The Second Sino-Japanese War occurred between Japan and China, as a result of the imperialist posture of the Japanese. This conflict began in 1937, after a disagreement between the Japanese and Chinese stationed in Beijing, and ended up merging with the events of World War II. During this war, there were about 20 million deaths .
Background
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a consequence of Japan's imperialist policy towards China throughout the 19th century. Extreme nationalism and imperialist ambitions took place in Japan since the Meiji Restoration and its process of economic and educational restructuring of the country. The emergence of Japanese imperialism made the country mobilize to obtain territories and participate in some conflicts.
First, with victory in the First Sino-Japanese War , which took place between 1894-1895, Japan gained control over the Korean Peninsula. Shortly thereafter, the country became involved in a conflict against Russia for control of Manchuria between 1904 and 1905, known as the Russian-Japanese War . The victories in these two wars generated a climate of euphoria and encouraged the defenders of imperialism in Japan.
As the 20th century passed, the Japanese government assumed an increasingly militaristic and bellicose posture, which made its relations with countries such as the United States and China considerably worsened. As a result, clashes between Japanese and Chinese began unofficially in 1931.
In September 1931, Japan forged a Chinese attack against a Japanese railroad installed in Manchuria and used it as a pretext to invade and militarily annex that territory to Japan. This event became known as the Mukden Incident and caused a puppet state, allied with Japanese interests, to be installed under the name of State of Manchukuo .
From this, a series of small fighting took place between the two countries, however, the Second Sino-Japanese War only officially started from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident , when a disagreement between Japanese and Chinese troops motivated an attack by the Japanese, in July 1937.
Events of the War
The tension between Japan and China in the 1930s led the Chinese to organize themselves to resist the Japanese, should the conflict actually occur. The two great internal forces existing in China were the Kuomintang , known as nationalists and led by Chiang Kai-shek , and the communists , who were led by Mao Zedong . These two forces were adversaries and also fought each other during the war.
The armies of the Kuomintang had the help of a German general hired to organize military preparation. This general had been instructed to prepare for a long and exhausting war, as the lack of preparation and quality equipment made a direct and rapid confrontation with Japan impossible. The communists, on the other hand, received orders from Stalin to ally themselves with the Nationalists against the Japanese (an order that Mao did not like).
As the war began, Japanese power became evident with the conquest of Beijing, three days after the declaration of war. A great resistance of the Nationalists was then organized in Shanghai. As a result, it took the Japanese about three months to conquer this city, at a cost of 40,000 Japanese and 187,000 Chinese dead|1| .
The difficulties imposed by the Chinese in Shanghai angered the Japanese army, which tried to exact revenge during the Battle of Nanking. The nationalist armies could not protect this city, which was quickly conquered by the Japanese. In this action, thousands of Chinese soldiers, taken prisoner during this battle, were executed.
In addition, Chinese civilians were targets of mass attacks and executions. This episode of the war became known as the Rape of Nanking , because, among the violent actions against civilians in that city, approximately 20,000 women were repeatedly raped by soldiers of the Japanese army. The attacks on the population of Nanking resulted in the death of 200,000 people|2| .
The brutality of the Japanese army was a hallmark of this conflict, and throughout the Asian war scene, such violence was committed by its soldiers. Regarding the cruelty of the Japanese army, Anthony Beevor comments:
The basic training [of the Japanese soldier] was destined to destroy his individuality. To toughen and provoke them, recruits were constantly insulted and beaten by NCOs and sergeants, in what might be termed the side-effect of oppression theory, to vent their anger on the soldiers and civilians of the defeated enemy. Everyone had also been indoctrinated from elementary school to believe that the Chinese were completely inferior to the “divine race” of the Japanese and were “below the swine”|3| .
Another demonstration of the institutionalized violence of the Japanese army came from Unit 731 . Supposedly created to maintain control over the quality of water used by the Japanese army in China, this unit secretly carried out macabre scientific studies on humans and promoted (or attempted) the development of chemical and biological weapons.
This department, led by bacteriologist Dr. Shiro Ishii , carried out, for example, vivisection (study by dissection or other such operation in people or live animals) of human beings and promoted resistance tests using people as guinea pigs. In addition, diseases such as typhus have spread in certain parts of China. In all, it is estimated that more than three thousand people were victims of Unit 731.
From the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, in 1941, the Chinese began to count on great support from the United States (this support already existed in 1940, but intensified after this episode). As the conflict in Asia and the Pacific progressed, the Japanese were slowly being defeated.
Japanese defeat was sealed in August 1945, when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. With the atomic attacks, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally to the Allies (China was part of the Allies), and with that, the conflict with the Chinese also came to an end.
Many of the Japanese accused of having committed and/or authorized war crimes and crimes against humanity were later tried in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East . For two and a half years, this court tried and convicted (or acquitted) people accused of having committed crimes during the war.
|1| BEEVOR, Anthony. The Second World War. Rio de Janeiro:Record, 2015, p. 76.
|2| Ditto, p. 76.
|3| Ditto, p. 77.
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