Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 (76 page)

The concentration on Mao is understandable, but runs the danger of ignoring important Communist activity outside Yan’an. On Communist base areas and resistance outside Yan’an see, for instance, Gregor Benton’s monumental
Mountain Fires: The Red Army’s Three-Year War in South China, 1934–1938
(Berkeley, CA, 1992), and
New Fourth Army:
Communist Resistance Along the Yangtze and the Huai, 1938–1941
(Berkeley, CA, 1999); David Goodman,
Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China: The Taihang Base Area in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937–1945
(Lanham, MD, 2000); Pauline Keating, David Goodman, and Feng Chongyi, eds.,
North China at War: The Social Ecology of Revolution
(Armonk, NY, 1999); Pauline Keating,
Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and the Cooperative Movement in Northwest China, 1934–1945
(Stanford, CA, 1997); Dagfinn Gatu,
Village China at War: The Impact of Resistance to Japan, 1937–1945
(Vancouver, 2008); Chen Yung-fa,
Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945
(Berkeley, CA, 1986); Odoric Wou,
Mobilizing the Masses: Building Revolution in Henan
(Stanford, CA, 1994); and Sherman Xiaogang Lai,
A Springboard to Victory: Shandong Province and Chinese Communist Military and Financial Strength, 1937–1945
(Leiden, 2011).

The opening of new sources in Russia and China has revived a debate about how far Mao’s revolution drew on Stalin and how far it was indigenous. Although it is clear that neither explanation is sufficient in itself, a necessary and useful corrective to any idea that Mao’s revolution was entirely separate from that of Stalin’s is Michael Sheng,
Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States
(Princeton, NJ, 1997).

INTELLIGENCE

Wartime China was the scene of a variety of murky intelligence operations, many of which remain mysterious to this day. The China sections of Richard Aldrich,
Intelligence and the War against Japan: Britain, America, and the Politics of Secret Service
(Cambridge, 2000), are very useful for understanding the position from the Western point of view, as is Yu Maochun,
OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War
(New Haven, CT, 1997). Chinese intelligence efforts are detailed in essays in the special edition of
Intelligence and National Security
16:4 (2001), ed. Hans van de Ven. Dai Li’s role is analyzed in Frederic Wakeman Jr.,
Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service
(Berkeley, CA, 2003).

COLLABORATION WITH THE JAPANESE

This remains a touchy subject, and for political reasons it has mostly not yet developed the nuance that has marked studies of European wartime collaboration. A path-breaking work is Timothy Brook,
Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Chinese Elites in Wartime China
(Cambridge, MA, 2005), which discusses the messy reality of local compromise in the Yangtze delta in the years after the invasion. A very useful edited volume is David Barrett and Larry Shyu,
Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932–1945: The Limits of Accommodation
(Stanford, CA, 2001). Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh, eds.,
In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation
(Cambridge, 2004), gives vivid details of the fate of Shanghai after 1937. For the occupation and subsequent collaboration that set the stage for the invasion of China, see Rana Mitter,
The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China
(Berkeley, CA, 2000). A compelling insight into the mind-set that led to “collaborationist nationalism” is Margherita Zanasi,
Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China
(Chicago, IL, 2006). Brian G. Martin, “Shield of Collaboration: The Wang Jingwei Regime’s Security Service, 1939–1945,”
Intelligence and National Security
16:4 (2001), and “Collaboration within Collaboration: Zhou Fohai’s Relations with the Chongqing Government, 1942–1945,”
Twentieth-Century China
34:2 (April 2008), provide a comprehensive view of the use of intelligence and security by Wang Jingwei’s government to try to solidify its position.

ARTS AND CULTURE

The war saw the transformation of the cultural and artistic world in China. So far there has been more work on the Communist contributions to cultural change during that period than on the Nationalists. Chang-tai Hung,
War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945
(Berkeley, CA, 1994), analyzes a variety of wartime cultural forms including the press, cartoons, and performance art. The dilemmas of literary figures in occupied Shanghai are considered in Edward M. Gunn Jr.,
Unwelcome Muse: Chinese Literature in Shanghai and Peking, 1937–1945
(New York, 1980), and Poshek Fu,
Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai
(Stanford, CA, 1993). Jonathan Spence’s
The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895–1980
(New York, 1981) brings to life the journeys of artistic figures who spent time in Yan’an during the war. John Israel’s
Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution
(Stanford, CA, 1998) focuses on the difficult lives of intellectuals who made the journey to the Nationalist areas of China.

