The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949

by S.C.M. Paine

The Wars for Asia, 1911 1949 shows that the Western treatment of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War as separate events misrepresents their overlapping connections and causes. The long Chinese Civil War precipitated a long regional war between China and Japan that went global in 1941 when the Chinese found themselves fighting a civil war within a regional war within an overarching global war. The global war that consumed Western attentions resulted from Japan's peripheral strategy to cut foreign aid to China by attacking Pearl Harbor and Western interests throughout the Pacific on December 7 8, 1941. S. C. M. Paine emphasizes the fears and ambitions of Japan, China, and Russia, and the pivotal decisions that set them on a collision course in the 1920s and 1930s. The resulting wars the Chinese Civil War (1911 1949), the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931 1945), and World War II (1939 1945) together yielded a viscerally anti-Japanese and unified Communist China, the still-angry rising power of the early twenty-first century. While these events are history in the West, they live on in Japan and especially China."

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

504 pages, Paperback

First published August 20, 2012

About the author

Sarah Crosby Mallory Paine is an American historian who was the William S. Sims Professor of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College from 2014 to 2025.

Reviews

[Chin Joo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is remarkable for a few reasons. First of all not only are English books on this part of World War 2 relatively scarce, the author has a proposition: the war fought in China actually had a significant impact on the Second World War and can only be properly understood by examining the intricate relationships between a civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, a regional war that includes Japan (and more inconspicuously Russia), and the Global War, also known as World War 2. This is an interesting proposition, but to convince the reader through her narrative is an ambitious task, and I shall share my take on it later.

The second reason why this book is amazing is the author knows Chinese and Japanese and was therefore able to make references to many original documents. But beyond knowing the language, Prof Paine was able to show a more intimate knowledge of the Chinese and how they look at things. Finally, the scholarship is quite impeccable, one can tell not just from the amount of literature consulted (the references of which occupied a third of the book) but also from how she critique the literature in the first chapter of the book, and adding more throughout the book as the need arises.

In terms of her style and prose, the author is engaging and captivating. Some may feel that she has given too much details but these are necessary to flesh out her narrative to support her proposition. She was occasionally capable of humor (see pages 164 and 186). But most important of all she was able to portray the tragedy of the whole war vividly not by describing the sufferings of the soldiers and civilians on all sides, but the ironies of the outcomes of the war. She did this on three occasions (in ascending order of impact on me):

- When she hinted that Chiang Kai-Shek might be right in the early stages of the regional war about fact that the bigger threat to him was the Communists and not the Japanese whom he thought would eventually leave.
- When she recapitulated the reasons for Japan to embark on this misadventure (which could have been hugely successful) and how Japan eventually ended up (pg 219).
-When she alluded to how Japan might have been right about the menace of the Russia and the spread of its ideology given how the West spent the next 45 years trying to contain it (see pg 284 for example).

Lastly, Prof Paine was rather accurate in her assessment of how the Nationalists were looked at from the eyes of many Chinese, in my view. Whether our opinions of the Nationalists were informed, they surely lost the PR war to the Communists.

As for the supporting materials provided, I particularly like the Chronology section included in the book which listed out the sequence of events clearly. As for the maps, as I am not one with high expectations, I find those included sufficient for my needs.

If I have any disagreements with the author, it is in regard to how she explained the rapid capitulation of the Nationalists after losing in Manchuria. While her use of the Chinese' idea of viewing time as a series of 'cycles' rather than in a linear fashion is novel, I feel it is a little simplistic. It is true that Chinese believe that dynasties (and even right down to individuals) expires at some point and another dynasty would take over, starting the cycle again, this does not always make people jump off the 'sinking ship' and change sides. And comparing how the Nationalists defected to how the the Germans "fought grimly back to Berlin" may not be appropriate because I think the Germans' determination may have something to do with the fact that they view their fight back to Berlin as defending their homeland against another country (in this case Russia). The Chinese were engaged in a civil war, changing sides does not mean selling out their country. That may make it easier to change sides, and may not necessarily be due to their belief that the Nationalists' 气数已尽 (my words, meaning 'time is up'). To know what it is for the individual soldiers caught in that civil war, one can refer to 大江大海：一九四九.

