China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival

by Rana Mitter

In Rana Mitter's tense, moving and hugely important book, the war between China and Japan - one of the most important struggles of the Second World War - at last gets the masterly history it deserves

Different countries give different opening dates for the period of the Second World War, but perhaps the most compelling is 1937, when the 'Marco Polo Bridge Incident' plunged China and Japan into a conflict of extraordinary duration and ferocity - a war which would result in many millions of deaths and completely reshape East Asia in ways which we continue to confront today.

With great vividness and narrative drive Rana Mitter's new book draws on a huge range of new sources to recreate this terrible conflict. He writes both about the major leaders (Chiang Kaishek, Mao Zedong and Wang Jingwei) and about the ordinary people swept up by terrible times. Mitter puts at the heart of our understanding of the Second World War that it was Japan's failure to defeat China which was the key dynamic for what happened in Asia.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Japan, Asia

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Rana Shantashil Rajyeswar Mitter is a professor of modern Chinese history at the University of Oxford and the author of several books including A Bitter Revolution. He is a regular contributor to British television and radio. His writing has appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and elsewhere.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In recent years the sheer scale of the war in China has become apparent. What began on July 7, 1937, as an unplanned local conflict between Chinese and Japanese troops near Beijing, known as the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident,” escalated into an all-out war between the two great nations of East Asia; it would not end until August 1945. In the eight intervening years China’s Nationalist government was forced into internal exile, along with millions of refugees. Huge tracts of the country were occupied by the Japanese, who sponsored collaborators to create new forms of government aimed at destroying the authority of the Nationalists. In other parts of the country, the Chinese Communist Party grew in influence, burnishing its credentials through resistance to the Japanese, and vastly increasing its territorial base through policies of radical social reform. The toll that the war inflicted on China is still being calculated, but conservative estimates number the dead at 14 million…”
- Rana Mitter, Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937-1945

The Second World War has to be one of the most intensely covered events in all of history. It is a vast canvas, to be sure, stretching over eight years and across every continent except Antarctica, and involving 50 nations and hundreds of millions of people. Despite this scope, the literature is legion and exhaustive. There are, on my shelves, not only the usual strategic histories, battle narratives, and biographies of the top brass, but books covering individual companies, and individual planes, and individual ships. Obviously, I have a book on Patton, and MacArthur, and Montgomery, but I also have a surprising number of volumes by or about field officers and enlisted men.

With this detailed coverage, it is easy to get the sense that World War II has been deconstructed down to the granular level.

Nevertheless – and my apologies for burying the lede – I have always had a China-sized-and-shaped hole in my understanding of the conflict, knowing just enough about the Second Sino-Japanese War to recognize that it was not getting its due. I have read – to this point – dozens of books about the Pacific Theater of operations. From Pearl Harbor to Midway, from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, I have a title to match just about every step the United States Army, Navy, and Marines made as they engaged in their bloody hopscotch towards Japan. In those books, China is rarely mentioned, and if she is, it is usually in a cursory or indirect fashion.

Looking for some way to engage this topic, I came across Rana Mitter’s Forgotten Ally. This is not surprising, since – as Mitter notes – there are not a whole lot of volumes to choose from, despite the fact that China fought for eight years, took millions of casualties, and tied down thousands of Japanese troops.

(Note: The historian Richard B. Frank has signaled his intent to produce a trilogy on what he calls the “Asia-Pacific War,” with an emphasis on China. The first entry – Tower of Skulls – has been published, and is sitting on one of my sagging bookshelves).

Thankfully, tackling Forgotten Ally does not fall under the category of making virtue out of a necessity. To the contrary, as far as introductions go, this is quite good. Written for general audiences, and avoiding a lot of complexity by taking a sky-high perspective, it goes a long way toward giving an interested reader a solid foundation for China’s role in World War II.

Forgotten Ally is told chronologically, with the narrative broken into four sections. The first section is contextual, providing an overview of China’s unequal relationships with the rest of the world. China’s asymmetrical dealings began with Western imperialism (including foreign enclaves and the “unequal treaties”), but eventually included Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, which became the puppet state of Manchukuo.

Parts two and three cover the Second Sino-Japanese War, which began in 1937. Though marked by some morale-boosting victories, the Chinese experience was mostly one of defeat, disaster, and death. Covered here are both well-known atrocities, such as the “Rape of Nanking,” along with more forgotten tragedies, such as China’s attempt to slow the Japanese advance by breaching the dikes of the Yellow River.

The final section is given over to the evolution of China’s war once America entered the fray. In Mitter’s opinion, the alliance was a poisoned one, and claims – but does not really prove – that it set the stage for the Communist takeover, and the fraught U.S.-China relations today.

This is a work wherein I am more impressed by the functional aspects (quality of information, organization, clarity) than by any literary merits. Mitter is first and foremost a historian with a certain expertise in China. His authorial abilities are fine, the prose workmanlike, but there was never a moment, even in the Nanking chapter, when I was truly gripped.

Mitter mainly tells this story through three major players: Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell. This makes sense, since these men were the dominant personalities, towering over their corners of fate. Chiang led the Nationalists; Mao led the Communists; and Stilwell was an American in charge of China’s armies, even though he was nominally under Chiang’s command. While Mitter attempts to bring these figures to life, and certainly takes pains to recount the clashes of temperament that altered the trajectory of history, I can’t help but feel this could have been done with more vibrancy and flair.

(Aside: the constant griping between Chiang and Stilwell is a leitmotif of Forgotten Ally. I suppose this is to be expected when you send a guy named “Vinegar Joe” into a situation calling for nuance and delicacy).

Forgotten Ally stays well clear of military history. Though Mitter alerts you to the important battles, he never describes a single one. There are no tactical discussions whatsoever, whether it concerns a set-piece battle between the Nationalists and the Japanese, or the guerilla strategy employed by the Communists. However much I learned, it is apparent I will need to do some more digging.

Despite a lack of style, there is a lot of substance. The methodical structuring of the book is perfect for a novice like myself. The maps are very wide-angled, yet extremely helpful, showing all the provinces and major cities, along with the limits of the Japanese advance during various time periods. There is also a dramatis personae, so you never run the risk of mistaking Zhou Enlai with Zhou Fohai.

The historiography of World War II is utterly fascinating, because even as the dust – some of it radioactive – was settling, old alliances were breaking, and new ones coming into being. The Soviet Union, which had done much of the heavy lifting in the European Theater, was suddenly a mortal enemy of the West. Meanwhile, China and Japan switched places as America’s new best friend. As China went over to communism – and ultimately surged across the Yalu in 1950, smack dab into MacArthur – Japan became an important (and lasting) friend.

This rapid switching of partners – geopolitics in the guise of a middle school dance – could not help but effect the interpretation of historical events. In the European Theater, that meant it would take some time for Westerners to accept that Operation Bagration was as important as the oft-celebrated Operation Overlord. The fullness of time has given us a broader perspective on the critical part played by the Soviet Union, and there are plenty of good-to-great books about Barbarossa, Kursk, and Stalingrad. (I would argue that the revisionism has gone a bit far, sometimes eliding Stalin’s devil-pact with Hitler).

China has yet to receive that particular benefit. Though China suffered as much as any nation – second only to the U.S.S.R. in terms of death and destruction – there is still a relative paucity of accounts exploring her contributions. A fuller understanding of World War II requires acknowledgment of China’s war. Forgotten Ally is a good place to start that investigation.

[Geevee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rana Mitter's book is a welcome addition to English language books on this subject area. It is a good book delving deeply into background, political causes and (Chinese) politics during the war years.

The Sino-Japan war is complex in its background as the nations evolved being sometimes on good terms and others not. The war itself, beginning with the Japanese invasion in 1937, is also complex with the three main Chinese leaders vying for prominence, influence and victory; this latter in both war and domestically. These leaders, Chiang Kai-Shek, Mao Zedong and Wang Jingwei all moved in different directions, sought power and never trusted each other. For Chiang and Mao, this is made very clear in this book during and after the Japanese defeat.

The author also ably describes aspects such as famine, inflation, government/party administration and the atrocities in China: Japanese against Chinese and Chinese against Chinese. The parts played by the Allies: USA, Britain and Russia sees Chinese engagement and frustration with allies, who were deemed untrustworthy, and in most points were, indeed, untrustworthy. The part played by "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell, and the less than warm relationship with Chiang is covered, including the meetings, letters, telegrams on strategy, Lend-Lease, tactics, troop command and later, Chiang's requirement for Stillwell to be sent home. Claude Chennault of the Flying Tigers fame also features, as does his less than positive relationship with Stilwell too.

So, why a three-star rating? For all the above, which is, as I say good, I felt there was a piece of the story missing. The Japanese and the war they and China fought.

There are some elements covered within the book such as the massacre at Nanjing, the taking of Shanghai and Wuhan, but throughout the book, I looked in vain for the actual war and the Japanese progress. There is no detail on Mao's guerrilla war against the Japanese. The war fought by Chiang's troops, even when covered in Burma, is little describe in troop progress and how that war was fought, although the home front, recruitment and need of supplies and training etc., does get some coverage as when linked to the areas I mention in my opening of this review.

The Japanese, by the end of 1944 and into 1945, had pressed far into China, notably with the Ichigo Offensive (April-Dec 1944). Yet the reader sees little of this in the text on how the Japanese prepared, their plans and tactics; where they thrust out to, why; the supply of troops and the progress and the treatment and administration of those conquered areas. It is only when presented with a map the reader has some idea of this reach and how that offensive challenged Chiang and Mao.

Overall, a detailed and well-written book by an author who has researched the subject deeply and used many other strong sources to create this account. Chiang is by far the central character with Mao and Wang playing walk on parts to some extent, but China's War with Japan 1937-45, has enabled me to learn a great deal about thos theatre and how it shaped China and its relations with countries such as Japan, the US and Taiwan, which still reverberate today. For me though, and I accept this period of 8 or so years is wide-ranging, complex and multi-layered, it lacked, as I wrote earlier the war with Japan and how it was fought.

My copy was a Penguin paperback published 2014 with 458 printed pages. There are 35 black and white photos of good quality and five maps that are clear but not hugely detailed.

A very strong three stars which is "Liked it" under the GR star rating system.

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid overview of the "War of Resistance". Ritter argues convincingly on why the Chinese-Japanese deserves to be better-known in the West, but his exclusive attention to politics, with no room to discuss battles or armies, fails to hold my attention...if it's any comfort to Ritter's effort, I already fully acknowledged the significance of 1931-1945 for the modern People's Republic of China...

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a useful but flawed account of an important theatre of war in the struggle of liberal internationalism (Western imperialism) and socialism against the attempted imperialisms of rising powers.

The story has two contemporary sets of resonance - the obvious one is the tricky current state of Sino-Japanese relations that has Westerners rushing to books like this. The less obvious is the attempt by the West to answer the question, 'what to do with rising powers?'

On the surface it is traditional narrative history. It starts at the beginning (what led up to the Marco Polo Bridge incident, the 'Sarajevo' of eight years of slaughter) through to the surprise ending - the 'deus ex machina' of the Atom Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

With the usual unconscious racism of the Western armchair liberal, the debates on the use of the Bomb usually wonder about the dreadful morality of wiping out 100,000 persons in a few days in terms of saved men and materiel for the West.

A more open view would throw into the pot the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Chinese and Japanese lives saved from not going down the Nazi route of a year or two of mayhem as Japan fought to the end despite its prospect of certain defeat.

Between 8 million and 20 million, variously estimated, died in those eight years with perhaps three to four million the victims of first the deliberate flooding of Henan and then its appalling famine (Mitter also notes the estimated 3m who died in a similar Indian wartime famine).

The whole business is another story of 'things getting out of control' with millions being disrupted, starved, conscripted, terrorised and murdered as a few 'big men' squabble for advantage and for 'values' that are often noble enough but equally as often hypocritical.

It is a story played out almost continuously even today - Africa being the current playground for 'big men' and psychopaths of all 'moral' persuasions. We should be pleased the rising thuggery of new empires was suppressed but it was not a simple tale of good and evil.

