Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945

by Rana Mitter

Indochina capitulated, but Japanese troops remained in the colony until the end of the war, severing the Nationalist government from the vital railway line. In July 1940, while the Battle of Britain raged over the skies of the south of England, the Japanese government demanded that London close the Burma Road, linking the British colony to the border with China. This would cut off supplies of war materiel that were being shipped to Rangoon and then transported onward via the Burma Road into Nationalist China. Churchill’s government had seen France fall in June and feared that Britain was in danger of imminent invasion. Unable to contemplate opening up a new front for conflict in Asia, they closed the road. In less than a year, all of Free China’s supply routes from the south coast, from Indochina, and from Burma had been cut off (although the latter did reopen in October 1940). Better strategy by the Nationalists might have helped keep the sea routes open for a while longer. But the land routes were lost because of the policies of the British government and Vichy France, over which Chiang Kai-shek had no control. The Nationalists were clearly vulnerable.