Finally, how do I feel about Prof Paine's effort to support her proposition? We should remember that this is no mean feat, for if one does too good a job at isolating the three layers of war (civil, regional, and global) for clarity, they start to look like unrelated events and the proposition is not supported. On the other hand, if one tries to mix the three layers too intimately, a reader would find it hard to untangle the layers and may accuse the author of doing a sloppy job. Finding the right balance is critical and yet terribly hard. In this, I would say that Prof Paine has been very successful in helping me to see the interplay of these three layers, thereby educating me that at every step between 1911 and 1949, the decisions made by all the parties involved in the war in one way or another are affected by their views of the world, their assumptions about their adversaries and allies, and the tactical moves and miscalculations made by their enemies, some of whom can be their own party members.

In the Conclusion chapter, the author tried to demonstrate the confluence of events that led to an outcome, whereby the absence of any one of more may conceivably change the results significantly. This thought-provoking section leads the reader to many 'what-if' questions and I shall close with one of my own. What if the earliest events in this book were to occur a few years later, right when the Cold War was getting hot? Would Japan's occupation's of Manchuria not be warmly welcomed by the West as a contribution towards checking the spread of Communism in Asia? Then what?

This is not just a book to be read, but to be owned. Just Chapter 7 alone would have made it worth the while.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

No history book has ever opened my eyes so completely to the importance of context. The Wars for Asia 1911-1949 works on the unfortunately very true premise that for most modern day Western observers WWII was all about the Allies vs the Germans and Japanese. China comes into it only as one more measure of how "wrong" the Japanese were, in this case to invade and terrorize that country.

However, Prof. Paine sets this picture straight by showing how what happened in WWII was only a small slice of what had been happening both in China, and between China and Japan, since many years before. In other words, she sets the years 1939 to 1945 within the context of what happened in China and Japan between 1911 and 1949—revealing a complex and nuanced situation fed by factors that include very legitimate and understandable claims and desires on the part of both the Chinese and the Japanese.

The most striking example of how ill-informed most Westerners are regarding the context of the Pacific War and the Japanese strategy that drove it, is Pearl Harbor, which, Paine explains, was just one point of conflict of many in a campaign that was focused not at all on beating America, but on expanding Japanese influence into southern Asia. It was simply Japan's bad luck that the Pearl Harbor arm of this overall otherwhere-focused campaign unexpectedly (for the Japanese) incurred such fatal consequences.

The Wars for Asia 1911-1949 strikes me as the lightly edited distillation of a series of lectures rather than a pure publishing project. For example, it repeats a lot of information, lecture-style, which may be off-putting in a conventional textbook, but, for someone like me whose lifestyle involves considerable gaps between putting a book down and picking it up again, this was actually very helpful. The chatty, lecture-hall tone also made it accessible and easy to read.

Paine also paints a very human picture of the Pacific War in the frequent cameos of the actors. This biographical bent gives the narrative an added sheen of human interest.

As a bold work of reordering the average Western reader's skewed and patchy grasp of Pacific War and World War Two history, this book is a solid contribution that should become something of a historiographical classic.

[Rosa Angelone · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this more stars I would.

From the intense operatic (but pragmatic) opening sentences setting the tone of the book to the fantastic way it was organized everything about this book is top notch. 

The Wars in Asia is a book where most of the people lose everything over and over again. People are scrambling to make decisions without enough information, letting personal squabbles blind them to danger, projecting their own feelings onto others and expecting them to act as they would. 

It so focused WWII for me that everything I read about it from now on has a new center of gravity. I was aware of the wars in China of course. I've read books on Sitwell and Marshall in China, Russians in Harbin, Japanese in Nanjing and how Americans were obsessed with "how we lost China '' after the war. This book feels like finding a giant jigsaw piece that I was missing. I am not finished with the puzzle but now I least can see the picture and where I need to look for pieces. 

It is organized so well. The first three chapters focus on Russia, Japan and China. Then  you get three chapters on the regional , Global and Civil Wars.....by connecting everything it is so much easier to see why leaders made decisions that in a vacuum make zero sense. They still might be bad choices but at least you can follow the path that led them there. 

I always felt the voice of the author but not in an overwhelming way. More of like a guide talking to you as you try to take in the massive forces unfolding before  you. I am looking forward to reading other people about the same events.Not because I doubt the author but because now I have something to measure others against. 

If you are at all interested in WWII or China today please read this book

[Matthew Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book I’ve read on Chinese history

[Barry Sierer · Rating 4 out of 5]

SCM Paine takes a series of pivotal wars (including the pacific side of WW II) and them blends into a more coherent interconnected history of conflicts (often fought simultaneously) that are centered around the struggle for China between Nationalists, Communists, Russians, Japanese, and Western nations.

