Battle of China notes

Stalwart China Losing the War

Our troubled Chinese ally…seen by Henry Luce and Frank Capra

China: burden or ally?

Alliance with China during WWII.

Leader of Free China—Chiang Kai Shek

Long history of American intervention in China.

Missionaries active since 1860s.

dreams of a vast market of 400,000,000 people

We favored the Chinese Republic set up by Sun Yat Sen before WWI

American support for respecting China’s territorial integrity in Washington Conference under President Harding.

Thousands of missionaries active; many Chinese coming to US to study.

But China was a troubled country…part modernizing, very poor, its culture battered by foreign influences: Christiantiy, technology, liberalism, communism

American investment and trade limited, but in the 1930s, Americans were horrified by Japanese attacks on Chinese civilians.

The great voice for Chiang’s China was Henry R. Luce of Time

Born in China of missionary parents

His media emphasized Chiang Kai Shek as a Christian and a modernizer (pro-American)

Truth is more complicated

Chiang’s armies huge, but corrupt. Society run by landlords and bankers connected to regime.

And in the North, a powerful communist army led by Mao Tse Tung controlled 90,000,000 people by the end of WWII.

Chiang hated the Reds more than he did the Japanese. Thought the US would beat Japan and then he could annihilate the Reds.

How do you explain the growth of communism in China and its support by millions of peasants to US civilians?

Frank Capra and Henry Luce told Americans that Chiang’s Free China was a fighting ally

There was some fighting, but Japanese were winning in China by 1944.

Capra portrays an ancient peaceful culture that never attacked anyone.

Inventive and good people.

Japan evil and a conqueror.

Sun Yat Sen as a George Washington trying to unite China. Chiang carries on his work.

Resistance to Japanese evil since 1931.

Japan’s Tanaka Memorandum out to conquer the world. China next, then the US.

No mention of European imperialism in China.

no mention of the communist problem.

Brutal Japanese bombardment of Shanghai.

Rape of Nanking in 1937 shown. Hope to break the will of Chinese.

But film shows determined Chinese disassembling factories and everything they can carry to the interior to set up new capital in Chungking.

Implies that they stopped Japan. Celebrates Chinese victory at Changsha.

But Japanese have huge areas to cover and have conquered much of China. Bogged down…not defeated.

China had manpower and space on its side, but no air power. Weak armies were poorly led.

Could never defeat Japan alone.

Not shown: Chiang’s blockade of Red with 200,000 troops. Implication that Chungking was like London.

No mentioned of famine…of killing thousands of Chinese in bombing raids in a shelter Chungking…of black market trade with Japan across the lines…of corruption—rich exempted from the draft…ruinous inflation

Madame Chiang an American heroine: Wellesley College graduate

So the implication is that we are doing well and China is resisting…no Reds.

Americans who saw Battle of China early in 1944 thought the Chinese were stronger than they were, and were shocked by her defeats in the summer of 1944. No sense of rise of communism either. Capra omitted it. We were betting on Chiang, and we were wrong.