SOCIAL HISTORY

The social history of wartime China is developing strongly as new sources open up. Aside from work on the Communist areas (discussed above), there is stimulating new work on social change in the Nationalist zones. A pioneering work on labor history in wartime Chongqing is Joshua H. Howard,
Workers at War: Labor in China’s Arsenals, 1937–1953
(Stanford, CA, 2004). Gender issues are addressed in Danke Li,
Echoes of Chongqing: Women in Wartime China
(Chicago, 2009) and Nicole Huang,
Women, War, Domesticity: Shanghai Literature and Popular Culture of the 1940s
(Leiden, 2005). Essays in the following two special journal issues also deal with aspects of China’s wartime social and economic history:
Modern Asian Studies
45:1 (March 2011), special edition “China in World War II, 1937–1945,” ed. Rana Mitter and Aaron William Moore; and
European Journal of East Asian Studies
11:2 (December 2012) special edition “Welfare, Relief, and Rehabilitation in Wartime China,” ed. Rana Mitter and Helen Schneider.

One important subfield of wartime social history is the new history of refugee flight in China. Important work includes Stephen R. MacKinnon,
Wuhan 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China
(Berkeley, CA, 2008), and R. Keith Schoppa,
In a Sea of Bitterness: Refugees during the Sino-Japanese War
(Cambridge, MA, 2011). A powerful social history of wartime Chinese experience that engages with refugee experience is Diana Lary,
The Chinese People at War: Human Suffering and Social Transformation, 1937–1945
(Cambridge, 2010). A fascinating study of the links between ecological change and refugee flight is Micah S. Muscolino, “Refugees, Land Reclamation, and Militarized Landscapes in Wartime China: Huanglongshan, Shaanxi, 1937–1945,”
Journal of Asian Studies
69:2 (2010).

LEGACY

The legacy of the conflict between China and Japan has been explored in a variety of studies. James Reilly’s
Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy
(New York, 2011) and Peter Hays Gries’s
China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy
(Berkeley, CA, 2004) give insights into the links between memory of wartime and contemporary international relations. Caroline Rose’s
Sino-Japanese Relations: Facing the Past, Looking to the Future?
(London, 2004) and
Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations
(London, 1998) give valuable insights into the relevance of the “history debates” between the two sides in the present day. Yinan He’s
The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since World War II
(Cambridge, 2009) gives a welcome comparative perspective. War and memory in China and in the region more widely is addressed in Sheila Jager and Rana Mitter, eds.,
War, Memory, and the Post–Cold War in Asia
(Cambridge, MA, 2007).

Acknowledgments

I have been privileged to work with not one but several inspiring and rigorous editors. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Amanda Cook took charge of the book through most of its life. Amanda was simultaneously unfailingly supportive and absolutely insistent on making sure the manuscript was revised as many times as it took to make it right. Her contribution to the final version is immeasurable. In the last few months before completion, I benefited from meticulous editing by Ben Hyman and generous and thoughtful input from Bruce Nichols. At Penguin, I had the brilliant input of Simon Winder, who provided the rather terrifying advantage of being an editor who has detailed knowledge of the Second World War in Asia and isn’t afraid to deploy it (in the most collegial way possible). Richard Mason and Cecilia Mackay did a wonderful job with copy editing and picture research, respectively, and the process was overseen by Richard Duguid. My agent Susan Rabiner has been a source of endless encouragement and good sense, and I am extremely grateful to her for using her long experience in publishing to place the project so well.

So many colleagues have contributed to this book over the years that I am reluctant to single out too many. But I am extremely grateful to friends who have inspired ideas, read sections, and made suggestions, including Robert Bickers, Karl Gerth, Graham Hutchings, Toby Lincoln, Andres Rodriguez, Patricia Thornton, Steve Smith, and Hans van de Ven. Friends and colleagues in China have also been immensely collegial with aspects of the project over the years, including Wu Jingping, Chen Qianping, Chen Hongmin, and Zhou Yong, and I am very grateful to all of them. It has also been a privilege to write the book while employed in the stimulating circumstances of the Faculty of History and Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford, as well as enjoying the pleasures of a fellowship at St. Cross College.

I had a wonderful research team in 2007–2012, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, all of whom contributed immensely to this project: Lily Chang, Federica Ferlanti, Sha Hua, Matthew Johnson, Amy King, Sherman Xiaogang Lai, Tehyun Ma, Aaron William Moore, James Reilly, Helen Schneider, Isabella Jackson, Elina Sinkkonen, Akiko Frellesvig, and Christine Boyle. I also want to give thanks in particular to Annie Hongping Nie, whose patient work has been crucial to this project. Our several years of joint document reading were one of the great pleasures of writing this book.

I am also very grateful for the assistance of colleagues and staff at various archives, including the Chongqing Municipal Archive; Shanghai Municipal Archive; No. 2 National Archive in Nanjing (in particular, Ma Zhendu); the United Nations Archive in New York; the Public Record Office (National Archive), London; the Yale Divinity Library; and the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. I am most grateful for permission to cite from the unpublished sections of the Chiang Kai-shek diary held at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. At the Bodleian Library, David Helliwell has always been a fount of knowledge about sources and always resourceful in helping to fund the purchase of new materials.