Approaching these wars through a Sino-centric perspective is an apt choice and Paine provides a lot of eye opening facts and quotes that American centric historians have clearly missed. One example of this is the focus on Japanese brutality alone in the Pacific Theatre. While this is clearly a major factor, Paine points out that the greatest atrocity ever committed in China was by Nationalist forces, which blew up a series of river dikes in central China to keep Japanese forces from taking a major city. The total number of people who died as a result of this operation exceeded the total number of Chinese civilians killed by the Japanese in the entire war.

The work is not without its flaws. The book could have done with a little more political context regarding these wars. Paine does provide context for these decisions but it comes across in a spotty and inconsistent manner. Still, the book is well worth it.

[Chris O'Dea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book slaps. Paine provides in-depth analysis of the strategic, operational and economic aspects of the Wars for Asia through the lens of the Chinese, Russian, Japanese and USA. It is refreshing to read a history of this series of conflicts through a non-Euro/USA centric view. In what was an incredibly complicated series of events, Paine breaks these down into a civil war nested in a regional war nested in a global war quite neatly.

A feature that I thought was a great addition was when Paine dedicated the last section of the book to tying up the stories of the main players (politicians & generals etc). She explains what they did after the wars, when they died and how they died, which provides insight into how these main players decisions impacted their lives after the wars. This contrasts to other histories I've read where the story ends in the final year of the event. A vast majority of the references and notes are from Chinese, Japanese and Russian sources which adds a degree of authenticity and allows for a more balanced view of the conflicts. I'd recommend reading it with a map handy if you are unfamiliar with the region (the book does provide some maps though). Essential reading for people trying to understand why the world is the way it is today.

[Felix Brn]

Chiang Kai-shek's position least enviable in modern history?

He even accurately assessed the communist threat but to no avail.

[Edgar Raines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant book provides a totally new perspective on East Asia during the first half of the twentieth century. Like a Russian matryoshka doll, three wars were nested, one inside the other. The first, the one of primary importance, was the Chinese Civil War which lasted from 1911 to 1949. The second, sparked by the threat the Chinese Civil War posed to the Japanese position in Manchuria, was the Second Sino-Japanese War which lasted from 1931 until 1945 and included various Chinese collaborators on the side of the Japanese. (Paine is much less judgmental than Chinese historians as to the motives of these individuals and sketches out the political alternatives as they saw them with some sensitivity.) The third is World War II. The United States was primarily concerned with the third and when Japan surrendered quickly scaled down its presence in the region. Japan thought with good reason that she was winning the 2d Sino-Japanese War through the end of World War II. Contrary to popular myth, the Nationalists put up most of the resistance to the Japanese. It was the Communists who succeeded in husbanding their strength for the final showdown with the Nationalists. Mao Tse-tung brilliantly manipulated western observers, most notably Edgar Snow, to believe just the opposite. The Marshall mission alienated the Chinese Communists by providing materiel support to the Nationalists but probably saved the Communists from defeat, thereby alienating the Nationalists, by insisting on a cease fire at a time when the Communists were in extreme disarray. However, Chiang Kai-shek, not the United States, as Paine makes clear in her detailed exposition of events, lost the Chinese Civil War. The Nationalists won the propaganda war in the United States, however, contributing mightily to the rise of McCarthyism there. In the short term, Stalin among all the out-side leaders pursued the most successful foreign policy, which was to keep China divided and weak. Not until the mid-1950s, after his death, did the Chinese Communist leadership divine what his policy had truly been. The Sino-Soviet split dates from this moment.

The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949

[Connor O'Brien]

So good. Somehow made three interlocking conflicts over 40 years make sense in <300 pages.

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paine is an extremely intelligent historian and her writing is non-nonsense and to the point.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to learn from this book about China , Japan and Russia it is mouth watering for geopoltic, politic enthusiasts.

Basically China at the begining of 20 century overthrew its emperor (1911) and splintered into warlord factions. Chiang Kai Shek reunified China by 1927 under the Nationalist Party Known as Kuomitang.

Now the most important thing is that China found itself in the next 3 decades in 3 wars, each on top of each other like a Matrioska doll.

First there was the civil war between the Nationalist and the Communists (Mao) starting in the 20s and ending in 1949.

