Most women in China were profoundly impacted by the Second Sino-Japanese War (also referred to in China as the War of Resistance), in which the Empire of Japan fought the Republic of China from 1937 to 1945.
Women's experiences during the war depended on a variety of factors, including class, place of origin, and social connections. While some groups of women in China were in a position to contribute to the resistance efforts, poor women in urban and rural areas fought every day to keep themselves and their families alive. The war's impact on women also varied by location, whether they stayed in regions controlled by the Nationalist Party, the Communist Party, or the Japanese.
While thousands of women in eastern China fled their homes for inland regions to escape Japanese occupation and the violence that came with it, women also stayed behind in occupied areas. [1] The Nationalist government relocated several times throughout the war, from Nanjing to Wuhan, and after the fall of Wuhan, they established a wartime capital in Chongqing. Refugees who fled to Chongqing from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the east were referred to by locals as "downriver people" (Chinese: 下江人). [2] Many women also migrated to Yan'an, the Communist Party's headquarters during the war, and other Communist bases in northern regions of China.
Women contributed to the Second Sino-Japanese war in various capacities, such as in medical work, education, women's organizations, and on the battlefield. Women's work during the war was vitally important and helped China make it through the war.
Women in China supported injured soldiers in Communist and Nationalist bases alike, working as nurses, doctors, and midwives during the war. While women had worked as caregivers before, women during the war provided medical care in public, which marked a shift in gender roles. Not only were women working outside of the home, but they were also making physical contact with male strangers. The war prompted the feminization of the nursing profession in China. [3]
Soldiers in China needed medical care for battle wounds, as well as for lethal diseases such as cholera and malaria. [4] Nurses were in high demand for the state, and the number of registered nurses increased dramatically throughout the war, as did the number of nursing schools. [5] Nurses in Chongqing performed various medical tasks, such as administering vaccines, in hospitals and on the street. [6]
Nursing schools in Chongqing recruited young, educated, and unmarried women to enroll during the war. While women attended nursing schools during the war, Chinese provincial governments integrated nursing classes into high school curriculums. In 1937, high school girls in Hubei started taking compulsory nursing classes. In 1940, female high school graduates in Hunan and Sichuan were required to work as nurses, either for the military or for rural public health. [7]
Women such as Zhou Meiyu helped professionalize the nursing industry and raise its status. [8] [9] While some nurses were paid, other women helped soldiers on a volunteer basis. Many women felt fulfilled working as nurses and accepted to work for low pay. [10]
Middle-class and upper-class women across China participated in various fundraising activities and led organizations to provide relief for soldiers, refugees, orphans, among other groups. Some of the services women in Chongqing organizations provided were clothing drives and soup kitchens. Volunteers in orphanages taught children a number of songs and plays with anti-Japanese sentiment alongside public health lessons. [11]
Dozens of women's organizations registered with local governments across the country. Three important nationally recognized organizations during the war, which all relocated to Chongqing, were the "National Association of Chinese Women for the Cheering and Comforting of the Officers and Soldiers of the War of Self-Defense and Resistance against Japan", the "Wartime Child Welfare Protection Association", and the "Women’s Directorial Committee of New Life Movement Promotion Federation". [12] Prominent women such as Song Meiling, Deng Yingchao, Shi Liang, and Li Dequan cooperated to lead these organizations. [13]
The leaders of women's organizations in Chongqing created multiple job opportunities for hundreds of refugee women in the Songji experimental zone, located in Yongchuan. After this project was launched, refugee women worked at a textile factory, library, farm, and schools, among other places in Songji. [14]
Many urban, educated women from the east fled to Chongqing and taught in schools. They often integrated the war into their lessons, explaining why Chinese people should care and participate in the war effort. Refugee teachers at an elementary school in Chongqing taught students patriotic war songs and gave students essay assignments about the war. They also prompted young students to give speeches about the war to public audiences at neighboring markets. [15]
Women and girls continued to attend school and college if their families could afford it. Due to the war, many leading educational institutions and preeminent teachers relocated to Chongqing, which meant local students received a better education than they otherwise would have. [16] In addition to giving speeches, students in Chongqing contributed to the war effort by teaching lessons to peasants about the war, writing articles for wall bulletins, producing shoes and other goods for soldiers, and putting on performances at markets to spread awareness about the war. [17]
Many high school girls and women college students volunteered to write letters for illiterate soldiers. These volunteers provided emotional support for soldiers, formed friendships, and boosted their morale through entertainment. [18]
Some women in the Communist front-line base areas joined armies to fight against Japanese soldiers, including the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. Some women participated in fighting, but more often, women were told to support the bases in other ways. [19]
The war impacted women across China in striking ways. The household, gender roles, and women's occupations changed during the war. While often victims of murder and horrific acts of violence, women in China used various survival strategies to cope with the war's impact and fight for survival.