The existence of this book is due, in very large part, to the generosity of one external funder: the Leverhulme Trust. In 2004 the Trust awarded me a Philip Leverhulme Prize, which allowed me an extended period of research leave to gather materials and spend time thinking about the shape of this project. In 2007 I was honored to receive a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award, a five-year project grant that allowed me to manage a team of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, to hold conferences, and to travel to China. All of this activity hugely enriched the book, and I am immensely grateful to Leverhulme for their support; with a combination of financial support and light-touch management, they are the ideal funder. I was also supported at various times by grants including the British Academy-China Academy of Social Sciences exchange scheme, for which I am also most grateful.

No book exists without context, and for me the most joyous part of its voyage to publication has been to share it with my family (who were increasingly unselfish in the face of my ever more urgent need to finish the manuscript): Katharine, Malavika, Pamina, Iskandar, my parents Partha and Swasti, and Gill, Hal, William, Darunee, Miranda, and Charlotte.

Rana Mitter Oxford, January 2013

Photo Credits

Garden Bridge, Shanghai, August 18, 1937
: © Randall Chase Gould Papers, [Box/album fH], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, CA.
Chiang Kai-shek, 1937
: © IN/Gen/Camera Press, London.
Refugees on Shanghai’s Bund, 1937
: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.
Fires set by retreating Chinese, Nanjing, December 1937
: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.
General Matsui Iwane in his headquarters, Shanghai, 1938
: © Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Lieutenant General Dai Li working with special police forces, China, November 1945
: © Jack Wilkes/Time and Life/Getty Images.
Chinese troops on the Suzhou front, Battle of Taierzhuang, April 1938
: © Robert Capa/Magnum Photos.
Japanese troops using a boat during Yellow River floods, July 1938
: © Press Association Images.
Mao Zedong speaks at Lu Xun Arts Institute in Yan’an, May 1938
: © CQ/Camera Press, London.
Canton civilians take flight, June 1938
: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.
Chiang Kai-shek at Supreme War Council meeting in Wuhan, July 1938
: © Robert Capa/Magnum Photos.
Wang Jingwei with Dr. Chu Minyi in Nanjing before inauguration, April 1940
: © Bettman/Corbis.
Homeless people escape Congqing during bombing, May 1939
: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.
Cartoon depicting Wang Jingwei
: ©
Zhonghua Ribao, March 30, 1940.
General Claire Lee Chennault, 1943
: © Myron Davis/Time and Life/Getty Images.
General Joseph Stilwell
: © Topham Picturepoint/Topfoto.
Chiang Kai-shek and Mahatma Gandhi near Calcutta, 1942
: © Topham Picturepoint/Topfoto.
Mao inspects Eighth Route Army troops stationed in Yan’an
: © J. A. Fox Collection/Magnum Photos.
Wounded Chinese troops, Burma, 1942
: © George Rodger/Magnum Photos.
Refugees fleeing famine-stricken Henan province, 1943
: Harrison Forman/American Geographical Society Library, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries.
Female famine victim, Henan, 1943
: Harrison Forman/American Geographical Society Library, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries.
A Chinese soldier guards a squadron of Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter planes, 1943
: © The Granger Collection/Topfoto.
Colonel David Barrett and diplomat John Service outside their Yan’an billet
: © Courtesy of the Service Family.
Song Meiling on the rostrum of the US House of Representatives, Washington, January 18, 1943
: © Bettmann/Corbis.
Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Song Meiling at the Cairo Conference, 1943
: © Topham Picturepoint/Topfoto.
Participants in the Greater East Asia Conference: Ba Maw, Zhang Jinghui, Wang Jingwei, Hideki Tojo, Wan Waithayakon, José P. Laurel, Subhas Chandra Bose, Tokyo, November 1943
: © Mainichi Shimbun/Aflo Images.
Refugees on foot, November 1944
: © Press Association Images.
Chinese-manned American tanks enter Burma, January 1945
: © Press Association Images.
General Okamura Yasuji of the Imperial Japanese Army in China during the surrender ceremony, with the Chinese delegation under General He Yingqin, Nanjing, September 9, 1945
: © akg-images.
Zhang Zizhong, Mao Zedong, Patrick Hurley, Zhou Enlai, and Wang Ruofei, en route to Chongqing for negotiations after the Japanese surrender, 1945
: © Wu Yinxian/Magnum Photos.
Chinese paramilitary policemen carrying wreaths of flowers march toward the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing, December 13, 2012, to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary
:
© CQ/Camera Press, London.
Anti-Japanese demonstration during the Diaoyu Islands dispute, Shenzhen, September 16, 2012
: © Imaginechina/Rex Features.