The flaws in the book, however, detract from its usefulness as analytical tool although the 'further reading' at the back is useful for anyone wanting to delve deeper.

Above all, the book often reads like an unjustifiable apologia for Chiang Kai-Shek, warlord leader of the Nationalist Chinese with most claim to legitimacy as ruler of China. It certainly spends more time on the squabble with General Stilwell than a straight narrative deserves.

What is going on here? The reality is that, legitimate though he was, Chiang Kai-Shek was soon run out of town (the core of China in the East) and was not much more than a superior warlord from an earlier era.

He could speak for China and for millions of men but he had proved an unimaginative and narcissistic leader before the Marco Polo Bridge incident and was not much better after it. Mitter justifiably contextualises his decisions but they were more often than not poor.

Most of the non-Communist warlords in the south marked time under his leadership but his control was limited, while the Communists under Mao cannily created a state within a state in North West China that treated the peasantry as if they mattered instead of as fodder.

By the time the Americans arrived (and the Communists are almost exclusively seen through American eyes by 1942/3 as Mittar swerves off into analyses of thinking in Washington), Chiang's China was virtually being re-colonised by the US by stealth without benefit to the people.

The blunders of Stilwell and the Americans can be charitably put down to them 'learning on the job' as they slowly displaced the British Empire as global arbiter. US foreign policy does not really settle down into full competence until after the McCarthy blood-letting.

Mitter's attempt to recover Chiang's reputation by pointing out the new status given to China in the 'UN' holds little water. Yes, this was a fact on the ground and it portended great things, a benefit that India failed to achieve, but China was always a tool under Chiang.

In essence, China held down some 600,000 Japanese troops and that was important for the Allied war effort but it presupposes that this was always in the interests of the Chinese who died in huge numbers holding together a ramshackle strategy of mere survival.

It is noticeable that in the struggle against the last Japanese offensive - like the last push of the Germans in 1918 - Nationalist troops were attacked by Henan peasants who had suffered deliberate flooding and then famine, fertile ground for communism later.

The second flaw is associated with the first. Mittel devotes about the right amount of space to the Communists in Yan'an but his coverage is still cursory and lacking in analysis. His great lack is any serious investigation of Japanese thinking and Japanese motives.

This is highly problematic. The book is about the Japanese war on China. That means it is about both main participants and the whole war zone yet we hear virtually nothing of East China other than Nanking and little of Japanese-collaborationist dealings.

He devotes a great deal of attention to the Petain of China - Wang JIngwei and his circle - but always in the light of them being implicitly honourable Nationalists who got it wrong.

This misses the point - they were naive and 'useful idiots' but there were important ideological and practical Japanese reasons for creating 'Vichy' regimes across Asia and for nationalists to choose what they thought might be the lesser evil. We get little sense of this.

Right or wrong, what was actually happening in the huge area of East China under Japanese rule needs to be explained in terms of Japanese conduct on the ground after the Rape of Nanking and of the motivations for Chinese collaborationism and resistance.

By the second half of the war, just as the National Socialists could put 'national' SS divisions into the field against the Soviets so there were substantial collaborationist Chinese troops fighting against the nationalists alongside the Japanese in the final offensive.

This has to be explained. It cannot be explained by giving excessive coverage to the superior warlord's dealings with Washington and almost completely neglecting the dynamic between Tokyo and Nanking except in terms of the factional struggles of a few failed politicians.

The net effect is that we have a book that does not take the detached and cold view of the struggle that we need to have in order to assist with the analysis of the twin issues noted at the beginning of this review - Sino-Japanese relations and the rise of new powers.

Instead, what we have is another easy read for liberal internationalists that seems intended to guide them through the group think politics of their own side rather than assist in understanding complexity and think about the unthinkable.

It is a morale-booster that seems to say that the 'real' China was only accidentally corrupt and incompetent and that if we (the West) had behaved in diferent ways and taken a flawed great man at face value, things would have been better. It is like a polemic for the past!

However, there is lot to learn from this book - about Mao's genius for making inaction look like action, about the cynicism of the Allies, about the delusions of the Japanese elite, about the resilience and humanity of the Chinese people and about the chaos of war.

One lesson is fascinating and well taught. Under conditions of war and threat, all three regimes in China turned to terror to try and hold power - Mao's reined in his intellectuals and mobilised the peasantry with the help of the Yezhov-trained Kang Sheng but he was not alone.

Chiang used the dedicated monster Dai Li (with the close co-operation of the Americans) to eliminate opposition to a regime that was really not much different from those targeted in Libya and Syria more recently. Chiang was not a democrat but an authoritarian militarist.

Wang Jingwei hired politicised gangsters to do much the same in Nanking from a class which, in Shanghai, had helped Chiang himself on his road to power. Even today, it is clear that, after seventy years of Communist 'totalitarianism', South China's gangster culture thrives.

Although the victor Mao adopted techniques later that taught Pol Pot and the extremists in North Korea their techniques of terror and power, thuggery arose on all sides out of warfare and whatever state might have emerged, none would have had much truck with 'human rights'.

This makes any attempt to make the 'less worse' seem good rather futile - Chiang murdered 800,000 Chinese in a somewhat poorly thought-out tactical attempt to slow down the Japanese by breaching the dams on the Yellow River. No wonder the Henanese peasants were obstructive!

At the end of the day, the whole debacle came down to an incident where a rising power thought that it had rights, demonstrated by its imperial enemies in the Opium Wars and subsequently, to use force to extract concessions on spurious grounds against a weak target.

That the target was weak was definitely not the fault of Chiang Kai-Shek. He was dealt an appalling set of cards but, given the realities of the situation, his decisions tended to make things worse, starting with his initial 'Night of the Long Knives' against the Reds.

Still, the book remains a valuable narrative introduction to one of the nastiest wars in an era of nasty wars. It left this reader with an abiding sense of solidarity with the Chinese people if not their leaderships.

Above all, I have come to admire the achievement of China in not merely holding itself together but appearing to cohere into a Great Power that has managed, through the construction of its own creation myth, to bind together the East, the Party and the nationalist impulse into one.

The nervousness of the West - and the margin states of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and perhaps Vietnam and the Philippines as well - is understandable but it may be that the US in particular is still not learning the lessons of the 1940s.

The book reminds us of the fragility of the Communist 'achievement'. The European Union is now seeing old interwar attitudes re-emerge in troubled economies - notably Spain and Eastern Europe - and there is no reason why something similar might not happen in China.

In its hour of greatest need, 'Free China' needed unconditional love like the battered child it was but instead it got used as a tool and was patronised by its equals - no wonder its successors are disinclined to trust anyone but their own instinct for tough love.

[Chin Joo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is published in two different titles: 1) China's War with Japan 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival, and 2) Forgotten Ally: China's World War II 1937-1945. This review is made with reference to the latter.

The use of the first title conjures an impression of a chronicle, recording the events that took place in China between 1937 and 1945. In this, the author has exceeded the promise of the title. In fact, to his credit, Dr Mitter even went way back to the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) albeit briefly, an era commonly ignored by most scholars. This reminder is important for two reasons. First of all, it was then that the Japanese began to station troops on the Asian mainland (in Korea). Second, it became a base from which Japan fought the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) which really represented when the Japanese infringed upon China's territory.

The focus of the book however starts from 1937, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which started off as 'just another skirmish' but took an unexpected turn when Chiang Kai-shek decided that he would make a stand and opened another front in Shanghai. From there the author took us through all the major events ending eventually with Japan's surrender. In between he culled documents and sources including diaries, official party documents, and reports from journalists to provide vivid details of the Nationalists' feeble attempts to govern 'Free China', their efforts to undermine the Communists, to draw any country into the war to help them, and to manage the aftermath of the defection of important party members, while fighting and initially retreating from city to city. Equally vivid are the descriptions of how the civilians caught in the war suffered from poverty, starvation, rape, and official corruption.

But if the first title reads rather blandly, the second title 'Forgotten Ally' proposes a thesis which the author made very clear - China was the forgotten ally of the allied forces in the Second World War. This powerful position can only come into consideration after Pearl Harbor, when Japan in a span of two days made itself the enemy of at least four other countries, the US, Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. The word Ally therefore was only relevant in the later part of the book. The main argument of the author is the Western powers are now at war with Japan, and China being also at war with Japan has become an ally to them and had even fought alongside them on at least one occasion (Burma). But even if that had not been the case, China has tied about half a million Japanese soldiers which might have been deployed against the Western powers, that would have qualified China as an ally. I do not feel qualified to dispute the thesis, rather I would like to offer my reflection on the significance of the worth Forgotten.

Dr Mitter was clear about who the forgotten party was and seen from the Nationalists' perspective, it would probably aptly describe their sense of indignation. They had been fighting the allies' enemy for six years before the Allies themselves entered the war. If China was by then "a battered nation on its knees, waiting for the Americans and British to save it from certain destruction at the hands of the Japanese", it could be partly attributed to, as the book made clear, the fact that they had been fighting the Japanese alone. Yet one can hardly blame the West for seeing it this way, for Japan, while surely on their radar even prior to December 1941, was secondary in relation to Germany then. Had Japan not made the blunder of attacking Pearl Harbor, their invasion of South East Asia would have at most threatened the European colonies, and not the European homeland, it would still have been of secondary importance.

Other reasons also made 'forgotten' inevitable. Firstly, the question of whether China really did contribute to the fighting (when they seem to lose on all fronts, not helped by the opinion of Stilwell) or whether it was just a corrupt regime always seeking more from the Allies (Chiang's request for a US$1 billion loan certainly did not help) also left many questions of China's position and value as an ally in the minds of the US and Britain. Secondly, the cold war narrative also quickly distorted the history of that time, focusing people's attention on China's political ideology rather than their history in the Second World War. Finally, the outcome of the civil war in China meant that certain events must be emphasised, others diminished, and some invented.

Which brings me to this question I had as I read the book - who was forgotten really? If the answer is China, then who in China? The situation in China then reminded me of China during the warring states (between 481 BC and 403 BC) when at one stage China was divided into three kingdoms (三分天下), only this time among the Nationalists, the Communists, and the Japanese (through Wang Jinwei's Reorganized National Government of China). And if the West can be accused of forgetting their Nationalists allies as the author implies, then whatever the Nationalists did right (among the many wrongs) was comprehensively eradicated by the Communists when they came to power (see pg 333-334). And to be fair, post-Second World War and even current Chinese discourse on that part of history hardly give enough credits to the West (used loosely here) too.

I cannot accuse the author of falling short in his effort to support his thesis, he might have felt that the two-thirds of the book before China became an 'ally' was necessary to provide the context but that leaves only the last third of the book to try and develop his argument. I also feel that too little was given on the Communists side of the story, perhaps because in the context of actually fighting the Japanese they haven't done much. One last question was whether Russia was as inconsequential to the events in China as it seemed, for very little was said about them throughout. Still, for anyone who wants a source of information on that period of history in China this book is indispensable. Dr Mitter, with his great scholarship, vivid descriptions, and dynamic style will take you on a throught-provoking ride through his riveting narrative.

(As you read Chapter 11, ask yourself what you would do if you were in Zhou Fohai's position.)

[Mikey B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives a history of China covering mainly events from 1937 when Japan invaded China. The Japanese were in Manchukuo (Manchuria) prior, but this was seen as being peripheral to China proper. We are given the Chinese viewpoint on how western powers (mainly England and the U.S.), and then the Japanese, constantly treated China as a “territory” to be exploited. Chinese sovereignty was hardly recognized by any outside power.

There are three main characters focused on: Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of nationalist China, Mao Zedong, the leader of China’s Communist Party, and the rather enigmatic Wang Jingwei, who was initially a Chinese nationalist revolutionary (and follower of Sun Yat-sen the father of modern Chinese nationalism), but then in 1938 collaborated with the Japanese to try to establish peace in China and I also feel to assume the reins of power.