Many women in wartime China migrated to different regions, either to escape Japanese soldiers and bombing or disasters such as floods and famine. However, leaving one's home was not a smooth process for many women. Refugee mothers were responsible for looking after their children, which made it harder to make ends meet along the way to their next destination. [20] Additionally, it was dangerous for women to leave their homes as they were sexually vulnerable to soldiers and bandits. Some women got pregnant on the way to their next destination. [21]
For poor women in Chongqing, the mass arrival of refugees in their hometowns drove up prices, making it even more difficult to cover basic needs. [22] Women from peasant families in Chongqing could barely make ends meet before the war, so they took on more jobs that sometimes put their lives at risk.
Wealthy, well-connected women in Chongqing had the means to relocate during the war. Amid the Chongqing bombing, wealthy women moved out of Sichuan temporarily and returned home afterward. [23]
Women in Henan who were displaced and affected by the 1938 Yellow River flood resorted to various survival strategies to stay alive during the war. Some women migrated to Nationalist-controlled regions of Henan, while others stayed behind in the flooded, occupied region. Women flood victims who stayed behind made a living by selling salt. [24] Women who fled worked jobs in domestic service and textile arts, and many resorted to begging and prostitution. [25] [26] In some instances, families were forced to give their daughters away to another family or sell their daughters into prostitution. [27]
Women were subject to sexual violence throughout the Second Sino-Japanese War. While many women in occupied areas decided to stay indoors to avoid contact with Japanese soldiers, some braved the threat of leaving their houses. In many instances, women did not have a choice. [28]
Across China, various situations and places were dangerous for women to go during the war, because of increased chances of being raped or assaulted. For instance, it was dangerous for women in Chongqing to dump garbage outside of the city, yet some women from poor peasant families did so to make a living. [22]
Refugee women who fled their homes risked sexual assault and violence on the way to their next destination. In one instance, a refugee woman was forced to satisfy a man's sexual desires to protect her family and gain connections in a new city. [29]
On December 13, 1937, Japanese soldiers invaded Nanjing, the capital of China at the time. Women of all ages in Nanjing were sexually assaulted, raped, and murdered by Japanese soldiers in the Nanjing Massacre. Women fled their homes and sought refuge in public spaces such as colleges. [30] One woman resorted to covering herself in excrement to reduce the chances of being raped. [31] In the first month of Japanese soldiers occupying the capital, estimates suggest there were 20,000 instances of rape. [32] Rape victims who survived were traumatized and did not want to speak about their experiences after the war ended. [33]
Thousands of girls in China were forced to work in military brothels as sex slaves, also known as comfort women. [34] While estimates vary, scholars agree that the number of women who worked in forced prostitution in occupied areas was over 200 thousand. [35] Women resorted to various tactics to make themselves less attractive and protect themselves. Some women in occupied regions wore unflattering clothing or covered their faces in ash. [36]
Due to a number of men leaving home to either work or fight, the structure of the household and gender roles shifted dramatically in various regions of China.
