1937–1945 war between China and Japan
Second Sino-Japanese War Part of the interwar period and the Pacific theatre of World War II Clockwise from top left: Date 7 July 1937 – 2 September 1945 Location Result
Chinese victory Territorial changes
China recovers all territories lost to Japan since the Treaty of Shimonoseki .
Belligerents
China
Japan
Commanders and leaders
Strength
14,000,000 total
Chinese Nationalists : (including regional warlords ):
1,700,000 (1937)
2,600,000 (1939)[1]
5,700,000 (1945)[2]
Chinese Communists :
640,000 (1937)[3]
166,700 (1938)[4]
488,744 (1940)[5]
1,200,000 (1945)[6]
4,100,000 total
[12] : 314 Casualties and losses
Chinese Nationalists :
Official ROC data :
1,319,958 killed
1,761,335 wounded
130,116 missing
Total: 3,211,409[13] [14]
Other estimates :
3,000,000–4,000,000+ military dead and missing
500,000 captured[15] [16]
Total: 3,211,000–10,000,000+ military casualties[16] [17]
Chinese Communists :
Official PRC data :
160,603 military dead
290,467 wounded
87,208 missing
45,989 POWs
Total: 584,267 military casualties[18]
Other estimates :
Total :
3,800,000–10,600,000+ military casualties after July 1937 (excluding Manchuria and Burma campaign )
1,000,000+ captured[15] [16]
266,800–1,000,000 POWs dead[15] [16]
Japanese :
Japanese medical data :
455,700[19] –700,000 military dead[20] [a]
1,934,820 wounded and missing[21]
22,293+ captured[b]
Total: 2,500,000+ military casualties (1937 to 1945 excluding Manchuria and Burma campaign )
Puppet states and collaborators :
288,140–574,560 dead
742,000 wounded
Middle estimate: 960,000 dead and wounded[22] [17]
Total :
c. 3,000,000–3,600,000 military casualties after July 1937 (excluding Manchuria and Burma campaign )[c]
Total casualties : 15,000,000[23] –22,000,000[14]
^ This number does not include Japanese killed by Chinese forces in the Burma campaign and does not include Japanese killed in Manchuria.
^ Excluding more than 1 million who were disarmed following the surrender of Japan
^ Including casualties of Japanese puppet forces. The combined toll is most likely around 3,500,000: 2.5 million Japanese, per their own records, and 1,000,000 collaborators.
1931–1937 (pre-war skirmishes)
1937–1939
1940–1942
1943–1945
Air War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931.[24] [25] It is considered part of World War II , and often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century[26] and has been described as "the Asian Holocaust ", in reference to the scale of Japanese war crimes against Chinese civilians.[28] [29] It is known in China as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression .
On 18 September 1931, the Japanese staged the Mukden incident , a false flag event fabricated to justify their invasion of Manchuria and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo . This is sometimes marked as the beginning of the war.[30] [31] From 1931 to 1937, China and Japan engaged in skirmishes, including in Shanghai and in Northern China. Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces, respectively led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong , had fought each other in Chinese Civil War since 1927 before forming the Second United Front in late 1936 in order to resist the Japanese invasion together.
The full-scale war began on 7 July 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident near Beijing , which prompted a full-scale Japanese invasion of the rest of China. The Japanese captured the capital of Nanjing in 1937 and perpetrated the Nanjing Massacre . After failing to stop the Japanese advance at the Battle of Wuhan , the Nationalist government relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. After the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact , Soviet aid bolstered the Republic of China Army and Air Force . By 1939, after Chinese victories at Changsha and Guangxi , and with Japan's lines of communications stretched deep into the interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were unable to defeat Chinese Communist Party 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, communist forces launched the Hundred Regiments Offensive in central China.
In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States. The US increased its aid to China under the Lend-Lease Act , becoming its main financial and military supporter. With Burma cut off, the United States 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] The Chinese Civil War resumed in 1946, ending with a communist victory and the Proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
^ Hsiung, China's Bitter Victory , p. 171
^ David Murray Horner (24 July 2003). The Second World War: The Pacific . Taylor & Francis. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-0-415-96845-4 . Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 6 March 2011 .