Chiang was recognized by the outside world and the Japanese as being the “ruler” of unoccupied China. The author is overly lenient in his treatment of Chiang. His leadership of the military and the Chinese people was inept. Corruption was rampant. Chiang must be held responsible for this – but the author hardly dwells on the implications of Chiang’s nefarious years of power. He defends Chiang by arguing that China was already a backward and exploited country which is true. However in all his years at the helm the situation never got better, in fact there was constant deterioration. Chinese troops were paid little, if at all, and they were poorly fed; some of their officers became rich and exploited the millions of poor peasants in the countryside. Fighting the Japanese occupiers was sometimes just not a priority in Chiang’s armies. The communists by contrast were far better organized and at least had programs in place to alleviate the peasants.

The author does well to point out that each group – Chiang, Mao and Wang Jingwei all had their own vicious police states. None were interested in establishing a liberal democracy (Wang Jingwei had little effective say in this, as he was a puppet of the Japanese). Also Chiang faced much more of the Japanese army than Mao did. Mao, in later years, tended to over-emphasize the impact the communists had in combating the Japanese.

The book provides us with the various stages of China’s years of cruel occupation by Japan. Western aid (mostly from the U.S.) was insufficient (and from other books, like The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern Chinaa lot of money went into the coffers of corrupt Chinese officials).

The author points out how Chiang Kai-shek was the only non-European leader,if somewhat overlooked, in the Allied coalition that was to become the U.N. We are also shown how the Japanese tried – and partially succeeded – in convincing the Chinese to enter and collaborate into their vision of the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”. But to this day this is hardly discussed in China.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was both an enlightening and a depressing experience to read: enlightening, because I learned much I did not know before of this phase of the World War II theatre, and depressing, because Mr. Mitter’s narrative vividly portrays the continuously unfolding horrors visited upon the Chinese people during these years. While I have been aware since my graduate student days of the multiple millions of deaths suffered by the Russian people during World War II, I was stunned to learn that upwards of 20 million Chinese died as a consequence of Japanese attempts to subdue China.

Accordingly, I wish this book could be required reading in the United States, as it would significantly assist American citizens to understand the remarkable progress made by China in a very short time, as well as the ongoing dynamics of the tensions between China and Japan. I certainly better appreciate why Chinese leadership and the people of China are so quick to bristle at any evidence that Japan is moving towards once again emphasizing “national patriotism,” while concurrently seeking to alter the pacifistic Constitution imposed upon Japan by the Americans following the end of W.W. II. I am also deeply alarmed at these developments!

Mr. Mitter also does a very good job illustrating the complexity of Chinese domestic politics during the long period following the sad denouement of Sun Yat-Sen’s revolution, including the post World War II armed struggle in China between Mao Zedong’s Communist forces and the conservative armies of the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek following the defeat of Japan. While it is clear that both men played a crucial role in defending China against the Japanese, I see how difficult it must be for the Chinese people, on the one hand, to balance acknowledging that the Nationalist troops valiantly fought against the Japanese invaders, while on the other to appropriately honoring the critical importance that Mao’s vision and force of personality played in ultimately unifying China and creating the groundwork for the resurgent China of the 21st Century. (For in my own country, over 150 years since the outbreak of our own civil war in the mid-19th Century, Americans continue to obsess in assessing, interpreting, and differing over the causes behind, and the meaning of, this pivotal period. As a consequence, passions still flare up occasionally between Northerners and Southerners, and the poison of centuries of discrimination against black people still distorts our civil discourse.)

This book could also provide the West with much needed perspective on the complicated history of Chinese-Western inter-relationships. China’s ongoing suspicions of the West’s intentions have their roots in an unsavory past in which the West regularly interfered with China, treating its ancient culture with insulting disrespect. If today’s Chinese government occasionally strikes some in the West as being “overly assertive,” this may be in part because we still subconsciously expect China to “remember its place,” and to maintain its former deference to Western powers. While as an historian I was aware of the shameful way China had been repeatedly treated throughout the 19th century by Western powers, I did not realize before reading this book how poorly China was often treated even as an ally of the Western powers during World War II. The following passage from Forgotten Ally [pp. 243-44] provides but one example.

The problem was that the Chinese and the Westerners looked at China’s role through almost entirely different lenses. To the Western Allies, China was a supplicant, a battered nation on its knees, waiting for the Americans and British to save it from certain destruction at the hands of the Japanese. In Chiang’s view and that of many Chinese, their country was the first and most consistent foe of Axis aggression. Despite numerous opportunities to withdraw from the conflict, China had fought on when the prospects of outside assistance seemed hopeless, and it now deserved to be treated as an equal power.

The United States itself waxed warm and cool towards China in the ‘30s and ‘40s. On the one hand, President Roosevelt was personally sympathetic to the Chinese and, despite British concerns over implications that a strong China might have for its still extensive colonial holdings in Southeast Asia, he strongly supported a role for China as an equal. However, the figure sent by America to act as the principal liaison between the U.S. and China – General Joseph Stilwell – repeatedly clashed with Chiang Kai-shek, placing his own judgment as to the appropriate use of Chinese troops before those of the Chinese leader. He even came to despise Kai-shek, referring to him privately as “the Peanut.” (In reading about Stilwell I often winced, for he seemed to embody one of the types of “ugly Americans” who have so often annoyed other cultures –an arrogant, self-righteous individual who was unaware that he was, in fact, not nearly as bright as he thought he was.)

Despite the difficulties Stilwell caused, the over-all American reaction to Mao initially ranged from neutral to positive. Of course, the fact that he was a Communist rattled many cages in Washington, but his clarity of purpose, demonstrated organizational skills, and obvious concern for the peasantry near his organizational headquarters in Yan’an made a very positive impression upon several American visitors, civilian and military alike. In contrast, while Chiang Kai-shek came across as forcefully anti-communist, his preference for hierarchical structures, and seeming relative unconcern for non-soldiers, left most American visitors with a less positive impression.

When the war ended more quickly than either Mao or Chiang thought likely, the United States tried to arbitrate some form of workable compromise between Chiang and Mao in order to avoid the continued disruption that a civil war would bring. However, their differences in vision for the future of China were so vast that this effort was doomed from the beginning. America’s right wing seized upon Mao’s subsequent triumph in 1949 as evidence of how the “liberals” in Washington had “lost” China (as if China belonged to anyone other than the Chinese people!). That charge was part and parcel of a right-wing resurgence in America, fueled both by the soon-to-emerge Korean conflict and the irresponsible charges of widespread communist infiltration throughout all levels of American government by Wisconsin’s Senator McCarthy, whose witch-hunts dressed up as congressional hearings were telecast nation-wide. This ugly period within the United States helped further poison relations with China for decades.

In fact, it was only after the Republican President Nixon’s remarkable decision to visit China in the ‘70s – and his gracious reception by the Chinese leadership on that occasion – that matters slowly began to turn back toward a more hopeful direction.

In these opening decades of the 21st Century, where China is clearly destined to be the equal of the United States in economic and military power, we must wonder: Are we doomed to continually replay the missteps of the past? Or are both sides capable of freeing themselves from the ideological shackles that distort what is possible while also masking new opportunities?

Right wing forces in the United States continue to argue that China “cannot be trusted,” for they believe that is the nature of communistic and single party states to be a danger to “free” societies. In their opinion, the U.S. posture toward China should be similar to that adopted by this country towards Soviet Russia in the years following the Cold War in which we sought to encircle the Soviet Union with commercial and military alliances which would stay its possible aggression against its neighbors.

The errors behind such arguments are many. American leadership failed from the beginning to recognize that one of the primary reasons Stalin was trying to erect his own network of friendly states was in order to reduce the likelihood of yet another invasion of Russia from the West. He remembered, although it seems that many in the West did not, that it was Russia who had been invaded by the French in 1812 and by the Germans in 1941. Further, Stalin recalled the intervention by several Western powers in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 when the West sought to assist the “Whites” in their struggle against the “Red” armies as that revolution played out.

In many ways, China’s current position is similar to the situation facing my own young country in the early 19th century: growing in both self-confidence and power, yet aware of the historically unfriendly – even hostile – posture of existing powers (Western and Asian), and seeking to demonstrate its earned right to be treated as an equal among nations. If only the United States would recognize this opportunity to create a true partnership with China – one obviously based first and foremost upon equal respect and working towards a relationship of mutual trust and inter-reliance – there is every likelihood that these two countries could work together to create, and maintain, the conditions for peace and stability in Asia and elsewhere.

The challenge is probably equally great for both countries. As the established superpower, I think it only proper that the United States be the first to offer a genuine hand of friendship. Suspicion and distrust will likely linger for some time, but the more Chinese-American communication and cooperation spreads at all levels – between governments and military, of course, but also between citizens – the more likely that genuine friendship based upon mutual respect will result.

The alternative, returning to the old days of power politics, has already shown in the past century how futile is that course. Do we have the courage to try a new way? For all the dead – Chinese, Russian, Asian, European and American – who have paid the price beyond measure – we had better try.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fourth Ally

Rana Mitter’s China’s War with Japan is an ambitious and authoritative reconstruction of one of the most devastating yet overlooked chapters of the Second World War. For much of the twentieth century, China’s eight-year war against Japan was treated as a sideshow to the grand narratives of Europe and the Pacific. Mitter challenges this Eurocentric view by placing China firmly at the center of the global wartime experience. In doing so, he not only restores the significance of China’s sacrifice but also demonstrates how the conflict shaped the political trajectory of the modern Chinese nation.

Mitter, a professor of the history and politics of modern China at Oxford University, bases his narrative on extensive archival research, incorporating Chinese, Japanese, and Western sources. His approach is both scholarly and accessible: he writes with the clarity of a skilled storyteller but never loses analytical precision. The book opens with the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which marked the beginning of full-scale war between China and Japan, and proceeds to map the immense human and political drama that unfolded over the following eight years.

Mitter explains the tension between China’s three competing political movements: the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, the Communists under Mao Zedong and the pro Japanese collaborators under Wang Jingwei. Mitter’s portrait of Chiang is complex and humane. He presents the Nationalist leader as a deeply flawed yet steadfast figure who kept China in the war despite staggering odds: poor infrastructure, limited industrial capacity, and the withdrawal of Western support during crucial years. At the same time, Mitter recognises the growing strength of the Communists, whose guerrilla warfare and land reform policies in the north laid the foundations for their postwar victory. The uneasy alliance between these factions is a recurring theme in the book, highlighting how internal divisions weakened China’s ability to resist Japan while simultaneously shaping its postwar destiny.

Beyond political and military history, Mitter vividly captures the human toll of the war. He documents the destruction of cities such as Nanjing, where the infamous 1937 massacre stands as one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century. He describes the suffering of civilians subjected to famine, aerial bombing, and displacement, while also giving attention to the intellectuals, soldiers, and ordinary citizens who struggled to keep the idea of a united China alive amid chaos. Mitter’s ability to weave personal stories into broader historical analysis lends emotional depth to the narrative without resorting to sentimentality.

Mitter’s main argument in China’s War with Japan is that China’s resistance fundamentally altered the course of the Second World War. By tying down over half a million Japanese troops on the Asian mainland, China prevented Japan from concentrating its forces elsewhere in the Pacific. In this sense, Mitter argues, China was not merely a victim or a passive front but an indispensable Allied power, which is an idea often ignored in Western histories of the war. He also explores the diplomacy of the wartime years, particularly China’s relations with the United States and Britain, which oscillated between strategic partnership and paternalistic condescension. This nuanced treatment of global politics underscores how China’s wartime experiences shaped its later sense of grievance and determination to reclaim national dignity.

Mitter’s narrative does not end with Japan’s defeat in 1945. He traces the immediate aftermath which tumbled into the resumption of civil war between Nationalists and Communists and the longer-term legacy of the conflict in shaping China’s identity as both a victim and a victor. He suggests that the memory of the war continues to play a central role in Chinese nationalism and foreign policy today, influencing everything from public commemoration to the rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mitter’s prose do not flow as well as the best writers but he pulls his words together enough to allow this book to be an easy and mostly enjoyable read. I will say that he is able to balance sweeping geopolitical analysis with intimate moments of human experience. His command of both the domestic and international dimensions of the conflict allows him to tell a story that feels both global and deeply personal.