The war tore many women's families apart. Refugee women were often permanently separated from their extended families. [37] While refugee women lost their support systems, they also gained certain freedoms living away from family, such as choosing one's own husband rather than having an arranged marriage. [38]
Many women became widows during the war and often did not remarry. The likelihood of a woman remarrying depended on whether she had children and other family members to care for. The best outcome, if a woman was on her own, was marrying a poor man. [39]
Women filed for divorce throughout the war, frequently because their husbands abandoned them. [40] Women also ran away from their husbands during the war without facing legal repercussions. [36] Other women stayed with their husbands despite being separated by the war. Some husbands sent their wives money when they were away, because they depended on his paycheck. However, the war disrupted the postal service in places like Chongqing, which meant that women struggled to meet basic needs and had to find alternate ways of getting money. [41]
With fewer men at home during the war, women took on different kinds of work to provide for their families, such as farming. It became increasingly common for women, especially poor women, to work in the fields during the war. Young girls worked in the fields as well. However, agricultural work involved several risks for women, including the shame of working outside and the threat of being surrounded by bandits and soldiers. [42]
Women's occupations often varied by region. Women in Japan-occupied Shanghai, for instance, worked in stores, cotton mills, as models, and opera singers among other jobs. [43] In Communist base areas, such as Yan’an, women contributed to the self-sufficiency and independence of the bases by farming and making goods like shoes and clothing. [44] The Communist bases relied heavily on women's labor for economic production. Women's participation in politics in Communist base areas varied. Some gained political experience at a village level, whereas in regions like Wuxiang, women did not participate in politics at all. [45] [46]
The war prompted the feminization of several industries, such as agriculture and nursing. By providing for their families by working out of the house, women disrupted gender norms and transformed gender roles. After the war, women in China continued working. They no longer had to rely solely on male family members to stay afloat. [47]
In various mediums, such as cartoons, women in China during the war were depicted as victims of sexual violence and murder to inspire Chinese people to keep fighting. [48] However, women were also depicted as strong and resilient. During the war, stories about famous heroines resurfaced in China. For instance, Hua Mulan became a central figure in plays, cartoons, poetry, and movies. In 1939, a movie called Mulan Joins the Army (木兰从军) was released, in which the story of Mulan was rewritten to show her taking action against the "foreign invaders" (which mirrored China's current situation against the Japanese) and included not-so-subtle parallels to events that happened in the Second Sino-Japanese War. [47]
Song Meiling, the First Lady of the Republic of China and wife of Chiang Kai-shek, was the most prominent woman in China during the war. She traveled to the United States on multiple occasions and spoke in front of Congress to ask for increased aid. She frequently appeared in the press in China and overseas, demonstrating how women should support the war effort. She also took an active involvement in fundraising and caring for "warphans" or war orphans, to ensure China received donations overseas. [49] Song Meiling was beloved by Americans, much more than her husband Chiang Kai-shek. [49]
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with armed conflict continuing intermittently from 1 August 1927 until Communist victory resulted in their total control over mainland China on 7 December 1949.
The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part of World War II, and often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century and has been described as "the Asian Holocaust", in reference to the scale of Japanese war crimes against Chinese civilians. It is known in China as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
Bai Chongxi was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China (ROC) and a prominent Chinese Nationalist leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith. From the mid-1920s to 1949, Bai and his close ally Li Zongren ruled Guangxi province as regional warlords with their own troops and considerable political autonomy. His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek was at various times antagonistic and cooperative. He and Li Zongren supported the anti-Chiang warlord alliance in the Central Plains War in 1930, then supported Chiang in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. Bai was the first defense minister of the Republic of China from 1946 to 1948. After losing to the Communists in 1949, he fled to Taiwan, where he died in 1966.
The Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, commonly described as the Wang Jingwei regime, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in eastern China. It existed coterminous with the Nationalist government of the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek, which was fighting Japan alongside the other Allies of World War II. The country functioned as a dictatorship under Wang Jingwei, formerly a high-ranking official of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). The region it administered was initially seized by Japan during the late 1930s at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The term "home front" covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war. World War II was a total war; homeland military production became vital to both the Allied and Axis powers. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, evacuation in the face of air raids, and response to occupation by an enemy power. The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda. Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree.
The Battle of Wuhan, popularly known to the Chinese as the Defence of Wuhan, and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan, was a large-scale battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Engagements took place across vast areas of Anhui, Henan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Hubei provinces over a period of four and a half months. It was the single largest, longest, and bloodiest battle of the entire Second Sino-Japanese War. More than one million National Revolutionary Army troops from the Fifth and Ninth War Zone were put under the direct command of Chiang Kai-shek, defending Wuhan from the Central China Area Army of the Imperial Japanese Army led by Shunroku Hata. Chinese forces were also supported by the Soviet Volunteer Group, a group of volunteer pilots from Soviet Air Forces.
The 1938 Yellow River flood was a man-made flood from June 1938 to January 1947 created by the intentional destruction of levees on the Yellow River in Huayuankou, Henan by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first wave of floods hit Zhongmu County on 13 June 1938.
Ikuhiko Hata is a Japanese historian. He earned his PhD at the University of Tokyo and has taught history at several universities. He is the author of a number of influential and well-received scholarly works, particularly on topics related to Japan's role in the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
Women in China make up approximately 49% of the population. In modern China, the lives of women have changed significantly due to the late Qing dynasty reforms, the changes of the Republican period, the Chinese Civil War, and the rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Like women in many other cultures, women in China have been historically oppressed. For thousands of years, women in China lived under the patriarchal social order characterized by the Confucius teaching of "filial piety".
