Here Is China Part 1 - World War II Documentary - Second Sino-Japanese War (1944)

The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 -- September 9, 1945) was a military conflict fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany (see Sino-German cooperation (1911--1941)), the Soviet Union (1937--1940) and the United States (see American Volunteer Group). After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It also made up more than 50% of the casualties in the Pacific War if the 1937--1941 period is taken into account. Although the two countries had fought intermittently since 1931, total war started in earnest in 1937 and ended only with the surrender of Japan in 1945. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and militarily and to secure its vast raw material reserves and other economic resources, particularly food and labour. At the same time, the rising tide of Chinese nationalism and notions of self-determination stoked the coals of war. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, so-called "incidents". Yet the two sides, for a variety of reasons, refrained from fighting a total war. In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army followed the Mukden Incident. The last of these ...

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Orignal From: Here Is China Part 1 - World War II Documentary - Second Sino-Japanese War (1944)