Then in 1931 when Japan invades Manchuria we have the regional war between different chinesse factions and the Japanesse

Then in 1941 with Pearl Harbour we have the World War when US steps in.

These 3 wars for the most part have been going concurrently each one impacting the other.

So we have a Japan which invades north east China. We have Nationalists trying until 1937 to appease Japan until while they focus on destroying the communits, we then also have Russia (Stalin) , which knows Hitler will come after him some time in the future , and does not want a two front war with both Germany and Japan. He wants Japan neutral , he wants China weak splintered and ideally fighting within or against Japan.

Chiang Kai Sek leader of the Nationalists up until 1937 almost destroys the communists and forces them to run to the north west (The Long March hailed as a miracle is nothing but a disaster where communsits lost 97% of their forces , from 200k to 7k people).

We have China communist today because the bloody japanesse could not stop at Manchuria, they just wanted more and more of China and started going southward.
They weaken the only faction capable of destroying the communists.


The inevitable happens and The Nationalists have to start fighting Japan. Both will get weaker and weaker from 1937-1945 while communists profit, start gaining foothold after foothold and eventually by the end of WW2, when the civil war resumes in earnest, they are ready to take down the Kuomitang.

Losing the war Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuomitang flee to Taiwan and apply all the reforms they wanted to do in China if they would have wom the war....and now we see the result.

Mao did the opposite thing in China, first did the reforms , distributed land to peasants so he could buy their loyalty and enlist them in his armies...then once the war was over, he turned the very army on the peasants, so that in the end the land went in whole to the state.

Russia plays all sides with great skill maneuveing Chinese to fight Japan then to fight each other while stealing everything from Manchuria and sending it to Russia. This somehow is not talked about in China.

We also get to understand the bad politics done by US in China

The last and most improtant thing to note is that while we all know that US won the war in Pacfici, after reading this book you realise, the pacific theater was just a small fraction of the war fought between China and Japan.

Japan had been keeping between 1931-1945 at least 40% of its forces some 3-4 million men and always fighting some faction or another.
The war was not won at the periphery bt US and UK but by continental powers , by brutal large scale ground wars, Russians vs Germans in Europe and Japan vs China in Asia. US and UK helped the continental powers and suffocated them little by little (their logistics , trade ) but the brunt of the war was not dome by them.


Brilliant book ! Best history book in a great while !
37% of the book is the content while the rest is the biography and foot notes.

Well researched great book ! This book made me really interested into China !

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT history book, one of the better ones I've read. So much context around asian geopolitics

[Karsten Buesser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, I learned a lot about WW2 and the connected wars in China.

[Cain Lenape · Rating 5 out of 5]

Histories that can synthesize multiple neighboring regions whose narratives gnash so starkly against each other are rare and to be cherished. Paine has done an invaluable service in not only telling a detailed, dispassionate account of the fall of the constitutional order in Japan, of the years of Chiang Kai-Shek's rule in China, of the development of Manchurian industry, but of weaving together all of these distinct pieces in a single cohesive whole. Her work is indispensable for anyone who wants to quickly familiarize themselves with the contours of this period, with the chapter on the Soviet Union being perhaps the weakest part by comparison in an otherwise excellent text.

[John Allard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is not only an incredible introduction to the foundations of modern Chinese history but it’s also a great introduction to the trademark philosophy of and strategic lens through which the brilliant Sally Paine sees the world.

On Chinese history — I can say with reasonable confidence that most Americans know as much about Chinese history as I do, which is to say, basically nothing. How can one hope to understand the current geopolitical climate without understanding China, and how can one hope to even begin to understand modern China without understanding modern Chinese history?

Thankfully, this book lays a foundation upon which one can begin to understand modern Chinese history. Paine covers a period starting back in 1911 with the fall of the Qing dynasty. She then covers the Chinese Civil War, the Sino-Japanese War, and the global WWII in some depth for about 3/4ths of the book before wrapping up by documenting the end of the Chinese Civil War with the CCP pushing the KMT off of mainland China and to the island of Taiwan. This effectively covers the transition from old, Dynastic China through to the foundations of the modern party-controlled communist state. This provides enough context to begin understanding some basic but significant aspects of 20th century history and modern Geopolitics (Chinese hatred of Japan, China/Taiwan relations, US-China relations, Russian-Chinese relations, etc), and provides some obvious jumping off places to continue ones education on Chinese history.

