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

by Rana Mitter

There was nothing inevitable about the Chinese Communist Party’s coming to power in 1949. Without the war with Japan, there would have been a greater possibility of an anti-imperialist, anti-Communist Nationalist government consolidating power. It would have still been an immensely hard task, not least because of the Nationalists’ own huge flaws, but the war made it nearly impossible. Of course, in an Asia ruled by Japan, China would have remained colonized for decades or more. The political conditions of China today are not the only possible ones that history could have produced. One of the great lost opportunities of the war was the tentative move toward pluralism both by the Nationalists and the Communists. The increasing harshness of the war, along with a reluctance by either party to surrender ultimate power, made this a green shoot that withered quickly. But it was there, and deserves to be remembered, and considered afresh.