Second Sino-Japaese War: Chinese Resistance Movements

Chinese guerrillas
Figure 1.-- This press photograph shows a Chinese guerrilla soldier by his hut near a rural village. We think he is a Nationalist guerrilla, but are not sure. The press caption read, "Guerilla bands menance the Japanese in all occupied China. They live in rude covers of straw and bamboo. In the night they emerge to swoop on the Japanese garrisons, plunder convoy supplies and harass communicatioins. Here a guerrilla on his camp. indiscernable to the eyes of the Japanese airmen." The photigrph was dated January 23, 1939. This may be when it appeared in an American newspaper, not when it was taken. China is, however, a large country and it could hve been tken in the south.

The Imperial Japanse Army (IJA) launched the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937). The first year of the war was conventional combat. The Kuomingtng (KMT) Nationalist Army surprised the Japanese with their comnbat capability. There was bitter fighting, especilly for Shanghai. The Chinese did not have the industrial capacity of the Japanese. After the first year of the War, the best Chinese divisions had been chewed up and much of their heavy equipment as Nationalist armies retreated inrto the interior. The Nationalist strategy shifted from fighting conventional battles with the Japanese to avoiding pitched battles, substituting space for time. The Chinese seeing that they could not defeat the Japanese sought to drag out the war for as long as possible, conducting low level operations so as not to exhausrt their resources. The idea was to exhaust Japanese resources and make the Japanese war effort as costly as possible all the while building up Chinese military capacity in the interior. American general Joseph Stilwell who served in China diring the inter-War era, including stints as a military attache before America entered the war described the Chinese strategy as 'winning by outlasting', an accurate description an actually the only option available to the Chinese. The Nationalist Army was not totally reactive. They developed the concept of 'magnetic warfare'. The idea was draw advancing Japanese forces forward to positions where they were exposed to ambush, flanking attacks, and encirclements. One example of this tactic was the successful defense of Changsha which resulted in substantial Japanese casualties (1939 and 1941). The Japanese as the war progressed did, hoever, advance from theirr northern area of contriol both south and west and occupied increasingly large areas of China, including large areas of productive agricultural lands. While this denied more and more agricultural lands to the Nationalists, it also meant taking areas that were too large to control as long as the Nationalists had an army in the field that the IJA had to confront with most of its force. Local Chinese resistance forces organised separately by both the communists and KMT behind Japanese lines. And these resistance groups becne a major part of the Chinese war effort. These two resistance forces made it difficult for the IJA to fully control conquered areas, especially at night and beyond the urban centers adminidtered by the Japanese. This made it difficult for the IJA to effectively exploit conquered areas. Japanese troops would occassionally sweep through rural areas to take as much food as could be fojnd from the villagers. Having to contend with the guerillas also raised the cost of the War. The IJA not only had to have aarge firce to engage the convebtional Nationalist Army, but had to support substantial grisons throughout the huge area of China that they conquered. The guerillas carried out attacks both on the Japanese and on Chinese cooperating with the Japanese. The resistance effort frustrated the IJA. They had suppresed resistance operations in Manchuria and expected to do the same in thecrest of China. Th difference was that unlike Manchuria, the Nationalist Army fought and only aart of the UJA force could be used in occupation pasification operations. The IJA response was the "Three Alls Policy" (kill all, loot all, burn all) (三光政策). This meant terrible Japanese war crimes. Japan had suceeded in occupying much of north and coastal China and was moving into central China (by 1941). But KMT Givrnment and Army had sucessfully retired into the western interior. The Communists retained control of their Shaanxi base area. The Japanese to conduct major operations in the interior required major logistical support which would prove costly and the costs associated with what they called the China Incident had already cost far more than what they anticipated and after 4 years of fighting showed no sign of reaching a conclusion. But the situation ws even worse thn suggested by maps showing areas captured. The IJA was making no progress in consolidating their control over the conquered area. The Japanese firmly controlled the cities and more or less the connecting rail lines ('points and lines'). They were unable to exert administrative control of the huge expanse of rural China. Here Chinese guerillas (both Nationalist and Communist) operatd freely. The ability of the Dolittle flyers to reach safey show how little control the Japanese had on the countryside even in coastal areas. Incrediblly the Japanese militarist, frustrated with their inabiliy to defeat the Nationalists, decided that they would could win the war by attacking the United states as part of an effort to seize the Southern Resource Zone. They had gone to war with China to seize resources, but now they decided they neded the SRZ resources to complete the conqust of China. Much more was going on in the Chinese countryside besides resisting the Japanese. A second war underway between the Nationalists and Communists who were often more cyive aginst each other than against the Japanese. The KMT complsined bitterly that the Communist were attacking their forces rather thn the Japanese. Communist propaganda often betated the Nationalists for ineffectual resistance to the Japanese. In actualality, except for a few well-publicized actions, the bulk of the fighting was conducted ny the Nationlist army.







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Created: 1:54 AM 12/30/2014
Last updated: 1:55 AM 12/30/2014