Session 13 : The Relationship between the Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars

This session featured one paper, a highly persuasive analytical overview of the strategic relationship between the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War by Professor TOHMATSU Haruo ( Department of International Business Administration, Tamagawa University ). The overarching argument of Professor Tohmatsu's presentation was that while the course of Pacific War had a profound effect on the conduct of the war in China , the reverse was not necessarily true. True, a vast number of Japanese troops were tied down on the China mainland, but it is clear that by the latter half of the Pacific War Japan lacked the air and sea lift capacity to move large numbers of troops in any event. Moreover, Japan is an island nation and its total defeat could only be achieved by air and sea forces that could blockade it, destroy its cities and industrial infrastructure, and ruin its economy. In that effort it was impossible for China to have played a direct role. Thus, it is hard to make the case, Tohmatsu's paper implied, that China counted materially in the defeat of Japan elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific, other than its creditable contribution to the campaign in Yunnan and northern Burma in 1944. But Tohmatsu did readily admit that China 's refusal to surrender at any time during the course of its hostilities with Japan did have a significant psychological influence on Allied strategic thinking about the war in Asia and the Pacific.

The fact remains, however, that despite its prodigious industrial might, in its conduct of a truly global war, the United States did not possess limitless resources to lavish on every theater and was thus forced to make strategic choices on where to spend its finite assets. For the United States, despite its moral support for and material aid to Nationalist China, China was a theater of tertiary importance, and thus America was reluctant to divert to China blood and treasure necessary for victory in theaters that it believed could far more vital to the Allied cause. But in leaving China out of its strategic global priorities, America inevitably created considerable ill will in China and, in the process, often unnecessarily abused China 's pride. For, in fairness both to the historical record and to the Chinese contribution it must be recognized that China had for many years fought on alone and at great human cost. The conflict in China was nothing short of a total war for national survival. For that reason alone Chinese feelings of both injury and pride must be understood and honored in the American historical perspective.