China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 247

In 1937 the Japanese extended their aggression against the rest of
China. It wanted the oil and minerals and was soon to invade Malaya, the
Philippines, and Vietnam for its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
By now it had clear models of militarism in Europe with Nazi Germany
and Fascist Italy. The Japanese easily conquered Beijing. When they moved
south to Shanghai, the Guomindang army was stronger, and resisted for
3 months. The next target 250 kilometers upstream was Nanjing, which
they attacked on December 13. The Japanese decided to set an example
to show that resistance was futile by killing and raping indiscriminately.
The Chinese estimate 300,000 were murdered in 6 weeks in this Rape of
Nanjing. The Nationalist army was unable to defend the city, and withdrew
to Wuhan, and eventually up stream to Chongqing where its remote and
mountainous site put it beyond reach except for occasional air bombard-
ment. The strategy of the Nationalists was to offer minimal resistance in
order to preserve their army and keep the Communists at bay. Help from
the Americans was almost impossible because the Japanese controlled
the sea and occupied Vietnam and Burma to the south. High mountains
cut off access from British India. The Nationalists were on their own, and
Chiang Kai-shek correctly predicted that after the war was over, the civil
war would resume.
Unlike the Nationalists, the Communists, who were centered in Yun'an,
aggressively fought the Japanese invaders. Much of their resistance took
the form of guerilla attacks behind Japanese lines. The only factor China
had in its favor was its immense size in area and population. The Japanese
army simply did not have the manpower to occupy most of the country.
At its maximum extent, the Japanese only occupied about a quarter of
the country, mostly along the east coast. On June 9, 1938, in a desperate
attempt to slow down the invasion, the Nationalists blew up the levees
on the Yellow River. The river was close to the peak of its annual flood
and swept over 20,000 square kilometers of the plain. Close to a million
Chinese peasants died or starved, and 12 million were made homeless.
The Japanese were slowed but not stopped.
Once Japan surrendered in 1945 after the Americans dropped atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Chinese Civil War resumed
immediately. At first the Nationalists had the advantage of more men and
equipment, launching an attack with 1.6 million soldiers. Yet within a
year, the tide shifted so the Communists had two million soldiers. They
controlled a third of the population and won favor by seizing land to give
to poor peasants. By the end of 1948, they controlled almost all of the