In sum, China’s War with Japan is a solid piece of work that redefines how we understand both World War II and modern Chinese history. It is not only a story of military struggle but also of endurance, transformation, and rebirth. By restoring China’s war to its rightful place in global memory, Rana Mitter reminds us that the origins of the modern world cannot be understood without acknowledging the courage and suffering of the millions who fought and died in Asia between 1937 and 1945.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely excellent history of the Sino-Japanese and subsequent involvement of China with Japan in WWII that has been long overdue in a post-Mao era. Historian Mitter has used resources and documents either long forgotten (or purposefully concealed) to write one of the first neutral histories of China's involvement with Japan. In this sense, it is truly the long-overdue revisionist history we have been waiting for although the title is misleading China's War with Japan, 1937-1945 as the story begins in the late 1890s and continues post-1945.

This is a complex history with many players (Chiang Kai-Shek, Mao, Wang Jingwei, Churchill, Hurley, Chennault, Fumimaro, Marshall, Mountbatten, Stalin, Stilwell, Roosevelt...), but Mitter has accomplished in less than 400 pages what might have taken others thousands, due to his immaculate, succinct writing. Not only is this book illuminating reading, it is also pleasurable reading. Those seeking detailed battle information will be disappointed; the important battles and their preparations and results are included, but this is a book that focuses more on the issues and personalities than battlefield logistics. Yet it dips into the personal stories of soldiers and journalists in the field to illuminate in short excerpts some of the lesser-known facts of the time--the flooding of the central Chinese plains that led to countless Chinese deaths, the lack of equipment and food and training for the foot soldiers, Churchill's disdain for Chiang Kai-shek (the joke being that SEAC stood for "Save England's Asian Colonies" and betrayals, the to-and-fro, in-and-out policies and treaties that created the political quagmire that Chiang had to manage--sometimes successfully, sometimes not. And of course, the righting of the wrongful impression that it was the CCP, Mao's leadership and the accomplishment of the Eighth Route Army and its Long March that were the heroes of the war, as long defended by post-1949 Communist historians.

Anyone interested in Chinese history should read this book; lay readers and academics alike will benefit from the tale, and I would highly recommend watching the YouTube video of Mitter's presentation at the 2014 Jaipur Literature Festival (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XK-DU...).

A personal footnote: when travelling in northern Myanmar in the early 1990s, we came across rural areas where bones and skulls were still visible from the battles fought on Burma's (as it was known in those days) soil. Those villagers we spoke with who were children during the war confirmed that they were the remains of Chinese and Japanese soldiers, abandoned by both sides. Mitter refers to these war dead in his chapter on Burma and tells the tale of a Chinese participant (Huang Yaowu) who mourns for his lost comrades who 'not even buried...might at least have hoped that their deaths would be remembered'. We need historians such as Rana Mitter to keep reminding us.

[Igor Ljubuncic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good, eye-opening book.

First, it's a well-written piece of often-overlooked history, and gives us a good understanding of the Sino-Japanese war, which preceded (and haralded) WW2 by a good few years. It also provides insight into the Chinese national psyche, which has been strongly influenced by the war with Japan, by the relations with the Allied powers, and the subsequent political intrigue.

Second, it's extra interesting, because it takes a non-European, non-American approach to the conflict. I'm not saying this is good because it is different (that's a cultural cliche), but it is good in that it allows the reader to understand the conflict from a point of view that does not exist in the more Eurocentric narrative. The same is true of trying to understand the Soviet and Russian mentality when it comes to WW2. Understanding how the nation perceives it, even two or three generations later, is a good indicator of the national movement and behavior. Without that context, many of the modern actions are easily misinterpreted.

The same is true of China. It's very easy to go for simplistic explanations on expansionism and global influence. The reality is far more nuanced, and resonates in years of bitter fighting, starvation and humiliation that was the Sino-Japanese conflict. It's a sad reality that it can take decades, even longer for things to unravel. But hey, Europe today is a result of European wars in 1812-1815, the revolution of 1848, and the German-French war of 1871 (and the Berlin Congress). Everything else is one big aftermath echo of those moments.

Back to Rana's book ... you get a lot of good points on the Chinese internal and external struggle, the global stage "envy", the difference in mentality between the Nationalists and the Communists, the relations with the US. Eighty years later, it all makes sense.

All in all, if you like history, and you want to understand the global political scene a bit better, this is an excellent complementary read to your existing arsenal. It will help you understand the seemingly paradoxically defensive-aggressive posture that China has today.

(Aside: if you want to understand the American spirit, you need to look at the French-Indian wars and the life on the frontier. If you want to understand how the US became the leading superpower, you need to look at the Spanish-American war of 1898. For Russia, it's decidedly WW2. And for China, it's the conflict with Japan.)

Quite recommended.

Igor

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book which should make any reader re-examine not only WWII - but also the underlying assumptions of the way we in the West have, and continue to view, China, Japan and, to be honest, anywhere in the world that isn't Europe and people who aren't white. Unconsciously we inevitably start moving into a different moral process and judge things in ways that we don't judge, and wouldn't judge, conflicts or problems closer to home. Although the author doesn't make the comparison it is useful to examine the different ways that de Gaulle and the Free French were treated compared to Chaing kai Chek and the Nationalist government. It is also very useful to view the way Mitter puts the whole of China's war with Japan is put into context so that it can viewed not through the blinkers of cold war thought of good/bad communists or good/bad nationalists. Whatever else I hope this book finally demolishes the reputation of General Vinegar Joe Sitwell and replace it with the reality of the arrogant, patronising, racist that he was.

An excellent, eye opening and rewarding read.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fourth Ally

With the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945, WW II came to an end, leaving the "Big Four" of the United States, Great Britain, the USSR and China as the powers that would play a permanent and central role in the formation of the United Nations. The war in Europe and in the Pacific has generated an enormous literature. The war between Japan and China, and its place in the global conflict, has received far less study. China suffered nearly 20,000,000 deaths during WW II, second only to the USSR. Rana Mitter's new book, "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937 -- 1945" helped fill many gaps in my understanding of both WW II and its aftermath. The book offers an acesssible and balanced account of China's WW II, centering on the Japanese invasion. Mitter is professor of modern Chinese history at the University of Oxford.

Mitter explains the purpose of his study in a brief Prologue:

"In the early twenty-first century China has taken a place on the global stage and seeks to convince the world that it is a 'responsible great power'. One way in which it has sought to prove its case is to remind people of a time past, but not long past, when China stood alongside the other progressive powers against fascism: the Second World War. If we wish to understand the role of China in today's global society, we would do well to remind ourselves of the tragic, titanic struggle which that country waged in the 1930s and 1940s not just for its own national dignity and survival, but for the victory of all the Allies, west and east, against some of the darkest forces that history has ever produced."

The book recounts a highly complex history which involves China's struggles to become a republic, the early pre-WW II war with Japan in the 1930's, the China-Japan war during the years before Pearl Harbor, the China-Japan war in the context of WW II after Pearl Harbor, and then the Civil War which resulted in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Domestic affairs in China during the war years, and the conflict between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong receive substantial attention as well.

The first part of the book, "The Path to War" offers an overview of the relationship between China and Japan and of China's attempt to establish a Republic beginning in 1911. Both Chiang and Mao come into prominence during this early period. This part of the story culminates in 1931, with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria while the rest of the world took little action.

The second part of the story, "Disaster" covers the early years of the war, which began in 1937. Among other things, it focuses on the loss of Shangai, the atrocities of Nanjing, and Chaing's decision to breach the dikes on the Yellow River to slow Japan's advance into central China. This decision resulted in an astounding loss of civilian life. The book shows the wary attempts of Chiang and Mao to work together, although both leaders markedly distrusted one another. The Chinese nationalists under Chiang, for all their faults, frequently resisted the Japanese heroically and sometimes successfully during this period.

The third section of the book "Resisting Alone" reminded me of Britain's early resistance, as it shows China fighting a war without allies against Japan. During this period, a third prospective government, in addition to the Nationalists and the Communists arose in China which advocated collaboration with Japan in order to reach a peace. The collaborationist leaders were long regarded as traitors. Mitter offers a more nuanced view.

The final part of the book, "The Poisoned Alliance" describes how China's allies tried to marginalize the China-Japan war in favor of the European and Pacific theaters. It focuses on the poisonous relationship between Chiang and American General Joseph Sitwell who was sent to China as Chiang's Chief of Staff following Pearl Harbor. During this time, Chiang and the Nationalists frequently were perceived as a reluctant, corrupt ally which was unwilling to fight. Mitter describes a severe famine in China which took place during the war years in part due to the Nationalist's incompentence and corruption. He also describes the brutal police states that arose in the three rival Chinese governments, under Chiang, Mao, and the collaborationists. Again, Mitter offers a nuanced portrayal of Chiang, discussing both his many weaknesses as a civilian and military leader but also his strengths. He reminds the reader throughout of the resistance the Chinese offered against the Japanese invasion for many years against long odds. Mitter makes a convincing case that the Chinese resistance was integral to the result of the War as it allowed the Allies to concentrate their attention on the remaining theaters.

The Epilogue to the book briefly describes the Civil War following WW II which culminated in Chiang's flight to Taiwan in 1949. The book discusses how the Chinese have been portraying their war history, their internal history, and their relationship with Japan in the years following Mao's ascendancy.

This book has a great deal to teach about subjects that most Americans know only vaguely. I learned a great deal from it and perhaps see some things differently than I did before reading it. Teaching its readers is a worthy accomplishment for any book.

Robin Friedman

[Qmmayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an overview of China's pivotal role in WWII, and to the extent that readers are unfamiliar with that history, it is a useful corrective.

But its true aims lie deeper: it is unapologetically a revisionist history, designed to rehabilitate the image of Chiang Kai-shek and emphasize the role of the Nationalists in resisting the Japanese invasion. In doing so, the author also makes clear the relatively small contributions of the Communist forces and goes to great lengths to critique the actions of Joseph Stilwell, the Allies' representative in China and a constant irritant to Chiang. In the latter respect, the book feels like a response to Barbara Tuchman's Stillwell and the American Experience in China, a generally well-regarded pro-Stilwell biography that did much to lock in the unflattering image of Chiang for Western observers.

While I enjoyed the book as a condensed review of China's role in the Second World War, I felt that the author overreached in his goals. I will say I gained a greater appreciation of the sacrifices by the Nationalist forces. From this book, it would seem that the Communists spent most of their energies regrouping during the war and positioning themselves for the inevitable power struggle to come, a charge often aimed at the Nationalists. The book also offers insights into some of the thinking of the Chinese participants in the collaboration government with the Japanese.

However, I still harbor doubts about the quality of Chiang's leadership. While he may have been the only person able to hold together China's fragile coalition of warlords, emerging business class, and factional armed forces, his political instincts appear to be his primary strength. Forgotten Ally is still left to wrestle with his disastrous tactical decisions, most glaringly breaching a dike to slow the Japanese army, which resulted in the death of up to a half-million people (and likely only slightly delayed the army's march) and the intentional burning of the city Changsha by retreating Nationalists, although the Japanese wouldn't reach the city for years. The book also acknowledges the endemic corruption that plagued the government and the failure of the Nationalists to adequately address a devastating famine in one province that ultimately killed millions. In passing, the book acknowledges that during the civil war with the Communists, Chiang was unable to achieve any notable military victories and severely misjudged the strength of his opposition, a concession that seems to me to cast doubt on his abilities as a military leader. Indeed, the only Nationalist military victories against the Japanese proved fleeting. Chiang's greatest asset may simply have been his stubborn resolve.

