The problem was that the Chinese and the Westerners looked at China’s role through almost entirely different lenses. To the Western Allies, China was a supplicant, a battered nation on its knees, waiting for the Americans and British to save it from certain destruction at the hands of the Japanese. In Chiang’s view and that of many Chinese, their country was the first and most consistent foe of Axis aggression. Despite numerous opportunities to withdraw from the conflict, China had fought on when the prospects of outside assistance seemed hopeless, and it now deserved to be treated as an equal
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