THE Second Sino-Japanese War, which took place from 1937 to 1945, was caused by Japan's imperialist interests in China, mainly in the Manchuria region. The war in China officially ended in 1945, with the Japanese surrender to the Allies in Second World War.
War background
The war in China was a consequence of Japan's territorial ambitions. This happened from the process of industrial modernization and economic development in Japan with the Meiji Restoration, 1868. China, on the contrary, faced, throughout the 19th century, a period of great political and economic instability due to foreign interference.
Thus, as its economy strengthened, Japan began to develop imperialist ambitions towards neighboring territories, notably against China. Because of these ambitions, two wars were fought by the Japanese at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, in order to guarantee their interests in the region.
First, Japan started to First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), which was motivated by his interest in
Korean peninsula. This war was won by the Japanese and guaranteed them dominion over Korea and other smaller territories, in addition to imposing heavy war compensation on China.The second war fought by Japan was the russian-japanese war (1904-1905). In this war waged against Russia, there was a dispute for Liaotung Peninsula (Manchuria region) and by Port Arthur (port located in Liaotung). The growing Russian presence in China led Japan to attack Russia. The result of this war was a new Japanese victory, which guaranteed them control over these two regions.
These two Japanese victories led to a strong nationalist euphoria that was exploited by far-right groups, advocates of extreme nationalism. This created a favorable climate for the development of imperialist ambitions in Japan, which, during the following decades, led many to defend the total annexation of Manchuria.
In the 1930s, the Japanese power summit, allied with the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, decided to pursue their ambitions, and two incidents demonstrated this. First, in 1931, the Mukden incident, in which a fake attack on a Japanese railway was used as a pretext for Manchuria to be officially invaded.
With the invasion of Manchuria, the puppet state of Manchukuo. With apparent independence, but with full attachment to Japanese interests, it characterized itself as a puppet state.
The second act of the Japanese was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, happened in July 1937. This incident marked the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War and followed a disagreement between Japanese and Chinese troops who were stationed in Beijing. The break in the fragile relationship between the countries led Japan to attack China.
Japanese aggression against China, in addition to purely economic motivation, may have been motivated, according to journalist Edward Behr, also by Emperor Hirohito's desire to channel an increasingly rebellious wing of society against a common enemy in the foreign. This strategy also sought to prevent China from being controlled by the Communists |1|.
Second Sino-Japanese War
The growing tension between the two countries led China to prepare for conflict. The internal Chinese forces already had plans for a possible resistance if they were attacked. The two great internal Chinese forces were the nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the communists, led by Mao Tse-Tung.
The nationalists had realized, from the influence of foreign generals, that a victory against Japan would only be possible with a long and exhausting war for the invaders, as China did not have enough troops and armaments to impose a heavy attack on the Japan. The communists were instructed by Stalin to, if necessary, ally themselves with the nationalists in the fight against the Japanese.
However, once the war began, the weakness of Chinese resistance was evident because of the rapid conquests of the Japanese. As early as 1937, the Japanese conquered two important Chinese cities: Beijing and Ink. These achievements showed the brutal face that was imprinted on the Japanese soldier in his training.
The Second Sino-Japanese War was marked by the deaths of around 20 million people, many of them civilians, victims of violent massacres committed indiscriminately by Japanese troops. The highlight goes to the violence committed in Nanjing, where the Japanese army killed approximately 200,000 people and raped about 20,000 women. This episode became known as the great rape of Nanjing.
Episodes like the one in Nanjing took place in several places in China, and another evidence of the brutality instituted in the Japanese army was the Unit 731, responsible for promoting biological warfare in China and carrying out gruesome tests on prisoners of war, especially Chinese. Journalist Edward Behr brought an account of a Japanese who worked at Unit 731 about the violence committed:
[Naionji] Ozono describes how marutas [prisoners], […] were victims of various forms of research: some were infected with dysentery or injected with tetanus; others (some wearing a mask, some not) were taken outdoors and “bombed” with cyanide; still others were locked in “cold chambers” at minus 50 degrees and frozen to death |2|.
In addition, Japan has in fact promoted a biological war in China by spreading rats infected with diseases such as typhus, for example, to various regions. Regarding this brutality instituted in the Japanese army, the historian Antony Beevor makes a consideration:
Japanese soldiers had been raised in a militaristic society. […] Basic training was meant to destroy your individuality. To toughen them up and provoke them, recruits were constantly insulted and beaten by NCOs and sergeants, in whatever way they could. be called the theory of the side effect of oppression, so that they would vent their anger on the soldiers and civilians of the defeated enemy. Everyone had also been indoctrinated from elementary school to believe that the Chinese were completely inferior to the "divine race" of the Japanese and were "below the pigs"|3|.
Japanese defeat
The Second Sino-Japanese War proceeded the way the Japanese did not want to: in a long and exhausting way. Even with the main Chinese cities in Japanese hands, Chinese resistance persisted. This, in addition to discouraging Japanese troops (who had expected a quick victory), drained many of Japan's resources.
With the entry of the United States into the war, China gained a strong ally and, after years of war, Japan surrendered unconditionally in 1945. The Japanese surrender only took place after the use of atomic bombs which ended the conflict with both the United States and China. Many of Japan's war crimes in China were tried in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
|1| BEHR, Edward. Hiroíto – behind the legend. São Paulo: Globo, 1991, p. 201.
|2| Idem, p. 213.
|3| BEEVOR, Antony. Second World War. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2015, p. 77.
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/segunda-guerra-sino-japonesa.htm
