History of Modern China
I will begin this history in the 1840's, with the
first so called Opium War. This war began when the Chinese did an
equivalent of the Boston Tea Party. Only in this case they confiscated,
and destroyed warehouses full of illegal British opium. Apparently the
British hadn't changed much since 1776, because they began fighting
shortly after the fact. The British won easily and forced the Chinese
to give them 5 ports of entry, and pay large sums for starting the war.
As a result the corrupt Manchu Dynasty began losing control. Then
in 1850 widespread rebellions broke out. It took the Manchu Dynasty 31
years to quell them, and they only succeeded because the British
intervened on their side. While the rebellion was still
going on the British began the II Opium War. It was begun because the
British wanted more trading rights, and war was the best way to get
them. Since it is always better to say 'the other guy started it' the
British claimed the Chinese instigated it all when some of their
officials boarded a gunboat and lowered the British flag, without a
shot being fired. Of course, the British won this war also, and this
time they forced the Chinese to,
open more ports of trade, give foreigners the right to travel in the
interior of China, and legalize opium. The British then aided the
crumbling Manchu Dynasty in putting down its many rebellions, because
they were considered more predictable trading partners than the
Revolutionaries. In other words the dynasty would not stop the opium
trade; a buisness that was killing thousands, and ruining the Chinese
economy.
There was peace for a time in mainland China, yet
during it all China was still trying to expand. It moved south and
conquered North Vietnam. The French, who already owned most of Malasya,
sent a small force to Hanoi and took it. They then signed a treaty with
the Vietnamese that gave them North Vietnam too. The Chinese, who had
nothing to do with the treaty, disregarded it and continued to attack.
One year later the French emerged victorious. This, along with the
annexation of Laos, gave the French what was to be called French
Indo-China.
Meanwhile in China the winds of change had begun to
pick up speed. A committee of wealthy and scholarly Chinese presented
the Manchu Dynasty with a reformed version of government. The Emperor
accepted it, and then decided he didn't like it after all. As a result
heads rolled and the members of the committee fled. One year later, in
1899, the Boxer Rebellion broke out and hundreds of foreigners were
killed. Britain, France, and this time America helped put down the
rebellion. And once again there were reprisals. First of all the 10
leaders were executed, and the Chinese were once again forced to pay
large sums of money to the countries involved. As a goodwill measure
the U.S. gave back their share of the money to help build a public
education system in China. The Emperor then decided that China
definitely needed reform and so he haphazardly instituted a
parliamentary form of government. This, however, ended in failure and
the only direct result was the beginning of warlords and their
provincial territories.
The Nationalist Government
( Koumintang )
Then in 1911, the Republican Revolution began, led
by an enterprising christian leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. His revolt was
founded on three principles; This revolt
succeeded and ended the Manchu dynasty. Once it was over another form
of democratic government was began but this one also ended in disaster.
First off, to prevent further internal strife Sun Yat-sen gave the
presidency to Yuan Shih-kai, the leader of the northern warlords.
During his rule Yuan Shih-kai never
really did anything to reform China. In fact, he tried to declare
himself the Emperor of a new Chinese Dynasty. Three provinces seceded
immediately, and he was forced to resign. His vice-president took over.
The new president united China again. However, as they were drawing up
the Constitution for their government the northern warlords declared
independance. A civil war began and Sun Yat-sen became the leader
of the southern Republic. Then one of Yat-sen's general's rebelled, and
captured the capital city, Canton. His rebellion was put down. Sun
Yat-sen then appointed Chiang Kia-shek, one of his more reliable
generals, to be his chief of staff. When Sun Yat-sen died, shortly
afterwards Chiang began where he left off.
Then trouble began to develop within his army. The
Communist faction began to undermine Chiang Kia-shek's support from
foreigners and the upper class. Chiang then organized a raid on the
Russian embassy, in the raid his men captured the plots of the Chinese
Communists and their Russian cohorts. Immediately he purged his party
of every last high level Communist. The Communists then fled and began
a guerrilla war against him. The Chief Warlord of Northern China
remained Chiang Kia-shek's only enemy. When the Northern Warlord was
assassinated his son became ruler and gave his provinces over to Chiang
Kia-shek, thus unifying China to some extent. The time between 1929 and
1930, was spent putting down rebellions and in fighting the Communists.