^ Hsiung (1992). China's Bitter Victory . Routledge. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-563-24246-5 .
^ 八路军·表册 (in Chinese). 中国人民解放军历史资料丛书编审委员会. 1994. pp. 第3页. ISBN 978-7-506-52290-8 .
^ 丁星,《新四军初期的四个支队—新四军组织沿革简介(2)》【J】,铁军,2007年第2期,38–40页
^ Hsiung, James C. (1992). China's Bitter Victory: The War With Japan, 1937–1945 . New York: M. E. Sharpe publishing. ISBN 1-56324-246-X . Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2015 .
^ Black, Jeremy (2012). Avoiding Armageddon: From the Great Wall to the Fall of France, 1918–40 . A&C Black. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-441-12387-9 .
^ RKKA General Staff, 1939 Archived 25 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 17 April 2016
^ Ministry of Health and Welfare, 1964 Archived 11 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 11 March 2016
^ Liu, Tinghua 刘庭华 (1995). 中国抗日战争与第二次世界大战系年要录·统计荟萃 1931–1945 (in Chinese). Haichao chubanshe. p. 312. ISBN 7-80054-595-4 .
^ Hsu Long-hsuen "History of the Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945)" Taipei 1972
^ a b Clodfelter, Micheal "Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference", Vol. 2, pp. 956. Includes civilians who died due to famine and other environmental disasters caused by the war. Only includes the 'regular' Chinese army; does NOT include guerrillas and does not include Chinese casualties in Manchuria or Burma.
^ a b c "Rummel, Table 6A" . hawaii.edu . Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2017 .
^ a b c d R. J. Rummel . China's Bloody Century . Transaction 1991 ISBN 0-88738-417-X .
^ a b c Rummel, Rudolph . "Estimates, Sources, and Calculations, July 1937 to August 1945" . University of Hawaiʻi (GIF). Archived from the original on 27 December 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2023 .
^ Meng Guoxiang & Zhang Qinyuan, 1995. "关于抗日战争中我国军民伤亡数字问题".
^ Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery Archived 16 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 10 March 2016
^ 戦争: 中国侵略(War: Invasion of China) (in Japanese). 読売新聞社. 1983. p. 186. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 16 January 2017 .
^ He Yingqin, "Eight Year Sino-Japanese War"
^ R. J. Rummel . China's Bloody Century . Transaction 1991 ISBN 0-88738-417-X . Table 5A
^ Ho Ping-ti, Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953, Harvard University Press, 1953. p. 252
^ Carter, James (20 September 2023). "The Origins of World War II in Asia" . The China Project . Retrieved 13 July 2024 .
^ "China's War with Japan" . Faculty of History, University of Oxford . Retrieved 13 July 2024 .
^ Bix, Herbert P. (1992), "The Showa Emperor's 'Monologue' and the Problem of War Responsibility", Journal of Japanese Studies , 18 (2): 295–363, doi :10.2307/132824 , JSTOR 132824
^ Todd, Douglas. "Douglas Todd: Lest we overlook the 'Asian Holocaust' " . Vancouver Sun . Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 2 July 2021 .
^ Kang, K. (4 August 1995). "Breaking Silence: Exhibit on 'Forgotten Holocaust' Focuses on Japanese War Crimes" . Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 19 January 2022. Retrieved 2 July 2021 .
^ Hotta, E. (25 December 2007). Pan-Asianism and Japan's War 1931–1945 . Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-230-60992-1 . Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 28 November 2017 .
^ Paine, S. C. M. (20 August 2012). The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949 . Cambridge University Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-139-56087-0 . Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 28 November 2017 .
^ Brinkley, Douglas (2003). The New York Times Living History: World War II, 1942–1945: The Allied Counteroffensive . Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-805-07247-1 . Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 2 September 2015 .