What makes this book brilliant is Paine’s ability to contextualize and provide narrative and interlocking perspectives on the bewilderingly complex events of this 38 year period. The period is framed as 3 nested conflicts with fracturing and reconstituting alliances between participants with drastically different goals and levels of commitment: the Chinese Civil War happening within the region Sino-Japanese War happening within the global WWII. The author examines the strategies and desires of a multitude of parties; the Nationalists, the CCP, Japan, Russia, United States, Britain, various Chinese warlords, and how these parties shift between various degrees of alignment and misalignment over the course of the conflict. Sally debuts most of her trademark frameworks for understanding conflict: limited vs unlimited objectives, proximate vs underlying causes, grand strategy vs military strategy vs operations vs tactics, national power, etc, and so reading this book is a great introduction to how she views the world. There are too many examples to name, but one that stood out was breaking down the perplexing behavior of Japan in China as a misalignment between strategic, operational, and tactical objectives of Japan. The Japanese military in China acted almost independently of the Japanese government, and they focused on tactical and operational objectives like expanding territory and defeating Chinese armies. Operationally, the Japanese were fantastic, but this stretched them across a territory they could not hold, caused massive economic backlash against Japan by both China and the US, and weakened the primary adversaries of the Chinese Communists who were the major strategic adversaries of Japan. There are similar examples for Russia, the US, the KMT, etc.

This was a very engaging read and actually quite simple as far as history books go. The author avoids introducing too many single-use names, and those who she does introduce tend to have enough time spent on them for it to warrant you learning who they are. There’s enough narrative woven throughout the facts to keep one following along, and Sally’s ability to seamlessly switch between the 1000-foot strategic view down to the very concrete ground-level view of the incredible tragedies covered keeps one engaged.

Highly recommended

[Daniel Rothwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really 300 pages long as the notes, bibliography and index take up half of the book. A very cool fact for some other sorts to enjoy.

The entire project of the book is explicitly to dispel US/Western-centric misunderstandings of the period. The essential thesis is that the three key conflicts discussed in the book are layered around each other: the Chinese Civil War sits within the regional conflict of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which sits within the global conflict of World War Two. This comes out nicely within the later chapters of the book, but the fact of the initial chapters darting around with regards to time (Chapter 2: Japan 1931-36; Chapter 3: China 1926-36; Chapter 4: Russia 1917-36) makes for an awfully confusing first half of the book in regards to 'key events', and somewhat to the 'narratives' which are the putty the book works with. I'm not sure if there's a better approach here or not. So, the focus is placed in understanding the motivations and play-by-play of the decision-makers of the three key countries, in order to then use the established motivations and developed psychologies in order to pull out the fun causative effects found between 1936 and 1949 (in those later chapters). Moral lessons abound for policy makers, or those who seek to understand them, in that foreign policy decisions need to be made with recognition of how they affect foreign polities! Japan obviously failed at this as we all know, Nationalist China is shown to have failed at this, and the United States AND Russia are shown to have failed at this to some extent in East Asia. Communist China comes out as top dog, as it failed the least at this. The other lesson is in understanding the psychological profile of foreign civilisations when making those foreign policy decisions. The US places an oil embargo on Japan in 1941, and the Japanese military interpret this as a 18 month timer to secure more oil (i.e. invade the East Indies), instead of a deterrant to further warmongering. Japan makes constant errors in focussing exclusively on operational strategy, rather than grand strategy, and digs itself into a mire in China. Brutality and aggressiveness do not lead to a capitulation by 'China' on very favourable terms to Japan, but only prolong the conflict and its costs. Such explanations of events are the bread and butter of the book. This is a history of wars with very grand effects on east asian history.

Finally, I enjoyed greatly the epilogue of the cast of characters in the conclusion - the bulk of the named generals, admirals, statesmen, journalists... have their post-war fates detailed. It's a nice surprise in an otherwise unnecessary conclusion if you've read the book (read: read the conclusion and skip the book..?)

[Chase Metcalf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful exploration of the major conflicts that reshaped Asia, created conditions for World War II, and resulted in the communist victory in China in 1949. Expands a common western view of World War II by looking at this period of history through the nested nature of a civil, regional, and global war primarily involving the Chinese (Nationalists & Communists), Japan, Russia, and the United States. By looking at the calculations and decisions of each of these nations and their relationships throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s the reader gains a much better appreciation for the complexity of the period and the enduring impacts it has to this day. Highly recommend this book for anyone seeking to expand their understanding of World War II and the major players and events that shape Asia to this day.

