Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Unique role of China's War of Resistance against Japan

Bush I believe to be stupid enough to push China to the brink.

I had previously posted:

Most analysts make the grave error of comparing China’s armed forces with those of the United States on an item per item basis.

While the following excerpt was written using a comparative analysis of India and China, the same may be said of the United States and China.

A country’s military potential must be viewed against the backdrop of its military ethos, its determination to win, its ability to take and absorb ‘punishment’, and the ingenuity / innovativeness of its military leadership. In the last aspect in particular, the keen interest of Chinese strategists in ways of waging asymmetric warfare must be borne in mind. Damage far out of proportion to the simplistic military capabilities of a battle group can be achieved by using asymmetric techniques.
#msg-6622907

Beyond weaponry, asymmetrical warfare and ingenuity the following text gives an insight into the Middle Kingdom’s determination to win and the power of their people.

-Am

Unique role of China's War of Resistance against Japan



July 7 this year marks the 68th anniversary of the outbreak of the Chinese Anti-Japanese War. China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression is both an important component of the world anti-fascist war and a relatively independent war against aggression, which played a unique role in winning final victory for the anti-fascist camp.

Two months ago, at the time of commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, British newspaper the Guardian published an article, pointing out: The Chinese anti-Japanese war, which plunged Japanese aggressor troops deep into China's battlefield, is one of the important reasons for the allied countries being able to triumph over the fascist countries. This shows that the tremendous achievements of China's war of resistance not only represent the pride of the Chinese people, but have also received universal recognition from the West.

An overview of the matter shows that the unique role played by China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in the world anti-fascist war is manifest mainly in three major aspects:

Spiritually, it greatly inspired the anti-fascist camp. Before WWII broke out on a full scale, the Chinese people had been engaged in life-and-death struggles against Japanese fascists for many years.

After full-scale anti-Japanese war began, the Chinese people, in both north and south and young and old, pledged to fight to death against the Japanese aggressor troops armed with modern equipment.

They waged bloody battles in Shanghai and major battles in Taierzhuang, and they cracked the dike of the Yellow River and Burned Changsha City, displaying the Chinese nation's heroic spirit of defying the brutal force and fighting battles of "blood for blood".

Materially, they greatly depleted the strength of Japanese troops. Chinese anti-Japanese war is characterized by war of resistance by the entire people, protracted war and guerrilla war; "exchanging space for time" and "accumulating small victories into a big one", this is a magic weapon used to deal with a strong enemy.

During the war of resistance, Chinese army and people, unafraid of setbacks and sacrifices, fought to defend north China after the fall of the northeast and guard central China after the fall of east China; when battles were concluded in Nanjing, they fought in Wuhan, combined regular warfare with guerrilla warfare and frontline battlefield with enemy-rear battlefield; they employed various means to attack the aggressor forces, they successively engaged in repeated bloody battles in Pingxingguan, Taierzhuang, Kunlunguan, Wanjialing and other places as well as in India and Burma (Myanmar), the nationwide surging guerrilla war kept the Japanese invaders constantly on the run.

The Japanese aggressor troops suffered a loss of over 1.3 million people in the Chinese battlefield, their various kinds of strategic materials prepared for use in the Pacific war, such as iron and steel, oil, ammunitions and ordnance were forced to be depleted ahead of time, this constitutes one of the major reasons for the final defeat of Japanese troops.

Strategically, Chinese war of resistance upset the strategic disposition of Japanese troops, winning a strategic interval for the allied countries to adjust their deployment.

Firstly, Chinese war of resistance disrupted Japanese army's "northward advance" plan. Before WWII, Japanese strategists had disputes over "southward advance" and "northward advance" in their direction of aggression. Japan's ground forces favored "northward advance", while its naval forces favored "southward advance".

"Northward advance" meant war with the Soviet Union, fighting mainly land battles, but Japanese million-strong land forces had been bogged down deep in the Chinese battlefield and were unable to fight the Soviet Union. Left with no choice, Japan was forced to give up "northward advance", and turned around for "southward advance".

In 1941 when the war between the Soviet Union and Germany broke out and the German troops had reached the city gates of Moscow, Japan considered attacking the Soviet Union's Far Eastern region in coordination with German army, but this plan was dropped because the main Japanese ground forces were unable to withdraw from the Chinese battlefield.

Consequently, the Soviet Union was able to avoid the emergence of an unfavorable situation of fighting on two lines, this constitutes one of the main strategic reasons for the Soviet Union to strenuously hold on under German fascists' great pressure and to hit back.

Secondly, Japanese troops were made unable to go all out for its "southward advance". Although they launched the Pacific war by choosing "southward advance", Chinese war of resistance made it hard for Japan to concentrate huge ground forces on the Pacific battlefield. As a result, Japan could only employ a petty number of over 200,000 ground forces for "southward advance", which made it hard for them to effectively occupy the vast regions from Southeast Asia to Australia.

While talking about the role of China's war of resistance, the then US President F.D. Roosevelt said with emotion: If there were no China, or if China were defeated, the Japanese army could have occupied Australia and advanced toward India and charged all the way to the Middle East and then joined forces with Adolf Hitler to isolate the Soviet Union, the consequence of its strategy would be unimaginable.

Published on the front page of People's Daily Overseas Edition, July 7, the above article is translated by People's Daily Online




http://english.people.com.cn/200507/07/eng20050707_194667.html