Name: Forgotten Ally
ISBN: 9780544334502

Rana Mitter

Made possible through access to newly unsealed Chinese archives, tells the untold story of China's devastating eight-year war of resistance against Japan in World War II, rewriting the larger history of the war in the process.

China's World War II, 1937 - 1945

Forgotten Ally

Vivian

Growing up in China in the 90s, we learned a one-sided portrayal of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War where the Nationalists (KMT) were often implied to be corrupt and coward with stark contrasts to the patriotic Communists' heroism. It was truly a great pity and sorrow that history was often truncated and twisted to fit a certain political narrative, leaving behind a collective generational amnesia and the future generation misses on precious opportunities to learn from the past. This applies to China and the West alike.

Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 did an excellent job diving into what transpired in these eight years with an unbiased view. I couldn't help but feel that Chiang Kai-shek was dealt with very difficult cards - the legacy of late-Qing & Warlord era poverty, corruption, disintegration, and lack of military & industrial power, exploitation of the Western imperialism on Chinese wealth, and being used as a pawn to serve the Western interests in the World War II arena. Could another leader, Nationalist or Communist, have a done a better job? I'm not sure. Yet a ruthlessly pragmatic Chiang was also a far cry from innocent. The manmade 1938 yellow river flood - carried out under Chiang's order in an attempt to halt Japanese advance - led to 500K deaths and 3 million refugees. 

For the first time I began to question the necessity of Chinese resistance. Is there a price tag on the national pride? How many people must die to tip the scale? Was the history’s verdict on anti-war collaborationists Wang Jingwei and Zhou Fohai too harsh? But the Chinese did fight, and fought on for eight years. Ironically it was also in the West's interest to keep China in the war - but just barely above the water. Without Chinese resistance, China would have become a Japanese colony as early as 1938. That would've freed up Japanese troops and resources for their imperial ambitions in British India and South-East Asia. Yet China remains a forgotten ally whose contribution to ending World War II not properly acknowledged under the light of historical completeness and justice.

"Both the Nationalists and the Communists did fight a fate that they had never sought. And in acknowledging their suffering, their resistance, and the terrible choices they were forced to make, we in the West also do greater honor to our own collective memories and understandings of the Second World War."

On a personal level I also felt some pity for Chiang because the turn of events does look like Nationalists paid a hefty price for the war against Japan and a biding-his-time Mao reaped the fruits of Chiang's victory. Would continue to read about the following Chinese civil war.

Forgotten Ally China's World War II, 1937 - 1945

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