Moreover, the extensive portions of the book focused on J. Stilwell struck me as unjustifiably harsh. The author lambastes Stilwell for "abandon[ing]" Chinese troops as part of a failed campaign in Burma despite -- according to Tuchman's book -- that he did so under direct orders. And the book ignores the fact that Stilwell remained in the area to ensure that retreating armies were supplied with rice and refused air transport in order to stay with 100+ military and civilian refugees on a perilous march to safety. Tuchman's book also provides needed context for Stilwell's defeat, in which he was frustrated by fickle British support and reluctant Chinese participation.

Tuchman unquestionably had an anti-Chiang bias. As one point, she notes that he had a "dictator's instinct for balconies." Forgotten Ally returns the favor for Stilwell: after the defeat in Burma, Stilwell told the press that they had taken a "hell of a beating." Yet the book leads in to that quote with the statement that Stilwell was "never one to miss the opportunity for good press," a peculiar jab given his unflattering candor. While I have not gone back to Tuchman's book to review all of the points raised against Stilwell, the description of the initial Burma defeat did much in my mind to cast doubt on Forgotten Ally's objectivity.

Ultimately, I was not fully convinced by Forgotten Ally. While Tuchman's book needs more balance to fully credit the Nationalist's contributions, I don't think that Forgotten Ally should be read in isolation. Still, the Japanese aggression in Asia, the Allies' shabby treatment of China during the war, and the Nationalist's resistance are all critical for understanding China today, and it is good that this book provides additional information on each.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The English-language bibliography of the Second World War is faced with an odd contradiction: while there is no shortage of books about the conflict, there are still not enough of them. This is because for all of the thousands of tomes weighing down the shelves of libraries and bookstores the majority of them are concentrated in a few key areas, namely the war in Europe (particularly in Western Europe) and in the Pacific. As a result, English-language readers have an often distorted view of the conflict, one that ironically ignores its global nature.

Among the fronts of the war that are under-addressed, none is more so than the war in China. To be fair there are good reasons for this, such as the language difficulties and the challenges of archival access for some of the major governments involved in it. The lack of attention is inexcusable nevertheless, especially since many historians have argued that the start of the war that consumed the world can be traced to China, with the outbreak of fighting between units of the Japanese and Nationalist Chinese armies near Beijing in 1937. Because of this, people are left with the duality of a lack of understanding about the origins of the most widely written about war in human history, along with an an attending absence of awareness about the course of the fighting in that region and the impact on the postwar world.

It is for this reason why Rana Mitter's book is welcome. His study of the war waged in China begins to fill the gap in our understanding by providing a broad survey of events that fits them within the context of modern Chinese history. This allows him to fit the war both within the matrix of China's international relations and the dramatic political and military struggles within China that preceded the outbreak of the war with Japan. While he structures his narrative around the three major leaders of China during the war, his main focus is on Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of Nationalist China. This focus allows Mitter to challenge many Western (primarily American) conceptions of the war in eastern Asia, as he pushes back against the traditional narrative of a corrupt regime incompetently fighting the war by detailing the challenges Chiang faced and the strains of the war upon his his country, noting that by the time Japanese bombs fell on the American ships in Pearl Harbor China had already been at war against Japan for four years and had already lost the most valuable regions of their country to the enemy. Yet despite this Mitter describes the efforts by China to continue their effort, often in the face of indifference from the Western Allies and the outright hostility of their representatives in the country.

Mitter's book is a powerful corrective to our skewed misunderstanding of a key front in the global conflict, one in which hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops were committed throughout the fighting. Yet in many respects it is only a first effort of what is needed. The book reflects Mitter's specialization in Chinese history, and while he addresses the other participants his analysis of American and British strategy is disappointingly narrow considering the enormous amount of material available to him. His coverage of Japan is even more problematic, as his discussion of their political and military decision-making is far more opaque than it needs to be, which creates an imbalanced picture of a nuanced examination of the multi-combatant Chinese and Allied war effort against a monolithic "Japanese" foe.

To be fair these criticisms must be set against the scale of Mitter's achievement. He has produced a book that is required reading for anyone who wishes to claim a comprehensive understanding of the Second World War. Yet his book also demonstrates how much work is left to be done in researching and analyzing the war there, which will undoubtedly lead at some point to the epic, nuanced account of the fighting that the war in China truly deserves. Until then, however, we have his illuminating study of a front in the war that remains too underappreciated in our understanding of the conflict as a whole.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read just about any popular history of World War II, and you’ll find any number of references to the Allies as the Big Three of Britain, the US, and the Soviet Union. What’s missing is recognition that China bore nearly as high a price as the USSR, with an estimated fourteen to twenty million dead compared to fewer than half a million for the UK and the US. (The Soviet Union lost as many as twenty-four million dead.) On that basis alone, Oxford University historian Rana Mitter is justified in titling his revisionist history of China in World War II Forgotten Ally. But, as he explains at length, recognition of China’s contribution to the war effort is overdue on a far broader basis than that.

Dueling myths and torrents of propaganda
China’s World War II experience has generated dueling myths and torrents of propaganda. In China itself, Mao Zedong’s government long suppressed any favorable comment about the performance of Chiang Kai-shek‘s Nationalists, or indeed that of any of his or Mao’s competitors for power. (Mao didn’t attain the undisputed leadership of the Communist Part until the war was nearly over, and Chiang was never fully secure at the top of the Nationalists until he fled to Taiwan in 1949. So-called warlords always controlled large swaths of territory.) In Forgotten Ally, Mitter attempts to set the record straight. To a considerable extent, he succeeds.

Today’s China was forged in the war with Japan
“Contemporary China is thought of as the inheritor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution,” Mitter writes, “or even of the humiliation incurred by the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century, but rarely as the product of the war against Japan . . . [T]hat history disappeared down a hole created by the early Cold War, from which it has only recently reappeared.” And Mitter’s book is an effort to rebalance the history books, asserting that World War II merits a preeminent position in modern Chinese history. He also attempts in Forgotten Ally to dispel the simplistic notion that the war involved a two-way struggle between Nationalists and Communists. “A new history of China’s wartime experience must take account of the three-way struggle for a modern China: Nationalist, Communist, and collaborationist.”

A fundamental disconnect between China and the West
There was a fundamental disconnect between the Chinese and Western views of China’s role in the war. “The problem,” Mitter writes, “was that [they] looked at China’s role through almost entirely different lenses. To the Western allies, China was a supplicant, a battered nation on its knees, waiting for the Americans and British to save it from certain destruction at the hands of the Japanese. In Chiang’s view and that of many Chinese, their country was the first and most consistent foe of Axis aggression.” [By most reckoning, World War II did, in fact, start in 1937 in China and only in 1939 in Europe.]

“Despite numerous opportunities to withdraw from the conflict, China had fought on when the prospects of outside assistance seemed hopeless, and it now deserved to be treated as an equal power.” The result of this disconnect was that “the British and Americans wished to give the impression that China was a serious ally without actually putting much effort into the relationship, while Chiang overestimated what he was worth to the Western Allies.” As Mitter reports, “In 1941 and 1942 the total proportion of US Lend-Lease aid to China was around 1.5 percent of the total, dropping to 0.5 percent in 1943 and 1944, and would rise to 4 percent only in 1945.”

Why China should be considered the fourth Ally
Mitter’s argument that China deserves more recognition for its role in World War II rests on four premises, each of which he takes great pains to justify.

China might have surrendered. Chiang and Mao didn’t.
Almost throughout the course of China’s eight-year war with Japan (1937-45), prospects for Chinese victory were slim at best. Less resolute Chinese leadership might well have sought peace with the Japanese. In fact, Wang Jingwei, a now little-recognized Chinese official who had been Sun Yat-sen‘s designated successor, did collaborate with the Japanese. He served as head of a puppet regime in Nanjing from 1940 until his death in 1944. Yet Chiang’s troops managed to hold down more than half a million Japanese troops who might otherwise have been posted to the war in the Pacific and South Asia.

Chiang kept the country united against Japan.
Chiang Kai-shek was a far better leader than most accounts give him credit for. In fact, he was the only person who could command a true national presence. Chiang’s competitors recognized this fact, and so did Mao. Although Chiang’s regime was at least as corrupt as his critics complain, and his in-laws were among the most notorious thieves in the country, Chiang himself was not on the take. Despite the corruption and the lack of cooperation from many of his generals, he did manage to maintain the resistance to Japan throughout the war.

Chiang was better than his critics contend.
Although Chiang was a poor tactician (and hindered by jealous and venal “warlords” as well), he was far more adept at war strategy. Complaints by General Joseph Stilwell and other Americans on the scene were overblown, in Mitter’s view. And Stilwell himself was not just ill-equipped to command soldiers in the field, he should (Mitter believes) have been court-martialed for deserting his troops in Burma and fleeing to India.

Nationalists and Communists cooperated to resist Japan.
Many accounts of the war in China emphasize the bitter enmity between Chiang’s Nationalists and Mao’s Communist Party. In fact, in one of the most notorious episodes in his life, Chiang had even attempted to exterminate the Communists when he turned on them in 1928 in Shanghai. Clearly, there was no love lost between them. But both men, and the overwhelming majority of their supporters, were prepared to set aside their differences to oppose the Japanese invasion of their country.

About the author
Cambridge-educated Rana Mitter is a British historian and political scientist of Indian origin who specializes in twentieth-century Chinese history at the University of Oxford. He is also a familiar presence on BBC Radio. Forgotten Ally (published in the UK as China’s War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival) is his third book.

[Alexandru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forgotten Ally is an absolutely necessary book about China's much overlooked role in World War II. For China the war started in 1937 with the horrible battles of Shanghai and Nanjing and the continued for 7 gruelling years with battles such as Taierzhuang or Wuhan but also tragedies such as the intentional Yellow River flood or the Henan famine.

The bloody campaigns in Burma and the Japanese Ichi-Go offensive in 1944 almost brought China to its knees. It was the collapse of the Japanese front in the Pacific which saved China from collapsing in 1945.

The book covers the battles briefly but more focuses on the politics and the rivalry between the Nationalist, Communist and Collaborationist regimes. It also paints a bad picture of the American General Stillwell who managed to alienate the Chinese and cause a rupture in Chinese-American relations which indirectly led to the Communist eventual victory in the Civil War.

This is a must read in order to understand the Chinese theatre in World War 2.

[Alice Malin · Rating 3 out of 5]

ngl this took me over two years to complete

[Chris Chester · Rating 3 out of 5]

The American understanding of the second World War is traditionally skewed pretty heavily towards valorizing the contributions of the American and British armed forces, with some nods to folks like the French resistance or the heroic stand of the Fins. Our cultural understanding of the war has only recently, with the end of the Cold War, come to encompass the centrality of the Soviet front to the war in Europe.

It's in this context that 'Forgotten Ally' comes as a badly-needed palliative, shining a light on the war between China and Japan that preceded the larger global conflict and restoring China's contribution as the fourth major ally against the fascist regimes.

Unfortunately, Mitter's account feels deeply flawed. He initially lays out his structure as attempting to tell the story of China's war in the persons of Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong and the Japanese collaborationist regime of Wang Jingwei, each of whom controlled a portion of the country in the war years. But Mitter's work reads like an apologia for the regime of Chiang Kai-shek.

Few would contest the fact that Chiang was a singular figure for China in the 20th century and was the only figure capable of leading a united resistance to imperial Japan. But Mitter seems to hastily wave away many of Chiang's most disastrous blunders. There's the breaching of a dike on the Yellow River which is said to have killed nearly a million people and displaced tens of millions. Or the intentional burning of Changsha, which proved to be unnecessary. Chiang's regime also failed to arrest a devastating famine that stemmed in large part from the venality and corruption of his regime. And that's saying nothing about how Chiang's only victories in the field were fleeting actions in retreat.

Look, I don't believe in the Great Man theory of history. I don't think the success or failure of the Nationalist party in WW2 lies exclusively at Chiang's feet. And I appreciate a historian who tries to shine light on the circumstances that limit a leader's actions in moments of historic import. But Mitter is unrelenting in his attempt to rehabilitate Chiang's image. When he does acknowledge things like corruption of Chiang's regime, it's in passing and doesn't go into great depth about what that corruption actually entailed or its consequences.

