The Second Sino-Japanese War, also known as the Second China–Japan War and the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945 as part of World War II. This total war between China and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, although some scholars consider the European War and the Pacific War to be entirely separate, albeit concurrent. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century and has been described as "the Asian Holocaust", in reference to the scale of Imperial Japan's war crimes against Chinese civilians. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under the China Burma India Theater of World War II by the Western allies.
The Battle of Shanghai was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, 1937, and was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war, and even regarded by some historians as the first battle of World War II. After over three months of extensive fighting on land, in the air and at sea, the battle concluded with a victory for Japan. Both sides accused each other of using chemical weapons during the battle, both without evidence.
This article is concerned with the events that preceded World War II in Asia.
The Great Way or Dadao Government, formally the Great Way Municipal Government of Shanghai, was a short-lived puppet government proclaimed in Pudong on December 5, 1937, to administer Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The January 28 incident or Shanghai incident was a conflict between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. It took place in the Shanghai International Settlement which was under international control. Japanese army officers, defying higher authorities, had provoked anti-Japanese demonstrations in the International Settlement following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The Japanese government sent a sect of militant ultranationalist Japanese Buddhist priests belonging to the Nichiren sect to Shanghai. The monks shouted anti-Chinese, pro-Japanese nationalist slogans in Shanghai, promoting Japanese rule over East Asia. In response, a Chinese mob formed killing one monk and injuring two. In response, the Japanese in Shanghai rioted and burned down a factory, killing two Chinese. Heavy fighting broke out, and China appealed with no success to the League of Nations. A truce was finally reached on May 5, calling for Japanese military withdrawal, and an end to Chinese boycotts of Japanese products.
The bombing of Chongqing, from 18 February 1938 to 23 August 1943, were massive terror bombing operations authorized by the Empire of Japan's Imperial General Headquarters and conducted by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAF) and Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAF). Resistance was put up by the Chinese Air Force and the National Revolutionary Army's anti-aircraft artillery units in defense of the provisional wartime capital of Chongqing and other targets in Sichuan.
The Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) was officially formed by the Kuomintang (KMT) after the establishment of the Aviation Ministry in 1920. As tensions mounted between China and Imperial Japan in the 1930s, air units from the Chinese warlords, including those from the Guangdong Provincial Air Force, and overseas Chinese aviators, became integrated into the centralized command of the ROCAF, nominally as the Nationalist Air Force of China, and coordinating with the Second United Front to counter the Imperial Japanese invasion and occupation.
China–German relations were formally established in 1861, when Prussia and the Qing dynasty concluded a Sino-German treaty during the Eulenburg expedition. A decade later, the German Empire was established, with the new state inheriting the Prussian-era treaties concluded with China. Sino-German relations during the late 19th and early 20th century were frequently tense, as Germany followed the example of other European colonial powers in carving out a sphere of influence in China; by 1914, Germany had obtained several concessions in China, including the treaty ports of Yantai and Qingdao and most prominently the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory.
The Canton Operation was part of a campaign by Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War to blockade China to prevent it from communicating with the outside world and importing needed arms and materials. Control of Guangzhou (Canton) and the Pearl River Delta would provide a base to make the blockade of Guangdong province more effective by seizing southern China's major port and isolate the British port of British Hong Kong.
Kōichi Shiozawa was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The literary critic Rinsen Nakazawa was his older brother.
Conte Verde was an Italian ocean liner active in the early 20th century.
Diao Chan is a 1938 Chinese sound film directed by Bu Wancang and produced by Zhang Shankun's Xinhua Film Company. The film is a portrayal of one of the "Four Beauties" of ancient China, in this case the titular Diaochan, from the late Eastern Han Dynasty era. Like Diaochan, the film is also known by the literal translation of her name, the Sable Cicada.
Takaji Wachi was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
International Settlement is a 1938 American drama film directed by Eugene Forde and starring Dolores del Río, George Sanders and June Lang. It is set in the Shanghai International Settlement during the Sino-Japanese War. In the film, a gun runner falls in love with a beautiful French singer.
Robert de Besange, SJ, also known as Jacquinot de Besange and in China as Rao Jia-ju, was a French Jesuit who set up a successful model of safety zones that saved over half-a-million Chinese people during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Bloody Saturday is a black-and-white photograph taken on 28 August 1937, a few minutes after a Japanese air attack struck civilians during the Battle of Shanghai in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Depicting a Chinese baby crying within the bombed-out ruins of Shanghai South railway station, the photograph became known as a cultural icon demonstrating Japanese wartime atrocities in China. The photograph was widely published, and in less than a month had been seen by more than 136 million viewers. The photographer, Hearst Corporation's H. S. "Newsreel" Wong, also known as Wong Hai-Sheng or Wang Xiaoting, did not discover the identity or even the sex of the injured child, whose mother lay dead nearby. The baby was called Ping Mei. One of the most memorable war photographs ever published, and perhaps the most famous newsreel scene of the 1930s, the image stimulated an outpouring of Western anger against Japanese violence in China. Journalist Harold Isaacs called the iconic image "one of the most successful 'propaganda' pieces of all time".
H. S. "Newsreel" Wong was a Chinese newsreel photojournalist. He is most notable for Bloody Saturday, a photograph of a crying baby in Shanghai that he took during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Hamako Watanabe was the stage name of a Japanese popular singer, who was active during the Shōwa period of Japan, before, during and after World War II. Her real name was Hamako Kato.
The Khalili Imperial Garniture is a trio of cloisonné vases created for a Japanese Imperial commission during the Meiji era. The items were exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, United States, in 1893, where they were described as "the largest examples of cloisonné enamel ever made". The decoration of the vases represents virtues and the seasons, and also has an allegorical meaning about Japan's role in a changing world and its alliance with the United States. After being exhibited, the vases were separated from each other for more than 120 years, eventually reunited in 2019 in the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, a private collection assembled by the British-Iranian collector and scholar Nasser D. Khalili.
