The War of Resistance 1937-1945
• Themes: War as Destruction, War as
Development, War and Revolution
• Japan’s Advance: From informal empire to
War of Invasion
• Three China’s: Nationalist-held “free China”,
Communist rural base areas, Japanese
Occupied China
Japanese Imperialism in China
• Japan as latecomers to the imperial power
club
• 1895-1945: Build an empire that includes
Taiwan, Korea, much of North and coastal
China, Southeast Asia
• The Manchurian Incident: September 18, 1931
• Establish puppet nation of Manchukuo in
Northeast China
The War of Resistance 1937-1945
• Marco Polo Bridge (芦沟桥) Incident: July 7,
1937. Leads to the start of Japan’s invasion of
Eastern China
• The Battle for Shanghai: Chiang looses 60 of
his modernized army
• Nanjing (Nanking) Massacre/ “The Rape of
Nanjing”
• The “3 Alls” Campaign: Kill all, burn all, loot all
Nanjing Massacre
• Japanese military attacks Nanjing civilian
population for weeks in late 1937, early 1938
• 200-300,000 are killed, 20,000 raped
• One of the worst war crimes of the 20th
century