And despite Mitter's initial framing about the book being the story of China's three leaders during this period, it's blatantly obvious that he is giving the CCP short shrift. He never misses an opportunity to downplay their contributions to the war, often portraying the Communist policy of avoiding pitched set-piece battles against a superior foe as somehow cowardly or diminishing. At no point does he address in detail the Communist success in marrying their ideological mission with the awakening of the Chinese countryside. Nor does he explain at all what the CCP's guerrilla tactics did or not do to the Japanese war effort. It's possible he felt that the modern party does a good enough job propagandizing around their war fighting such that it doesn't need to be described, but the effect is a book wildly out of balance.

There are other flaws as well. Despite being a book about war, Mitter can scarcely spare a page for describing troop movements, battlefield tactics or the nature of the fighting on the continent. It's almost entirely about Chiang's international maneuvering and slap fats with "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell.

I'm left with the impression that Mitter wanted to write a book that would be a corrective for the prevailing scholarship about China during WW2. So he positioned it relative to what he perceived as the deficiencies, ideological or otherwise, of the existing narratives. But for a reader like myself who just wants to learn about China's contributions as an ally, it ultimately falls really short.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forgotten Ally is a serious scholarly contribution to a major theater of World War 2 which has been understudied in the literature. China fought one of the longest versions of World War 2, with major combat operations from the 1937 invasion by Japan right up to V-J Day. This international war was book-ended by the regional conflicts of the Warlord Period and the Communist victory of the Chinese Civil War, making up long decades of conflict which killed millions of people and wrecked Chinese infrastructure, but also laid the groundwork for the modern Chinese state. Mitter's analysis is focused on Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and the state-making trauma of the war, with a secondary look at Mao, and the almost forgotten collaborationist Nationalist Wang Jingwei.

China had a profoundly awful 19th century. Starting the century as a great imperial power, a sequence of colonial skirmishes with European powers saw the credibility of the Qing dynasty wrecked with unequal treaties that granted Europeans substantial commercial concessions and legal immunities. The Taiping Rebellion burned across China's agricultural heartland, killing millions and leading to a major devolution of central power down to regional military-political governors. And while the entire world had to come to grips with the new industrial modernity of the period, China had particular cultural troubles adapting.

The 20th century was little better, as Sun Yat-sen's dream of a modern Chinese Republic fell apart into factional warlordism, and while China got Germany and Austria's concessions, other foreign powers remained. Rising Japanese militarism saw China as subordinate to Japanese pan-Asianism, another form of imperial domination. Manchuria fell under Japanese control in 1931, and then the hammer fell properly in 1937 with a massive invasion.

The Nationalist defense was spirited, but serious deficiencies in material, airpower, morale, and command meant that Chinese forces suffered a series of defeats in the north, at Shanghai, Nanking, and Wuhan forced Nationalist retreats from the richest and most productive provinces. Nanking was comprehensively destroyed, the infamous Rape of Nanking, while Nationalist forces destroyed dikes on the Yellow River, creating flooding that gave a few months of tactical breathing space, but also consigned millions to a horrific famine. Japanese forces reached their military limits in the Chinese interior, controlling railroads and major cities, and able to strike more or less at will, as they would repeatedly through the war, but unable to deliver a decisive blow.

Chiang Kai-shek endured the grinding defeats and dislocations with almost no support from Western democracies prior to Pearl Harbor, and then only minor support thereafter. British envoys continued to treat the Chinese as colonial subjects, while American aid was fraught with inter-service rivalries and personal conflicts around General "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell. The Nationalist government was infamously brutal and corrupt, ruling via arbitrary terror and enriching a small clique around Chiang Kai-shek while millions of Chinese starved. Not that anyone else could have likely done better, insurmountable military and political problems greatly hampered Chiang's war effort, while treating the Chinese theater as a tertiary concern was endemic for all the Allies. Ddespite the devastation of war, resistance created a modern national mythology for China, efforts to care for refugees (however insufficient) provided a basis for modern welfare state practices, and Mao's experiments in the base area of Yan'an acted a model for the future red terrors of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

This book is a serious academic contribution to the literature, and a valuable reassessment of the Nationalist war effort without either Chinese Communist Party propaganda lines, or the American Cold War debates about "who lost China". Yet a couple of gaps prevent it from reaching five stars. First, I'd describe the writing as competent. Mitter is a good historian, but sometimes a reader appreciate a little more flash. Second, the Japanese were the actual protagonists of the war: their strategic vision drove the conflict, and full account of the war would include why and how Japan fought as it did, not just the Chinese resistance.

[Jimmy Fahey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is up there with Fear Itself as one of the best history books of 2013. I bet that you can line kilometres of shelves with books about the war in the Pacific and three times as many about the war in Europe. And yet so little has been written about the catastrophic war between China and Japan. Mitter's extensively researched and eloquently written account of the war does a lot for even one book to readdress this gross imbalance.

What I like about Mitter is that he frames the war in terms of contemporary geo-politics. Only after reading this book did I learn that China won a permanent place on the UN Security Council because along with the United States, the Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom, China was regarded as been one of the main contributors to the defeat of the Axis powers (a primary school teacher told me that they'd won a place on the Security Council by virtue of being the most populous nation). This goes to show that many in the west either overlook or are oblivious to the vast sacrifices the Chinese made during the Second World War. This along with Japan's continuing refusal to come to terms with its war crimes causes great offence to Beijing. Furthermore, Japan, the nation that refused to come to terms with its war crimes in China and throughout Asia, benefits from the US' protection. China, despite its contribution to Allied victory in the Pacific, was and to some extent remains a pariah state.

The accounts of the siege of Shanghai and the rape of Nanjing were graphic, as to was the account of a famine in Southern China. Miller did a great job of placing the struggle in the context of a wider struggle among the 'great powers' for supremacy over China that stretches back to the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century. It was interesting reading about overbearing influence of US generals during the war.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantasy book I read got me interested in the history of this time period in China. I have now read 2 books about this time period and found this one very engaging. I do not consider myself a historian, but this book included a variety of analysis and drew on a variety of source documents including journals. My interest in history is how it affects ordinary people, and this book touched on that more than the other one I read. I recommend this book for a different perspective on WWII and recent Chinese history.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an update of an earlier review, completed following a second reading of Rana Mitter's Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-45

The literature on WWII and its preceding conflicts has largely focused on Hitler’s rise and on increased militarism in Japan, all culminating in the invasion of France in 1940 and the arrival of the second “war to end all wars.” The Sino-Japanese conflicts that preceded the full-scale Second Sino-Japanese War, and the history of that war, have received far less attention. Rana Mitter’s Forgotten Ally redresses that imbalance and gives us a new view of figures like Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zhedong. For the West this is a revisionist history, but perhaps Western history needs revising.

The First Sino-Japanese War began in 1894 with Japan’s invasion of Korea, then a Chinese vassal state. This was a major test for China’s 250-year old Qing Dynasty headed by Empress Dowager Cixi, and it revealed China's military and industrial backwardness, especially compared with the astounding modernization of Japan since the Meiji Restoration began in 1868. The result was an 1895 treaty that ceded to Japan territorial and other rights in Korea, and that set the foundation for Japan's later colonial conquests to gather natural resources and to bring Pan-Asianism (a unified Asia under Japan's domination) to the region: Japan's Pan-Asianism would, it was said, spread Japanese culture (and control) to Asia and serve the defeated nations by bringing them to enlightenment—sometimes you just have to destroy a nation to save it! Ultimately Japan hoped to conquer China and then turn its attention to the USSR.

The fragility of the Qings promoted rebellions in China's already fractured warlord-driven society. In 1911 the Emperor Pu-yi, Cixi's chosen successor in 1908, abdicated, and in 1912 the Republic of China was created under Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Party (NP), called the Kuomintang (KMT). Sun would soon flee to (ironically) Japan in the political turmoil over NP leadership, and a contest for dominance in the NP would begin between two contending groups: General Chiang Kai-shek’s right-wing faction and Wang Jingwei’s left-wing faction. Chiang was strongly anti-communist and uncompromising in his vision of a united China with warlords contained and a central political and military power. Wang Jingwei was more of a compromiser who had a less clear vision; we will see that he became a Japanese puppet-figure.

A third group was the nascent and still inchoate Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Though Chiang detested communism, as leader of the KMT he agreed to form a United Front with the feeble and disorganized CCP as a bulwark against Wang Jingwei and the Japanese threat. However, the fragile United Front ended with the Shanghai Massacre in 1927, when Chiang’s army arrived in Shanghai and murdered thousands of communists. This prompted the CCP to relocate to a remote interior region to regroup and organize.

[Speculation: One wonders whether the Shanghai Massacre was the event that would ultimately bring China to communism—during its long self-imposed exile the CCP found a leader, Mao Zhedong, who would inspire it with his revolutionary fervor, organize it socially, economically, and militarily, and control it through coercive methods of “reform.” Mao would keep his powder dry and lie in wait to take revenge on Chiang. Had Chiang not so alienated the CCP and isolated them at an early stage, he might have destroyed the CCP simply by letting it die on the vine.]

After the Shanghai Massacre the NP formally split into two parts. Chiang led the right-wing and established a government in Nanjing ("Nanking"). Wang Jingwei, appalled by the Shanghai massacre and more sympathetic to Japan's ideal of Pan-Asianism, formed a left wing government in Wuhan ("Hangcow"). Chiang continued to harass the communists even in their remote area, and in 1934 they began their much-vaunted Long March to the city of Yun'an in the even more remote province of Shaanxi. They arrived sixteen months later with only 7,000 of the original 80,000 who started on the march. It was during the Long March that Mao rose to the leadership he commanded until his death, and it was the long and peaceful stay in Yun’an that allowed him to hone the tactics for controlling the Party.

In 1931 the Japanese Army staged the Mukden Incident, a bombing at a railroad station) on the China-Manchuria border, and a pretext for invading Manchuria in northeast China; the Tokyo government was unaware of the plan but once underway it accepted the result—ownership of Manchuria in China’s north, an area that gave it access to natural resources and which placed eastern China in a pinscher between and its new state of Manchukuo—formed in 1932 under the puppet governor Pu-yi, China’s last emperor.

With Japan now directly bordering central China on two sides, Japan and China entered an era of chronic border disputes and increasing tension. The 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing—an extended exchange of gunfire with no apparent origin—was the spark for the Second Sino-Japanese War. Chiang Kai-shek declared this minor skirmish as the last straw and countered the Japanese with force. This was the first outbreak of what would become an eight-year war between the well-resourced forces of a unified and militarized Japan and the poorly organized and weak forces of a disunified China. It was the first stage of World War II, well before the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and of France in 1940.

Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang was a coalition of warlords and diverse Republican political interests waving the banner of Sun Yat-sen’s republican principles. Those of us who are of a certain age recall the intense controversy about Chiang in the U. S. Liberals (primarily Democrats) charged him and his cronies with massive corruption and incompetence: looting his nation through onerous taxes and misdirection of revenues, misdirecting foreign assistance (primarily Lend-Lease resources) to his personal use, fighting a defensive war against the Japanese while using his forces to fight internal opponents, and failing to bring the Japanese to bay. U. S. Conservatives (yes, Republicans) supported him because of his strong anti-communism and because he was holding the Japanese down in China, a major achievement in light of the gross imbalance of military assets between China and Japan.

But Mitter’s assessment of Chiang presents him as a visionary seeking to bring China into the modern political world (and just ruthless enough to do it), and as a competent military leader whose single-minded focus on creating a nation and defeating the Japanese was the glue that held China together against the Japanese onslaught. Because the Japanese offensive power was so great, Chiang was necessarily on the defensive and often on the move. He moved his government westward from Nanjing to Chongqing ("Chunking") just before the Japanese arrived in force to decimate Nanjing.