Meanwhile the Japanese had begun their conquest of the Far East, they
moved south from Northern Manchuria. In doing so they disassociated
themselves from the West, and violated the League of Nations' treaties.
However, Europe and America were still in the Depression and were in no
shape to confront Japan. In fact, the U.S. basically told the Japanese
that we would not and could not defend the Chinese. China itself was
not even resisting. The Japanese continued to take land peaceably, this
they did by continuously enlarging the 'demilitarized buffer zones'.
The only people protesting the Japanese invasion were the Communists.
The Communists had two reasons for doing this:
1. To gain popular support. Chiang Kia-shek
had banned anti-Japanese propaganda and broadcasts. Even so the people
hated the Japanese. So by catering to their cause the Communists not
only gained support, but also made Chiang look bad because he opposed
such sentiment.
2. The Communists were also doing it for the
Russians who were worried that the Japanese would attack them. So the
Soviets chose to make sure the Japanese had their hands full
with China.
Then Chiang Kia-shek was kidnapped by one of his own
army generals. The general tried to convince Chiang to stop his sixth
campaign against the Communists, and divert it to a fight with the
Japanese. Chiang wisely decided to do as he was told for the time
being. He accepted an offer from the Communists to join forces to fight
the Japanese. Once the Japanese caught word of the 'alliance' they
moved south and began to conquer by force. Within weeks they had
captured Peiping, (Peking) China's northern capital.
Around this time Hitler and Mussolini were slowly
conquering Europe, and Africa. ( However, Poland had not yet been
invaded, and WWII would not begin until 3 years later ) It is easy for
history to show Europe and Germany's conquests and allies. However, in
China, Europe's wars were never that clear. For instance, the Germans'
military experts trained Chiang Kia-shek's best units, even though he
was an open enemy of Japan, one of the so called Axis powers. Mussolini
also provided expert pilots to train the fledgling Chinese Air Force.
Despite Chinese resistance the Japanese continued to
move south and surrounded Shanghai. Chiang, however, did not make an
attempt to relieve the beleaguered city. He realized that the siege of
Shanghai was making news headlines all over the world, and that perhaps
if the siege continued foreign help would arrive. Chiang Kia-shek was a
man of priorities, he considered the Communists the biggest threat to a
free China. He did not want to fight the Japanese until
foreign aid arrived. And even after his kidnapping these were still his
priorities, so he always tried to gain world attention. After the
Japanese took Shanghai, he retreated west towards Chiang's nearby
capitol,
Nanking. Though not suited to defense, he ordered his troops to defend
the city, and prepare for a siege. Then he decided to withdraw to
Hankow. When the Japanese entered Nanking they raped and then killed
over 42,000 civilians. Chiang's army itself was attacked because he had
no rear guard. Without a line or
front of any kind, Chiang decided to 'revert' to the guerrilla tactics
that the Communists used. Winter was already coming on quickly, and
Chiang's army while still training, experienced a Valley Forge of
sorts. Then the army, at the advise of the German generals,
counterattacked, surrounding and killing 160,000 Japanese. Then Chiang
Kia-shek ordered the dykes that were behind enemy lines to be blown up.
The surge of water flooded three provinces of farmland, and made 2
million people homeless, for stupid acts like this Chiang was to be
hated after the war. Chiang then retreated yet again, this time to
Chungking. This was to be his war time capitol for 7 years.
World War II
About the
same time, Hitler took France, and America began preparing for the
impending WWII. Japan joined the Axis, and got the French to give
them French Indo-China. Next Japan requested that the British
give over their ports in China. And Britain not wanting to get involved
in another war without support asked if the Americans would support
them in a war against Japan. America, however, was in no shape for a
war, it had emptied its arms and ammunition reserves just in supplying
the British at Dunkirk. So Britain gave over its ports, China's last
link to the West. Angered and embittered by the lack of foreign support
the Chinese continued to fight. Then in the fall of 1940, Chiang
Kia-shek asked that 500 planes with American pilots be sent to help him
keep his supply routes open. The commander of this force would be an
American, Claire Chennault, Chiang's Air Marshal. America, however, did
not even have enough planes or pilots for its own defense, let alone
China's. However, Britain willingly gave its own supply of planes, from
America, to the Chinese in an effort to prevent the Japanese from
attacking Singapore. The planes and pilots finally arrived in November
of 1941, and Chennault began training. In March of that year the U.S.
