The Reluctant Combatant

Japan and the Second Sino-Japanese War

By (author) Kitamura Minoru, Lin Si-Yun

Publication date:

15 April 2014

Length of book:

140 pages

Publisher

University Press of America

Dimensions:

231x154mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780761863243

The Reluctant Combatant offers proof that Japanese political leaders were reluctant to engage China in a full-scale conflict during the Second Sino-Japanese War. This book identifies several key aspects of the political context surrounding the Second Sino-Japanese War, including the extreme fragility of the national united front against Japan, the view of Soviet Russia as Japan’s principal potential adversary, and the potential threat to Japanese national defense a protracted war with China would pose. This book reveals that the Communists, the National Government, local gentry, peasants, and bandits occasionally collaborated with the enemy—Japanese troops—to expand their spheres of influence.

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION: INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND WAR
I. The Second Sino-Japanese War and world history
II. Aggressive wars not considered crimes
III. Japan: victim of circumstance

CHAPTER 1: EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE SECOND SINO-JAPANESE WAR
I. Japan and China join European-oriented international order
II. Russo-Japanese War spawns a new conflict
III. Tension between Japan and China heightens

CHAPTER 2: CHINA AND THE SECOND SINO-JAPANESE WAR
I. Behind the groundswell of support for war against Japan
II. From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to full-blown war

CHAPTER 3: JAPAN AND THE SECOND SINO-JAPANESE WAR
I. Japan’s response to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War
II. Initial peace overtures
III. The war in the context of international politics

CHAPTER 4: THE SECOND SINO-JAPANESE WAR AND CHINESE SOCIETY
I. Who fought in the war?
II. Recruitment of soldiers in China

CHAPTER 5: WAR DYNAMICS ALTER CHINESE SOCIETY
I. The effect of Japanese occupation
II. Establishment of pro-Japan governments

CHAPTER 6: FROM THE SECOND SINO-JAPANESE WAR TO THE PACIFIC WAR
I. Japanese government’s efforts to negotiate peace with Nationalist government
II. The road to the Pacific War

CHAPTER 7: THE CHINESE PERCEPTION OF HISTORY
I. Chinese views about crimes and punishment
II. Confucian ethics encourage lying: the bihui syndrome

AFTERWORD

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

The mainstream view on the Second Sino-Japanese War is that Imperial Japan was bent on destroying China, and the rest of Asia, for purely selfish reasons. However, careful analysis of the global situation, particularly of the social and political development of China and the attitudes of the Chinese leadership, indicates that the Chinese were not the innocent victims of ‘aggression’ as is currently claimed.