When the Japanese army arrived in Nanjing it was a city filled with defenseless civilians crowded into a small International Safety Zone in the hope that the Japanese would respect its neutrality. The Japanese would have none of that—their army began an episode of mass rape, pillage, and murder that took 200,000 lives (according to the post-war International Military Tribunal) or 300,000 lives (according to Chinese records). Japanese brutality in China is well documented, but if one needs a taste of it, Mitter's section on the Rape of Nanking is sufficient. It was not an isolated event.

As the Japanese pursued him from Nanjing, Chiang understood that that he couldn't stop their advance and that that his new position in Chongqing government was not secure. He decided to move again, this time farther west to the megametropolis of Wuhan (Wang Jingwei’s old capital) . There was a reasonable chance that the Japanese would reach Chongqing too soon and capture Chiang before he could relocate to Wuhan, so Chiang made an horrific decision: he breached the dikes holding back the Yellow River, flooding a large part of central China (particularly Henan Province). The effect was to slow the Japanese enough to allow the move to Wuhan, but at the cost of an estimated 500,000 Chinese deaths from famine and disease associated with the destruction of a large and very fertile region. From a modern Western standpoint, this was a morally reprehensible decision that, if made in the U.S., would cause breast-beating for centuries. But from a Chinese standpoint it was both business as usual and an effective way of preserving China from Japanese rule.

[Speculation: Chiang was clearly the best leader China could muster against the Japanese: the Wang Jimwei faction of the Nationalist Party was both weak and inclined toward conciliation with Japan; the CCP was far too weak militarily for an effective military contest and preferred to keep its powder dry and let the Nationalist take the brunt of Japanese aggression. Had the Chiang government fallen it is likely that a leadership vacuum would result and all of China would become a Japanese vassal. Records show that the Japanese military—that is, the Japanese government—had intentions to invade the USSR, so Chiang's defeat would put Japan on the USSR's eastern border. Had this happened Germany's 1941 invasion of the USSR would put Stalin in a fight on two fronts—a fight he barely survived on one front. Would the USSR—the European bulwark against Germany—have survived this? If not, the Axis led by Germany and Japan would control Europe and most of Asia (perhaps all of it if India were also taken).

In that case Germany's full military strength could be devoted to its western front. This might have changed the outcome of the 1944 D-Day invasion of France, or entirely prevented the invasion. The British might now be speaking German, and we in America could have faced an insurmountable global hostile force. Given that China’s war with Japan cost an estimated twenty million lives, and that Mao’s leadership of China cost at least as many deaths, the death toll in Henang Province seems in scale for a major action that might rescue the globe from an existential crisis.]

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) now portrays itself as victorious against Japan, but in reality it was of very little consequence throughout the war. Located in a remote area that the Japanese could readily ignore, its energies were devoted to building the strength to fight Chiang. There was only one significant engagement between the CCP and the Japanese army during the war—the Battle of the Hundred Regiments in August-October of 1941, when over 40,000 CCP troops continually attacked Japanese infrastructure (bridges, rail and roads) for an extended period.

All “top-down” histories of the war highlight the overweening egos of the major actors and the intense hostility and jealousy between them. This history is no different. Chiang’s contempt for the British in general, and Churchill in particular, was born of British colonial history in China; the contempt was mutual. When FDR insisted that Chiang accept Lt. Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell as his Chief-of Staff it began an episode in which Chiang soon came to the conclusion that Stilwell was rash, careless with Chinese troops, excessively risk-taking, overconfident, and bent on using Chinese troops to fight an Anglo-American war to preserve Britain’s colonies, particularly Burma and India. Stilwell openly derided Chiang as a weak and incompetent military leader whose defensive actions showed cowardice and whose corruption was his primary motive for leadership. Stilwell broadcast this view to FDR and Congress, and to the American press.

Mitter points to evidence exonerating Chiang: Stilwell insisted on using Chinese troops to open the Burma road so goods could be transported to China, but Chiang opposed this on the grounds that this diverted his troops to a British theater. This seems reasonable since both Britain and America were also at odds about whose interests were central to their alliance. But over Chiang’s objections Stilwell diverted Chinese forces and resources (much of it Lend-Lease) to Burma to reopen the Burma Road to bring matériel into China. Chiang had said that Stilwell would be overmatched, and he was—Stilwell’s forces were surrounded in Burma and when Chiang ordered a retreat to British India Stilwell and his army made a brutal overland trek to safety.

Stilwell was incensed by Chiang’s order to retreat—apparently he had the Japanese just where he wanted them! His vitriolic ad hominem attacks on Chiang were blasted to FDR and to all who would listen. The American press went viral and Chiang’s image in America was formed largely from Stilwell’s perspective. FDR, losing confidence in Chiang, appointed Stilwell to be Commander-in-Chief of the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater, making him supreme commander of Chinese forces. Stilwell chortled with delight, penning limericks about his political defeat of “The Peanut,” as he called Chiang. But, still obsessed with Burma Stilwell used his new power to attempt another reopening of the Burma Road. Once again he took Chinese troops to Burma, and once again he was besieged. This time he fought his way out with 80 percent casualties and almost complete decimation of the elite Merrill's Marauders Ranger unit. The Burma Road was reopened, but by that time air transport over the Hump was the main transportation route and the Road provided little value-added.

After this costly debacle Chiang demanded that Stilwell be recalled. FDR pointed out that the Lend-Lease resources that the US had given Chiang would cease. Chiang replied that it made little difference because most of it had been used by Stilwell to finance his failed ventures in Burma. Stilwell was recalled and as he left he penned and distributed poisonous words about "The Peanut."

In China Stilwell has a reputation as an arrogant American without combat experience—he was a military planner, logistician and West Point professor known as an excellent trainer of troops—who failed to see that Chiang had been battling the Japanese on a shoestring for six years and was still in contention. He is also a symbol of the lack of real U. S. support for China's war, and for U. S. inability to understand the importance of China to the Chinese, as well as Chinese objectives and methods. In the U.S. Stilwell has the reputation of a successful general stymied by a corrupt and weak Chiang, a view buttressed by Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1971 book Stilwell and the American Experience in China—a book based largely on Stilwell’s papers!

Stalin and Chiang had far more in common than did FDR and Chiang—both would sacrifice their citizens to the cause of national survival on a scale far beyond the U.S, both would see the US as niggardly with its resources (though Stalin was the clear winner), both saw the Allies as leaving them to take the hits while focusing only on the European western front.

That Chiang could resist the Japanese for so long with only lukewarm support from the USSR (which Stalin wanted to prevent the Japanese from casting their military eye on Russia) and little more than rhetorical support from the U. K and U. S., is indicative of success as a wartime leader, not the failure with which he has been painted. Chiang might have been the right leader at the right time during China’s most serious existential crisis.

Mitter’s is a story well worth reading. Completed 65 years after the end of WWII and forty years after Tuchman’s book, it is based on a far more complete record than earlier histories; this lends verisimilitude to the story—a ring of truth (or of balance) that is enhanced by Mitter's non-Anglo perspective. Mitter’s take on the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese War is written with the same attention to both historical detail and to “boots on the ground” background as Max Hasting’s histories of the war in Europe. It is a fascinating tale, and remarkably well told.

Five stars!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been my goal to read more about WWII outside of the European theater, and this is probably the most comprehensive book about China’s role in the war. They endured years of onslaught from the Japanese long before western countries were involved. China was invaded and large swaths occupied and brutalized by Japan’s superior army starting in 1937. China didn’t fight offensively, but tried to defend when and where they could. Unfortunately, inadequate leadership was ineffective in so many aspects of governance and military management.

Before the war truly became international, there were more details about internal Chinese conflict than about fighting the Japanese. It was Nationalists versus Communists versus Collaborationists. On top of enemy air raids and assault, there was flooding and famine as a result of poor decision-making by Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and skirmishes with Mao Zedong’s communist forces.

If you thought China was a hot mess prior to international involvement, it got even worse when the Allies tried to interfere. Yes, the Chinese government was corrupt and indecisive, and therefore the Allies viewed them as inferior and incapable. Even as the war wound down, China was treated as a second-rate ally and was not included in most of the summits that would shape the post-war world. This attitude toward China would have lasting effects on its relationship with the USA and would influence the trajectory of the country for decades to come. This book definitely gave me an in-depth look at China’s role in the war and the global consequences.

[Steve Lopinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an educational experience for me on the sacrifice made by China in the second world war. China lost approximately 20 million in it’s eight year struggle with Japan’s invasion that began in 1937, two years before the war in Europe. It potrays the chess match between world leaders, including those within China that hoped for a weakening national Chinese government as a result of the war, so that they could gain power of mainland China. On a personal note, I don’t know if I truly can comprehend this world, although it does make me grateful for all my blessings.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rana Mitter's 'Forgotten Ally' is a page-turner, well-written, and well-organized. Of the three leading male figures cited by Rana_Mao Zedong, Wang Jing Wei and Chiang Kai-Shek_Chiang takes up the most real estate in the book; that is not surprising since it was Chiang who did most of the heavy lifting when it came to resisting and fighting the Japanese and Japanese imperialism during eight long years of battle from 1937-1945. The book gives credit to Chiang's efforts, albeit flawed, troubled, and controversial, in trying to save China, and perhaps rest of Asia, from Japanese imperialism. He succeeded but he did not win China as we all know. For those who are interested in the topic of collaboration between the Chinese and Japanese during WW2 and thus who might be familiar with the figure of Wang Jing Wei, it came as a bit of a surprise that the author took a somewhat sympathetic view towards Wang, who continues to this day to be considered the greatest traitor of China. Reading another book 'Wartime Shanghai', further contributes to one's understanding around the complexities of the problem of collaboration, and that Wang's stance was not entirely evil, but one of pragmatic concern, to try to buy time, appease the Japanese, and to try to save China from further destruction. Mao did not contribute heavily to the War of Resistance, instead leaving the Nationalists to lead the protracted battle on their own. Mao used his time wisely at his base in Yan'an, conserving his energy, writing up his political doctrine and thoughts, mobilizing his troops and rallying up peasant support by stirring up nationalism in the face of Japanese imperialism, and antagonism, in the face of corrupt and inept Nationalist policies contributing to society's ills, all of which helped contribute to his rise to power and victory over the Nationalists (Kuomingtang) in 1949.

Chiang is indeed a controversial figure, often criticized, berated, misunderstood, and whose country was oftentimes not worthy of strategic consideration by the other 3 major Allies: Britain, United States and USSR. The Nationalists under Chiang's command continued their lonely and weary struggle to contain the Japanese incursion into China (US air force was based in China but was more symbolic and did not join in the fighting). The well-known 'toxic relationship' between Joseph Stilwell (Chiang's chief of staff) and Chiang Kai Shek, is vividly described. 'Vinegar Joe' really was a thorn on Chiang's side. It is difficult to appreciate what positive contributions were made by Stilwell whose blunders in Burma cost Chiang whose troops could have been deployed to fend off the Japanese from making further advances in central and southern China. However, there are other books written about Stilwell which cast a very positive light on him. Chiang was not perfect by any means, but he was persistent, hard-working and determined to fight to the end at all costs. The chapter on 'Hunger in Henan' can jolt any reader. It is one of many topics and episodes in the War of Resistance which behooves later generations to try to better understand what previous generations in China had to endure during WW2. The book is important reading for China watchers and to help us better understand the roots of Sino-Japan antagonism.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgotten Ally recounts the history of China’s role in World War II from both an external power perspective and the internal struggle between the nationalists and the communists. Covering the year of 1937-1945 (invasion of Manchuria until the peace treaty) the book looks at how China was the sole defender against Axis aggression before the war began. Mitter also makes the case that despite the desperate hour of Great Britain standing alone during the Blitz; China stood alone far longer and was forced to make due with less. Arguing against the corruption of Chaing Kai-shek and focusing on the contributions China made to bottling up the Japanese and assisting with the troubled area of Burma in the British Empire. Mitter does an excellent job of showing the geopolitics that shaped China’s role and also looking at the internal struggles that worked against China in making a strong defense against the Japanese. The struggle between Chaing and Mao Zedong (as well as Wang Jingwei) is covered in detail throughout the book and sets the stage for what would occur in china following the war. The brutal nature of Chinese politics is covered and done so with an expert eye to detail. Overall if you are looking for a book that will give sufficient detail and new insights into China’s role in World War II you cannot go wrong with this one.