The recorded military history of China extends from about 2200 BC to the present day. This history can be divided into the military history of China before 1912, when a revolution overthrew the imperial state, and the period of the Republic of China Army and the People's Liberation Army.
The Chinese city of Chongqing has a history dating back at least 3,000 years.
The New Marriage Law was a civil marriage law passed in the People's Republic of China on May 1, 1950. It was a radical change from existing patriarchal Chinese marriage customs, and needed constant support from propaganda campaigns. It has since been superseded by the Second Marriage Law of 1980. It was formally repealed by the Civil Code in 2021.
The Republic of China (ROC) began as a sovereign state in mainland China on 1 January 1912 following the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and ended China's imperial history. From 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) reunified the country and ruled it as a one-party state and made Nanjing the national capital. In 1949, the KMT-led government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War and lost control of the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP established the People's Republic of China (PRC) while the ROC was forced to retreat to Taiwan and retains control over the "Taiwan Area"; the political status of Taiwan remains in dispute to this day.
Kazuo Aoyama(real name Kuroda Zenji) was a Japanese communist who joined the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The Henan Famine of 1942–1943 occurred in Henan, most particularly within the eastern and central part of the province. The famine occurred within the context of the Second Sino-Japanese War and resulted from a combination of natural and human factors. Anthony Garnaut put the death toll to be "well under one million", probably around 700,000. While Lloyd Eastman puts it between 2 and 3 million dead. 15 years later Henan was struck by the deadlier Great Chinese famine.
Xia Douyin (1885–1951) was a Republic of China National Revolutionary Army general. He was born in Macheng, Hubei. Originally a member of the Qing Dynasty New Army, he participated in the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. In 1917, he joined the Constitutional Protection Movement and opposed local warlord Wang Zhanyuan. Defeated by Wang's forces, he fled to Changsha and enlisted the help of allies in Hunan against Wang. After suffering another defeat in 1919, he fled to the border region of Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces. In 1926, he was brought by Tang Shengzhi into the National Revolutionary Army and participated in the Northern Expedition as a divisional commander. On May 17, 1927, Xia led Kuomintang forces loyal to Chiang Kai-shek from Yichang against the forces of Ye Ting in Wuhan. After his victory, he notoriously took personal pleasure in mutilating the corpses of female revolutionaries he had killed. Chiang promoted Xia to army commander and he fought in the Central Plains War of 1930. Xia was then tasked with suppressing the Eyuwan Soviet in the border region between Hubei, Henan, and Anhui provinces. He ordered the massacre of thousands of civilians but was unable to stop the Communists' expansion. In 1932, Xia was promoted to full general and made governor of Hubei, although Zhang Qun actually acted in his place. From July to September 1932, Chiang Kai-shek ordered 300,000 troops of the National Revolutionary Army to surround and suppress the Eyuwan Soviet in the Fourth Encirclement Campaign. Xia directed a scorched earth campaign, killing all men found in the Soviet areas, burning all buildings, and seizing or destroying all crops. He was ultimately successful and the main Communist Red Army was forced to retreat westwards. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Xia fled to Chengdu after Hubei was occupied by the invading Imperial Japanese Army. In 1945, he retired from the military. Although he attempted to welcome the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) takeover of the mainland, the CCP rebuffed him and he fled to Hong Kong, where he died.
He Luli was a Chinese politician and paediatrician. She entered politics after practicing medicine for 27 years, serving as vice-mayor of Beijing, chairwoman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, Vice Chairperson of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
He Siyuan, also spelled Ho Shih-yuan, was a Chinese educator, politician and guerrilla leader. Educated in China, the United States, and France, he was an economics professor at Sun Yat-sen University and education minister of Shandong Province. When Japan invaded China in 1937, he organized a guerrilla force to fight the resistance war in Shandong, and was the wartime governor of the province. He later became Mayor of Beijing until he negotiated to surrender to communist forces when KMT was losing. He survived Chiang's two attempts to assassinate him, but lost his youngest daughter in the second attack. In 1949 he negotiated the peaceful surrender of Beijing to the Communist forces, ensuring the safety of its millions of residents. Fluent in four European languages, after 1949 he mainly worked on translating foreign publications into Chinese. His elder daughter, He Luli, grew up to become Vice-Mayor of Beijing and Chairwoman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang.
The National Christian Council of China (NCC) was a Protestant organization in China. Its members were both Chinese Protestant churches and foreign missionary societies and its purpose was to promote cooperation among these churches and societies. The NCC was formed in 1922 in the aftermath of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference.
This bibliography covers the English language scholarship of major studies in Chinese history.