Nation's role critical to Allies' WWII success
- By Rana Mitter
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E-mail China Daily, August 13, 2015
The view of the Western allies was perfectly logical. But the problem was that the West failed to understand how the war looked through Chinese eyes. For the Nationalists and Communists, the war had begun in 1937, that is, four years before Pearl Harbor. It was true that China's armies were weak, but many of the best troops had been sacrificed in major battles such as Shanghai and Xuzhou. It was also true that the government was inefficient and corrupt, and that the economy was in a bad shape.
However, China's capital had moved to Chongqing at high speed, the city had been flattened by repeated air raids, and the government had been isolated from much of the outside world for years, making it impossible to run a normal administration.
China's war efforts need to be understood in its own terms, and commemorated for the right reasons. China could not have won the war on its own. To defeat Japan, it had to rely on Western, and in particular, American finance, military support and supplies. Also, it was reasonable that the Allies set priorities: first Europe, then the Pacific, then China. But the West did not acknowledge that China's contributions were also crucial to the war effort. China resisted in 1938 when it could have surrendered before the war in Europe even started. It held down huge numbers of Japanese troops on its territory. It acted as a beacon to other non-Western countries, showing that it was possible to fight with the West and still strongly oppose imperialism.
There are many lessons that can be learned from China's experience during World War II. One is the importance of new and creative political dialogue. During much of the war, there were significant and free-ranging political discussions between China's major and minor political actors on many issues from greater democratic representation to postwar internationalism.
Another key lesson was the importance of strong but flexible organizations in the region. China and Japan went to war in part because of the failure of the international system. Today, the US, China and Japan need to work on a consensual, open and mutually agreed institutions that would overcome the legacy of those failures.
The author is director of the China Centre at Oxford University and his most recent book is: China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival (US title: Forgotten Ally).
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