[R.M.F. Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've never read a book about the Sino - Japanese war of 1937-45, then this is an excellent book for the layman - clear, concise, easy to read, without ever being simplistic - no mean feat.

If you have read about this period, then this is still a good book, but Fenby in his autobiography about Chiang Kai-Shek covers the same ground in more detail.

That being said, the bibliography and source material the author drew upon is first rate (as you would expect from a historian of his standing) and add greatly to the text.

I would take issue with the author's view that this was the first chapter of the Second World War. In my view, brutal though the conflict was, it was a regional war between two rivals. Logically, you could say the same about the European theatre in 1939, but the difference there is that France and Britain had global empires (and in Britain's case drew heavily on troops from the dominions)

A minor quibble to be sure, but don't let that detract from what is an excellent text.

[Brad Eastman · Rating 4 out of 5]

For many Americans, World War II is the story of the defeat of Germany from D-Day on. The war in the Pacific is reduced to Pearl Harbor and dropping the Atomic Bomb. We know very little about the war prior to American entry. We do not know about the enormous sacrifice on the Eastern Front and we certainly do not know about the war in China. The general consensus is that World War II began in October 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, bringing Britain and France into the war. However, one ally had been fighting an Axis power since 1937 - that Ally was China who fought a Japanese invasion continuously from 1937 until the end of the war in 1945.

China paid an enormous toll for its fight against Japan. An estimated 14 million Chinese died during the fighting. Massive refugee relocations were a constant source of strain and China's fledgling democracy and modernization were sacrificed to the war effort. China was viewed as an Ally by the Big Three (US, UK and Russia), allbeit a junior partner. China tied up hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops which could have been available elsewhere. However, the Big Three considered the Asia war as subsidiary to the European war, and the Chinese theater as subsidiary to the main Asia war. China was treated with disrespect and served as a pawn in the inter-allied fighting between the Big Three and between the personality conflicts among American Commanders.

Mr. Mitter puts the war in China into a perspective of the long road of China from Colonial domination and exploitation to superpower status today. Although China was a junior partner, it was the only non-European or American independent country with Ally status. China was rewarded as a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations and began a long, hard road to modernization and real state building.

Mr. Mitter focuses mostly on the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. Mao and the Communists are present, but they are supporting characters. Mr. Mitter tries to reverse the narrative that Chiang ran a corrupt government that was more interested in fighting the Communists than the Japanese. Yes the Nationalists fought the Communists, but the Communists fought the Nationalists. Mr. Mitter notes how the Nationalists fielded large armies that fought the Japanese in China and Burma, while the Communists turned inward and resisted the Japanese through small-scale guerilla warfare. In fielding large armies, Chiang redefined the role of the state to the peasantry in China. The nation needed the peasants to fight and support large armies and the peasants expected some form of welfare state in return. Yes the nationalist were corrupt, but they also had to deal with Japanese bombings and tens of millions of refugees in a way that the Communists were spared.

Perhaps Mr. Mitter gives the Nationalists too easy of a pass. While he mentions corruption several times, he never really goes into how corrupt they were. He does not talk much about the governance structures and programs in Nationalist areas. However, Mr. Mitter's book is a very easy to read narrative of important historical events which many of us are not familiar. Mr. Mitter concludes with a brilliant epilogue showing how those events have reverberated throughout modern China and China's relationship with the rest of the world. Mr. Mitter also shows how the scholarship about the war, whether Chinese or Western, has been shaped by ideological goals.

I was glad to see Mr. Mitter refer to Barbara Tuchman's, Stillwell and the American Experience in China. Mr. Mitter references her work numerous times and in the epilogue he shows what ideological tradition this book represented. I have never read this particular work of Ms. Tuchman, but I know that she is not generally highly respected by academic historians. I don't know why. I do know that as a young teenager, her A Distant Mirror made me a lifelong lover of history, and in particular a history that shows how people viewed the world and how those views evolved into our own.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. The book was on a new topic for me. The book was a narrative as opposed to a theoretical construct that tried to make facts fit into an abstract framework. The book seemed balanced in its viewpoint and the book took on established myths about the Nationalists, the Communists and World War II. I was a little surprised the book was not available on Kindle, given its recent authorship. Not sure what that was about. Anyway, I consider it a must read and intend to look into Mr. Mitter's other works.

[Rob Hocking · Rating 4 out of 5]

China's War with Japan: 1937-1945 the struggle for survival

Why read yet another book on China's war with Japan? What do I gain? Well, there are two things that are beginning to happen now as I read more and more books on this topic. Firstly, reading continuously on this topic prevents me from forgetting what I have learnt, and as each book focuses on different aspects of the war, gaps in my knowledge get filled with each new book. In particular, this book went into greater detail in three areas than previous books I have read on the topic:

1. This book had a greater focus on the rival puppet Chinese government set up in the portion of China under Japanese control during the war. Most of the other books simply mention that this rival government existed and that it was headed by Chiang Kai-shek's longtime rival in the Guomindang, Wang Jingwei, who is considered a traitor in China for his defection to Japan. This book goes into detail about why Wang made the decision to defect, how painful it was for him, and why he thought this move was the best option for his country.

2. It also went into greater detail on the devastating effect of Chiang Kai-shek's decision in 1938 to intentionally flood a portion of Northern China by breaking the dykes of the Yellow River. This was done in order to temporarily halt the southern advance of the Japanese, in order to buy time for the Nationalist government to evacuate its military headquarters from Wuhan to Chongqing. However, to prevent the Japanese from discovering the plan, Chiang Kai-shek couldn't warn any of the Chinese civilians living in the area and so the move also resulted in an estimated 500,000 civilian deaths, along with an estimated 5 million refugees. Chiang Kai-shek initially tried to blame the Japanese, saying that they had bombed the dykes - and the author points out that if this were true, it would make the bombing of the dykes Japan's greatest war crime, greater even than the rape of Nanjing. This is something that the other books I have read only mention in passing.

3. The author also goes into some detail about a famine in Henan province caused, among other things, by a tax on grain that the government implemented to feed its armies, which I was previously unaware of. The Henanese were so angry with the central government that they organized their own militias to attack government forces in the area, and even pointed out the positions of government troops to the Japanese invaders. One commander in the area admitted that he had lost more soldiers from attacks by the local population than he had lost in battle with the Japanese.

The second thing that is starting to happen now is I am beginning to develop a kind of meta-understanding of not just the war, but also the body of literature available on the war, how the books relate to one another, which ones are biased and why, and how our understanding of the war has evolved over time. In particular, this book talks about two books that were published immediately after the war - "Stillwell and the American Experience in China" and "Thunder out of China" - both of which were very anti-Chiang and which had a strong effect both on the Western perception of the war in the decades after they were published and also on American policy. The author of "Thunder Out of China" (Theodore White) happened to be stationed in Henan at the height of the famine, and as this famine was largely caused by government policies, he developed a strong hatred of Chiang Kai-shek. However, what he, as well as most Westerns at the time, failed to understand is the sheer desperation of Chiang Kai-shek's position. Chiang Kai-shek was repeatedly forced to choose the least bad option out of a very bad hand, and this, unfortunately, led to his vilification by Westerner's such as Theodore and Stillwell who failed to appreciate the big picture. This, in turn, contributed to the decision of America to abandon Chiang Kai-shek during the civil war with Mao, leaving him to die on Taiwan. After the Korean war America turned very anti-Mao, and as a result, the American government changed its mind and decided to help Chiang resist the communists after all. By this point, of course, the mainland had already been lost.

I was recently at a dinner party with an elderly couple who are amateur historians. The wife started talking about a book she had read on the corruption of Chiang Kai-shek's government during the war with Japan and its unwillingness to fight Japan. This led to an argument in which I defended Chiang Kai-shek. Later I asked her to tell me the name of the book - it was none other than "Thunder Out of China", the very book this book singles out for its bias. I have now purchased "Thunder Out of China", and for the sake of due diligence, I will read it. However, the very first page already makes me doubt the objectivity of the author. He says something like "General Stillwell, the greatest American general..." (I don't have it in front of me at the moment). Generally speaking, if you want to make a point, you should "show, not tell" - i.e. present the evidence to your reader so that they can draw their own conclusions, rather than telling them at the outset what they should believe.

One thing I really liked about this book is that it combined academic rigour with good storytelling. Some books written by academics - for example, "The Tragedy of Liberation" which focuses on the reign of terror implemented by Mao in the first ten years of communist rule, are very difficult to read because the authors don't know how to write for a non-academic audience. The author of this book, Rana Mitter, is a professor at Oxford and he appears to have the rare knack for communicating academic ideas in a way that is engaging and accessible to ordinary people. One of the things I really like was his section on "Suggested Further Reading", in which he goes over the body of literature already written on the subject and its pros and cons.

Overall, my favourite book on China's war with Japan is still "The Generalissimo", which I read earlier this year, because it tells the story in the context of events taking place before and after. In the former category, it describes in detail Chiang Kai-shek's rise to power, how he unified the country in the years leading up to the war with Japan, and his desperate attempts to delay fighting Japan until he had had time to wipe out the communist and also moderinize his army (attempts which failed, due his being kidnapped by one of his Generals who was upset that Chinese were fighting Chinese rather than united against Japan). In the latter category, it describes the civil war with Mao after the end of the war (explaining, in particular, how the war with Japan weakened Chiang while strengthing Mao, making the latter's victory possible), and also Chiang's 25 years of rule on Taiwan after losing the civil war. However, "The Generalissimo" is also a much longer book - when I reviewed it, I commented that I believed I could use the book if necessary to beat a mugger to death. This book, on the other hand, I think as a weapon would at best be adequate for squishing spiders. Therefore, for people seeking to gain an understanding of the Sino-Japanese war without reading such a massive book, this is a good choice.

[Michael Thimsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have a tendency in today's culture to reflexively label some societies and/or countries as dangerous or even evil without understanding anything about their history and culture. History provides context.
It seems like our relationship with China is a modern example of this and while I do feel that the tougher stance we are taking is warranted, I felt a need to take a dive into Chinese history to discover their motivations.
I chose Forgotten Ally by Rana Mitter because World War II was such a pivot point for how the world would transform in the ensuing decades.
In reading I found that not only did China suffer desperate losses (up to 15 million dead) but they also fought alone for the first years of the war while dealing with an internal civil war that would roil for over a decade until 1949. I tried to imagine what Lincoln would have done if during the Civil War, the French or British decided to seize upon our weakness and invade somewhere along the Eastern seaboard. That is a frightening thought exercise.
Throw in a famine, massive flooding due to a self caused environmental disaster when the Nationalists opened the dykes on the Yellow River (this act alone led to over 800,00 deaths), and brutal war crimes committed by the Japanese army, and you have the recipe for a society that will be traumatized for decades and will want stability in the future, and possibly, vengeance.
On our side, we did finally enter the war after Pearl Harbor but our leader in the Chinese theater, General Stilwell constantly tangled with Chiang Kai-shek over strategy and even the motivations of Chiang. Did he fully want to fight the Japanese or was he distracted by Mao and the CCP? Even the Doolittle raid where the free Chinese graciously allowed our pilots to land after their daring raid on Tokyo triggered a vicious response from the Japanese army where an additional quarter of million died.
It's not hard to see how these events fueled China's embrace of the CCP and Mao. It absolutely clarifies the decades long conflict over China and provides some explanatory contours in regards to our historical and current relationship with China.
I recommend this book to those that are curious about a side of World War II that is seemingly forgotten and for those who want to deepen their understanding of Sino-US relations.