Congress approved of the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed us to give arms
to any "allied" country. The war material that we sent to China just
piled up on the beaches. The few trucks the Chinese had, were forced to
travel hundreds of miles to deliver their cargo, and checkpoints held
them up even more. The U.S. finally took over the situation of supply.
It formed maintenence stops and removed checkpoints. When the
supply
finally got to Chiang, he just stockpiled it, for an 'emergency'. The
tanks and artillery rusted behind lines, because Chiang feared that if
he gave powerful weapons to his generals they would rebel. Then on
December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. There was
widespread rejoicing in China, for at last they had an ally that would
be able to crush Japan. The Chinese settled in behind their defensive
lines and waited for the inevitable defeat of Japan. Within weeks the
Japanese had enlarged their empire to include, Singapore, Dutch East
Indies, Thailand, Guam, and Hong Kong. America sent Joseph Stilwell, a
Chinese speaking 3 star general, and our best corps commander at the
time. Stilwell soon found out that Chiang Kia-shek did not want to take
the offensive. He would rather defend and wait until the Allies got rid
of the Japanese. This was a smart decision I think, it wasn't in his
interests to destroy Japan. All he wanted was a free China and that
could wait a couple of years. So he set up a defensive perimeter that
was 40 divisions deep and just waited, forcing the Japanese to commit
hundreds of thousands of troops to a stagnant front. Meanwhile the
British were getting pushed up the Thailand Peninsula in defeat after
defeat. Stilwell wanted two of Chiang's best divisions to help defend
Burma along with the British. Chiang, however, did not want to help the
British who he despised. For weeks he argued, while the Japanese
prepared for their next offensive, then finally he gave them over.
Stilwell, when he finally received the units, did not have time to get
the them into position before the
Japanese attacked. Chiang's two best divisions were cut to pieces, to
say the least, and the British were pushed back to the border of India.
China was now cut off from its supply routes. The
Japanese were to the south, and to the east, while to the west were the
impassable Himalayas. The Chinese had to be supplied by airplane
crossings over the Himalayas. Regardless of supply issues, Stilwell was
still bent on an offensive
into Burma. He persuaded Chiang Kia-shek to give him some Chinese
troops that he could train for this invasion. Over 15,000 Chinese were
sent over to India
by plane to be trained. These were to be called the X-force. In
accordance with the planned offensive, Stilwell began the
contruction of a gravel road to replace the air route to north Burma. A
gravel road was ideal because it could be used during the monsoon
season. Chiang then agreed to attack with the recruits along with the
British,
as long as the Allies provided air and naval protection. When this
could not be done he agreed to go ahead anyway. Then the British
declared that they were not going to help at all. At this point, Chiang
can not be blamed for not attacking. He didn't have to offer to help
the British retake their empire. The British
did not want Chiang Kia-shek to take Burma was because it would bring
Chinese influence
into the area. And the British did not want any revolutionary ideas to
be
inspired there. They too would rather wait until America took care of
Japan.
In the
summer of 1943, the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff met in Cairo, Egypt,
to
discuss planning and overall strategy. China was invited to send its
generals too, since it was considered to be one of the four great
powers. (By Roosevelt only, not by the British) The Generalissimo,
Chiang Kia-shek, his wife, Stilwell, and a couple of generals
came. The Allies promised to help Chiang take the offensive in
Burma, by giving naval support for an amphibious landing in southern
Burma. When asked how he would deal with the monsoon season,
he stared blankly. Then he turned to his wife and asked her a question.
His wife then told the general who had asked the question that, Chiang
did not know what the monsoon was. This illustrates how uninformed the
Generalissimo was of the war, for the monsoon was a determining factor
for
any long term strategy. The Chinese generals rarely told Chiang
anything bad that was happening. The burden fell on Stilwell to tell
Chiang of his army's failures. This made Chiang think that Stilwell did
not like the Chinese, for he never heard the information from any other
source. After the meeting was over Chiang flew home. The Joint Chiefs
of
Staff then flew to Tehran to meet with the Russians. The Russians said
that they would start trying to help China. Since the amphibious
landing was done solely to help China, the
British contested that it was no longer needed, and it was canceled.
