Second Sino-Japanese War

Sides

Countries today: China, Japan, and Russia

What happened

In September 1931 Japan's Kwantung Army used an explosion on the railway near Mukden as a pretext to occupy Manchuria, where Japan set up the state of Manchukuo in 1932. After troops clashed at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beiping on 7 July 1937, full-scale war followed. Japanese forces took Shanghai after three months of fighting and the capital, Nanjing, in December 1937, where Japanese troops killed large numbers of prisoners and civilians. The Nationalist government moved inland, to Wuhan and then Chongqing, while Communist-led forces fought behind Japanese lines in the north. Chinese forces won at Taierzhuang in 1938, but Japan held most large cities, railways and the coast, and in 1940 installed a collaborationist government under Wang Jingwei in Nanjing. The Soviet Union sent aid and volunteer airmen from 1937; after Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the war became part of the Second World War, with the United States fighting alongside China. Japan's Ichi-Go offensive of 1944 overran much of central and southern China. Japan's forces in China surrendered at Nanjing on 9 September 1945.

Outcome: Japan surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, and its forces in China surrendered at Nanjing on 9 September 1945; Manchukuo and the Wang Jingwei government ended with them.

Key events

Leaders

• Chiang Kai-shek · Head of the Nationalist government and commander-in-chief · China: the Nationalist government, Communist-led forces and their allies
• Mao Zedong · Leader of the Chinese Communist Party · China: the Nationalist government, Communist-led forces and their allies
• Zhu De · Commander of the Eighth Route Army · China: the Nationalist government, Communist-led forces and their allies
• Peng Dehuai · Deputy commander of the Eighth Route Army; led the Hundred Regiments Offensive · China: the Nationalist government, Communist-led forces and their allies
• Li Zongren · Nationalist commander at Taierzhuang · China: the Nationalist government, Communist-led forces and their allies
• Joseph Stilwell · US general; chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek, 1942–1944 · China: the Nationalist government, Communist-led forces and their allies
• Hirohito · Emperor of Japan · Empire of Japan and its client governments
• Fumimaro Konoe · Prime minister of Japan in 1937–1939 and 1940–1941 · Empire of Japan and its client governments
• Iwane Matsui · Commander at Shanghai and Nanjing, 1937; executed after the Tokyo tribunal · Empire of Japan and its client governments
• Yasuji Okamura · Commander of the China Expeditionary Army; signed the surrender in Nanjing · Empire of Japan and its client governments
• Wang Jingwei · Head of the Japanese-backed government in Nanjing · Empire of Japan and its client governments

Deaths