A couple of days ago I spent an hour watching this old World War 2 documentary made in 1944. It was one of a series of propaganda film created in those days to explain to Americans why they were fighting the Japanese in China. It started off explaining the history of China and Japan and how the Japanese ended up invading China.
The whole film is about an hour long and if you’re as into modern history as I am then I really suggest watching it. It’s a very good watch.
If you’re lazy to watch it though, here are some points I can remember from watching the video and from some research I did after that (in simple English).
1) China had a population of some 450,000,000 people at the time. Their country had a lot of natural resources that Japan felt it needed in order to expand.
2) Japan felt that the best way for it to expand its empire is by occupying other countries for their natural resources and people. So while China was spending its years producing all sorts of different goods for exports or imports, Japan was spending all their time producing tanks, bombs, warplanes etc etc.
3) Japan’s first plan was to take over China then use China as a base to feed it enough resources to then take over the rest of SouthEast Asia and eventually the USA.
4) Then in 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria (a part of China).
5) China at the time though was not united. The country was divided by provinces and some were run by warlords rather than one central government so when Japan took Manchuria, none of the other states in China decided to help out. China protested to the League of Nations though but nothing happened.
6) The Japanese continued to take other Chinese cities with ease because the Chinese military was very very weak at the time.
7) It was only in the Battle of Shanghai when the Chinese led by Chiang Kai-Shek managed to put up some resistance and held off the Japanese forces for 3 months. Eventually though they had to pull back. What the Japanese did after that was initiate massive bombing runs on Shanghai itself, intent on bombing and killing innocent civilians. Sort of to break the will of the Chinese. That was just the beginning though.
8) After Shanghai the Japanese reached the Chinese capital of Nanking. There during their occupation they butchered (some by beheading and some by setting on fire) some hundreds of thousands of disarmed soldiers and civilians and raped some 20,000-80,000 women (The video only states 40,000 people were killed at the Rape of Nanking but the actual number was not known at the time).
If you want to know more about the Rape of Nanking, this documentary is a good watch.
9) After the Rape of Nanking though, China decided to unite as a country to fight the Japanese. While they had lots of people they did not have an army so they got all their people to carry equipment and move everything to the west where they could start industrial production of war equipment. It was a huge migration and the Chinese took everything… even the railroad tracks that led to the west of China.
10) The problem the Chinese had though was that since the coastal areas of China was controlled by the Japanese, they had no access of supplies from the outside world. One alternative was to build a road through some mountains in Burma to the sea. The Chinese government looked for foreign contractors to do the project but were told that it would take years even with machinery in place to do it. So the Chinese decided to do it on their own with no machinery but manual labour. They managed to do it within a year.
11) Over time the Chinese built up an army but it was still inferior to the Japanese army though so it still lost most of the time except for some battles here and there. The Japanese though felt frustrated that they couldn’t occupy the whole of China so they just decided to carry on with the next phases of their plan. To occupy SouthEast Asia and attack Pearl Harbor. That turned out to be a mistake because when the USA came into the war the Japanese were stretched. Eventually that led to the Japanese losing the war.
I found these old films not just enlightening but also inspiring to see how the Chinese fought for their survival. One thing I’d like to discourage is any vengeful thoughts that people might have when watching these videos in light of the latest disaster in Japan. The Japanese soldiers that commmited these atrocities in the past are not the same Japanese that live in Japan today affected by the Tsunami and Earthquake. Sure, lets not forget what the Japanese in the past have done but let us also not blame it on their generation today that weren’t even born when all that happened.
When I look at our modern history, my perspectives on foreign intervention start to change. I used to wonder why is it that the Western powers or the UN often find the need to interfere in other countries’ conflict (especially since they haven’t always been right. Like Iraq). The latest one being Libya when the United Nations have agreed to let the USA and UK provide air support to the rebel forces especially after Libya’s leader openly announced that he will “have no mercy and no pity” on any of the rebels.
When watching history the history of the Rape of Nanking, I only wished that the USA had intervened sooner. Maybe they could have prevented the Rape of Nanking. When I think of this, I think of this quote:
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space