The Americans instead
decided to assign a commando team to China, only it would be under
British command. Chiang returned home victorious only to find the
operation canceled. To say the least he was furious, he demanded a 1
billion dollar loan. Roosevelt said "no", and even considered stopping
the Lend-Lease material going to China. Chiang then said that instead
the Allies would have to pay him to build the runways he was told to
build. This would have amounted to nearly 900 million. This too,
Roosevelt refused to do, and so Chiang went back to building the
runways.
Chinese
X and Y forces
Japanese counterattack
Regardless of all this, Stilwell continued to
prepare the two
Chinese forces he had been training, the X and
Y-forces. The X-force, under the direct urging of Stilwell, moved
forward
from Ledo and began a slow but successful attack on the Japanese. The
American
special forces infiltrated Japanese lines and captured an important
airbase. Stilwell also sent some Chinese units to capture the road
running behind enemy lines. Both were successful, and loss of the
airbase coupled with the capture of the main road of supply forced
the Japanese to retreat. The British were then attacked in a bold
counterattack by the Japanese, which threatened to take the city of
Calcutta. The
Japanese were active elsewhere too, as shown below.
~~~~ Japanese lines /
>
Japanese offensives
The Japanese moved south
from Zhengzhou, cutting off the Chinese bulge toward Nanking ( Nanjing
). Then they
attacked south-west from Wuhan, west from Hong Kong, and north from
Vietnam. This materialized into a three pronged attack that pushed
Chiang Kia-shek further from the vital ports along the coast. Stilwell
was then promoted to full general, the same rank as Eisenhower.
Roosevelt also tried, in vain, to get Chiang to allow Stilwell to
command the whole Chinese army, which was in danger of falling apart.
However, due to the success of the X-force, Chiang released the Y-force
to attack also. Stilwell began attacking along the Burma Road from
Kunming ( Chungking ).[ see first map ] This
released the pressure off of the British,
and
forced the Japanese to retreat yet again. This time Stilwell retook
part of the much needed Burma Road. The Generalissimo then arbitrarily
changed his mind and ordered Stilwell to retreat and defend behind a
river. When Stilwell refused, Chiang demanded that Roosevelt remove him
from
China. Roosevelt, disgusted with China's non-aggressive, ignorant
leaders, agreed to remove Stilwell. However, to Stilwell this meant
only one thing he had: failed. When one Chinese general heard he was
leaving, he said,
"For at least three years you have made things possible out of
impossibilties." Stilwell was replaced by Generals Wedemeyer, and
Stratemeyer, and the
war ended soon afterwards.
Before all the Japanese in China
had surrendered, both Chiang Kia-shek, and the Communists began
capturing Chinese cities once under Japanese control. Civil war ensued
and
American marines aided Chiang to some extent.
America also continued to supply arms, ammunition, and supplies to
Chiang for over a year and a half. The supplies did no good, for as
usual he squandered them for only a few loyal units. The American aid
only served to prolong the brutal war. In
the end, Chiang Kia-shek had to retreat to Formosa ( Taiwan ). The
Communists then took over and have ruled with terror until this day.
The Chinese Communists have been called by some only
"agrarian reformers" and regarded as somehow different than the Soviet
Communists. China,
however, is different from Russia; the Communists in China were forced
to look to small farmers for support, because there was no industrial
working class in China. So instead of being 'industrial reformers' like
the Soviets, they were agrarian reformers, their doctrines being
identical.
Had the U.S. been truely interested in helping
China we should have persuaded Chiang Kia-shek to reform his goverment
before the war ended,
by with holding the Lend-Lease aid until he acted. Instead the
U.S. goverment just gave him military equipment to ensure his aid in
the fight against Japan. As a result of Chiang's seeming indifference
toward the people, the Chinese turned to the Communists after the war.
Chiang Kia-shek is not to be held solely responsible for this; he
relied on his generals and provincial governors to know the
state of the people. His subordinates failed in this aspect.
Hopefully the
Chinese
will some day rise up
against the Communists and form a true Republic as Sun Yatsen and
Chiang Kia-shek invisioned.
References:
The Man Who Changed China ( The Story of Sun Yat-sen ), Pearl Buck, 1953
Strategy & Tactics, magazine # 227, February, 2005
Stilwell and the American Experience in China ( 1911-45 ), Barbara
Tuchman, 1971
Homesick, Jean Fritz, 1982
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