A few interesting highlights:
- Deep sense of Chinese nation resulted from fifteen-year Second Sino-Japanese War superimposed over the long Chinese civil war
- Japan’s generals became intoxicated with operational success unsupported by strategic design and ultimately undermined Japan’s ability to achieve desired outcomes
- Social revolutions put political leaders and members of certain social groups on “death ground” creating conditions for bitter civil wars - this was clearly at work in China
- Had Japan not chosen a military strategy for addressing its problems in China then Chiang Kai-shek would have been a natural ally for Germany and Japan against Russia
- US policy makers failed to understand the unlimited nature of both the Nationalists and Communists aims preventing it from pursuing effective policy to address Chinese civil war even as China consumed bulk of Japanese resources in global war
- It took the combined efforts of China, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and Russia to defeat Japan. The US could not have won the war in the Pacific without China tying down one-third of Japanese forces
- China’s civil war was a multi-generational civil war within a protracted regional war with Japan and a multi-year global war involving all the great powers
- The global war, in combination with the regional war, altered the outcome of the civil war and decisively shaped what China became as they produced intense Chinese fears of internal chaos, deep suspicion of the US, smoldering anger against Russia, and a deep hatred of Japan

[Jeffrey Thurber · Rating 5 out of 5]

S.C.M. Paine's The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949 argues that a series of "nested wars" in the early 20th century, which are often treated as separate by Western historians, were in fact deeply interconnected. Her main themes include the interconnectedness of conflicts, the motivations of Japan, China, and Russia, the pivotal role of warfare in state-building, and the ultimate outcome of a unified Communist China.

Nested and interconnected conflicts:
Paine's main argument is that the Chinese Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and World War II in the Pacific were interconnected "nested" conflicts. The Chinese Civil War was suspended during the Second Sino-Japanese War before resuming. The regional war between Japan and China then expanded into a global conflict with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

The driving forces of Japan, China, and Russia:
The book examines the motivations of Japan, China, and Russia. It analyzes Japan's expansionism, China's internal struggles after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the fight for legitimacy, and Russia's strategic avoidance of a two-front war, its support for the Chinese Communists, and their eventual victory.

The role of warfare in modern Asia:
The Wars for Asia highlights warfare as a major catalyst for change in modern Asia. The conflicts had significant human costs, reshaped the region's political landscape, and contributed to state-building, leading to the rise of a unified Communist China.

The outcome: A unified, anti-Japanese China:
Paine argues that the conflicts resulted in a unified Communist China with strong anti-Japanese sentiments. Japan's defeat weakened the Nationalist government, allowing the Communists to gain power, which established the modern reality of an assertive China.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the Pacific War. Unlike many other history books, this one doesn't go through the motion of mentioning litanies of events, characters, massacres, and so on, but went into the nitty gritty of reasons behind the events. The crux of the book is that the Pacific War should be understood as Japan's secondary theatre in response to the stalemate in China. In order to stop western aid from reaching Chiang and to keep the flow of oil and resources, Japan decided to choose the 'Southern Advance' plan. There are plenty of what if scenarios and key decisions/considerations that are often missed by popular historians. Ever wonder why did Japan decide to attack Pearl Harbor instead of attacking Soviet Union? Turns out that they made a deal with the Soviet Union so that the Soviets stop aid to Chiang, and as a response, Japan will let the CCP survive in Yan'an. This is a great work that will open your eyes to many of the behind the scenes and the reasons behind why so and so did it.

S.C.M. Paine is a professor of grand strategy from the American Naval War College, she is an amazing scholar, she learned Japanese, Russian, Chinese just to be able to read primary sources. Her books have great clarity that make you see things in a new light.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paine agrues that the Western historical treatment of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War as separate events misrepresents their overlapping connections and causes. Rather these were concurrent and interlapping conflicts that shaped each other. The intwinned nature of the conflicts meant that policy decisions and military intervents frequently backfired and created the very circumstances the national and international actors were trying to prevent.

Why I started this book: Purchased it after I saw Paine's YouTube interviews.

