of Shanxi province, only one tenth of the original force, or 7,000 men and a few women, had survived. -​ 9. The Nanking Years, 1928-1945 -​ Chiang and his KMT had united China for the first time since the fall of the Qing Dyansty. -​ Even with a United China the revolution had failed due to several forces preventing Chafing from building a modern China with a strong centralized government, industries, and transportation. Here are main 3 reasons why: -​ 1. Money -​ Chaing had united China shortly before the Great Depression of 1929 began -​ China faced a shortage of revenues, making it hard to build roads or hire competent people without money. -​ 2. Warlords -​ Warlords were still lurking -​ Many warlords had been coopted and not suppressed or eliminated -​ From 1928-1936, Chaing spent most of his time (62,5% to be exact) leading military campaigns. -​ It is difficult to create and implement effective policies while fighting. -​ 3. Increasing Japanese encroachment -​ in Manchuria, Mongolia, and northern China. 10. Manchukuo and Puyi -​ In 1932, Japan set up a puppet state under Manchu leadership. This was called Manchukuo, meaning the country of the Manchus under the leadership of the last Qing emperor, Puyi. -​ the Japanese military, wishing to secure northeastern China as an industrial colony and source of raw materials, staged the Mukden Incident on September 18, 1931, as a pretext for taking over Manchuria. On February 18, 1932, Japan declared the establishment of the "Great Manchu Nation" Manchuko 11. Yasuko Kurochi Dower and Furusawa Atsuo  -​ Two men who grew up in 1930s Japan ans recall how the creation of war-waging Japanese began at an early age. -​ Yasuko jared the military discipline, whereas Furusawa never doubted that they would win the war or that he would become a soldier (he accepted his fate during that time more than Yasuko. -​ Both experienced military discipline at a very young age during school. 12. Marco Polo Bridge Incident, July 7, 1939 -​ Started because of a missing japanese soldier who was not missing -​ The Japanese demanded the right to search a nearby town. Although the soldier turned up half an hour later, his commander did not know this. When the Chinese troops refused to allow the Japanese to search the town, Japanese soldiers opened fire and a battle broke out -​ Thousands of casualties by the end of july 1939. -​ Within days, Japan seized control of the region around Beijing and within days, both sides had declared that they would fight to the bitter end. 13. It is known as the Nanking or Nanjing Incident in Japan, but the Nanjing Massacre in China, December 1937 -​ When Japanese troops reached Nanking, Chiang’s power base, it committed one of the worst acts of wartime atrocities: the Rape of Nanking (December 1937). -​ It is estimated that upwards of 200,000 Chinese civilians died. Many were women and children -​ The number of women raped was said by Westerners who were there to be 20,000, and there were widespread accounts of civilians being hacked to death. -​ Many Japanese officials and historians deny there was a massacre on such a scale. -​ Japanese soldiers showed no mercy to chinese civilians on Chinese soil and millions of Chinese civilians bore the brunt of the war. 14. Comfort women and comfort stations -​ "wartime comfort women" were those who were taken to former Japanese military installations, such as comfort stations, for a certain period during wartime in the past and forced to provide sexual services to officers and soldiers. -​ Comfot stations was the place (rooms) where the sexual acts took place. -​ "ianfu (comfort women)" -​ Authors who wrote about these women in the postwar Japan called them "jugun ianfu (comfort women joining the army)" -​ The comfort stations were first established at the request of the Japanese military authorities, as part of war efforts in China. -​ When the war spread to Shanghai after the First Shanghai Incident in 1932, the first comfort station was established for a Japanese naval brigade posted there. The number of comfort stations increased rapidly after the Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937. -​ Okamur Yauji was the one who first promoted the establishment of comfort stations for the japanese army.  -​ The brought in comfort women to decrease rape crimes among japenese soliders and chinese women. the military hoped to prevent a worsening of anti-Japanese feelings on the part of the Chinese people. -​ Comfort Stations spread all over Asia 15. Kimiko Kaneda -​ A comfort woman who recalled her experiences during that time. -​ When she was 16 years old, she went to Seoul for better employment on the recommendation of her friend who worked as a housemaid for a Japanese family. Led by a Japanese, she was put on a train to go from Seoul to Tianjin, China, then from Tianjin via Peitan to Zaoqiang. There she was forced to be a comfort woman for the Japanese military. -​ She got stabbed while resisting the soldiers that came into her comfort room. 16. Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941 -​ Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, which was where US military forces were stationed. 17. Blasting of the Yellow River dykes -​ Chiang’s troops were in many ways ruthless to Chinese civilians. In 1938, when they blasted open the dykes on the Yellow River, they did not warn the civilians living in the area and more than 300,000 drowned and 2 million were left homeless. 18. Kill all, burn all policies -​ the CCP were organizing peasants and burning bridges, cutting down telegraph lines, tearing up railroad lines to slow the advances of Japanese forces. Angered by a two front war, Japanese soldiers unleashed a ruthless “Kill All, Burn All” policy. -​ The war dragged into a stalemate with heavy atrocities on both sides. This map captures this entrenched war with three forces: Japan, the KMT, and Guiding Questions 1. How did the Great Depression of 1929 affect China and Japan? Do you think the Great Depression contributed to the conflict between them? 2. Why did China and Japan go to war in 1937? Discuss at least two forces that encouraged the war. Can you understand their reasons? The Second Sino-Japanese War Armistice (1945) ​ This war (1937–1945) was part of World War II, with China fighting against Japan’s invasion. The first force was Japans militarism and expansion mindset towards expanding their empire especially in china, for example they invaded manchuria and set up a puppet state (manchukuo) The second force was the chinese nationalism and resistance (KMT and CCP) briefly worked together to resist japan. -​ Since china suffered from foreign domination and internal conflict (warlordism, civil war) 3. Should the events that occurred in December 1937 in Nanking be called a Massacre or Incident? Why? -​ It should be considered a massacre since many people were casualties of the bruital acts that took place. 4. Who were the “Comfort Women” and how were they treated during and after the war? How does this reflect on Japan then and now? -​ The comfomrt women were brought over from korea, philippines and japan to perform sexual acts with soilders, they were treated like sex slaves. -​ Japan then didn’t seem to care about their women since they were sending them over to these comfort stations, but now Japan does care since then about there women