East Asia: Center of the World - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 294

The Japanese pressed on with “Kill all, burn all” tac-
tics. In the now infamous Rape of Nanjing, they
butchered an estimated 300,000 people. Nevertheless,
Chiang Kai-shek continued to expend much of his ener-
gies rooting out Communists. After a failed attack
against the Japanese, Mao and his troops fell back to
Y enan. In 1940 the war in China was a stalemate. The
British and French were occupied fighting Germany , and
the Japanese pressed southward to French Indochina.

lied with Britain and the United States. With U.S. aid,
Chiang prosecuted the war against the Japanese with the
aid of a motley group of warlords from Chongqing. Much
U.S. support was wasted in battle losses and mass defec-
tions to the Communists ensued. However, Chiang' s
propaganda machine declared nothing but success to his
Western supporters. Meanwhile, Mao was consolidating
his position in Y enan. While masterminding guerrilla
warfare against the Japanese, he spent most of his energy
wooing the peasants of North China with Communist
propaganda. With the Japanese war' s end at hand in
1945, American efforts to bring Communists and
Nationalists together failed. Their war continued.
Industrial Manchuria was regarded as an essential
prize of war by both Mao and Chiang. In 1946, Chiang
moved north. It was a fatal decision because at that point,
the Americans—fed up with bogus stories of military
successes and not wanting to take sides in what was now
a civil war—decided to cut off aid to the Nationalists.
Meanwhile, inflation and constant threat of conscription
ruined morale among civilians. Their despair spread to
the troops, who defected to Mao' s Red Army by the mil-
lions. Chiang Kai-shek, conceding defeat on the main-
land, nevertheless transferred his “government” to
Taiwan, where he remained until his death in 1975.
By September 1949, Mao was ready to declare a new
Republic of China (Figure 10-18). Speaking to the Chi-
nese people from the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing,
he said, “Our work shall be written down in the history
of mankind, and it will clearly demonstrate the fact that
the Chinese, who comprise one quarter of mankind,
have from now on stood up... we announce the establish-
ment of the People' s Republic of China.”

Guerilla Behavior and Tactics

Mao Zedong advocated strict rules of behavior for
his Red Army: 1. Speak politely to the people and
help them when you can; 2. Return doors and straw
matting to the owners; 3. Pay for any damage you
cause; 4. Pay a fair price for any goods you buy; 5.
Be sanitary—establish latrines well away from
houses; 6. Do not take liberties with the women
folk; 7. Do not ill-treat prisoners; and 8. Do not
damage the crops. Unlike the relatively undisci-
plined Nationalists, Communist soldiers were much
better able to win the support of the peasants.
Mao' s guerrilla tactics can be summarized as
follows: “The enemy attacks, we retreat; The enemy
camps, we harass; The enemy tires, we attack; and,
The enemy retreats, we pursue.” The Nationalists
were unable to cope with this type of warfare.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,
1941, changed the conduct of the war. China became al-

Figure 10-18
This picture represents both old and new China. The
tile art shows a Silk Route caravan, while the bicycles
represent the major form of transportationin rural
China today . I shot this photo in Dunhuang, a major
gateway to the Silk Route. Photograph courtesy of
B. A. Weightman.