Why I finished it: It's been a long time since I read history vs. listened to it, and I struggled with this format way more than I struggled with the book. I enjoy her history mantra and her ability to organize, categorize and explain the different levels of motivations from multinational actors. Her diagnosis that the Nationalist Chinese, the Japanese Army and the American advisors all suffered from the same flaw, that they believed that their actions and perceptions were the only ones that made sense and that history would bear them out with just a little more effort.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

In terms of scholarship and prose this is an excellent, much needed work that treats the Chinese Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and WW2 as all part of the same process amid the background of communism, fascism, and imperialism. However the structure of the book is so baffling and confusing that it forced me to give up. The chronology of the chapters goes like this:

1931-1936
1926-1936
1917-1936
1911-1930s
1936-1941
1941-1945
1945-1949

I tried changing the order of the chapters to read so that it played out chronologically, but even within these chapters they jump around dates, and rather than looking at the time periods in their own right they're basically treated as preludes to the Sino-Japanese War. This editing choice is completely incomprehensible to me. I'm not saying nonlinear history is impossible but a history book should probably not play out like Pulp Fiction.

I will probably revisit this book for reference, but if I want to read a chronological history of the Long Chinese Civil War I'll probably go with Edward L. Dreyer's 'China at War, 1901-1949' instead.

[Andrew Cai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I don’t love the writing style (more on that in a sec), I’m a big fan of the book’s analysis. Paine does an excellent job breaking the wars down and placing events in their relevant geopolitical context. She frames wars not as purely operational conflicts, but instead as means to strategic ends - and goes in-depth on why each relevant party often mistook strategic goals for operational goals. Her analysis makes me excited to learn more about the period!

The writing style is very distinctly Paine’s personal voice (as shown in her podcasts). This voice is distinctly American-biased, and she stiltedly inserts the emblematic American comedic disdain into her mostly-explicative prose. It’s also not copyedited well - there are numerous minor grammar mistakes and (this lowk pmo!) the horizontal direction of the text is ever-so-slightly unaligned with the book’s pages themselves. I’d imagine this book works a lot better in audiobook format.

[Baxter Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best history books to date on a critically under appreciated time in world history, if Americans know anything about this era they maybe know the pacific war, but few appreciate that WW2 in Asia was fought as a result of the regional war in China. This book not only gives a wonderfully detailed account of that war but also the events which directly preceded and proceeded it. The author also uses a surprisingly strong and easy to understand prose whilst also making great use of data and foreign sources to paint the history of this period.

[Brandon Leung · Rating 4 out of 5]

SCM Paine is a professor at a war college who was an excellent guest on the Dwarkesh podcast. As a third culture kid steeped in Canadian culture with Hong Kong-Chinese roots, my knowledge of Asia’s history is a deeply American-centric one, coloured by talks around the dinner table with westernized, yet still Chinese family. This was an excellent book that challenges a lot of my presuppositions around history and geopolitics. It also weaved a lot of statecraft, human system design, and economic threads together into a chronological retelling that consciously attempted to be impartial.

[Zach Mackin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only thing bad about this book, is it is so good it will be hard to find books that compare.

Sally Paine is brilliant. One way this shows is nearly every source throughout the book is written in Japanese, Chinese, or Russian. The book is so entertaining, despite being written for academics. And there is intermixed moments of beautiful prose/profound philosophical insights, that I don’t think one would expect in a book like this.

[Drake McCrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

About half page count is actually citations and maps so it is a much quicker read than it appears. Also the scope is primarily focused on 1935 to 45 so if you are looking for original or Chinese Civil War this book is not going to fill that role. However if you are looking for the explanation of Japan's decisions in China led to both countries roles in World War II then this book does nice job of answering that.

[Randy Mi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely well researched. Rarely are there English language books covering the Chinese Civil War at this granularity. The writing is dry yet humorous which complements the rapid pace telling of Paine's views on the strategic blunders and successes of the various primary characters. Well worth a read if you're interested in Chinese history.

[Luka · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is very innovative history. Paine looks at the Chinese Civil War, the regional second sink japanese war & the global world war 2 & how these wars impact each other. this is a book my research in history, and political development constantly draws me back to. big fan.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A knowledgeable analysis

This is an impressively detailed and knowledgeable analysis of the combination of China’s civil wars, combined with its war with Japan, on top of World War II. A wealth of information.

[Matthew Englett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested in the Chinese civil war and how Mao came to power so I bought this book. The author is extremely knowledgeable and articulate about the subject. I didn’t need the depth the book provided. If you’re interested in this subject, it may be best to buy a summary of this book.