6. How did the war influence Chinese politics?

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we think about the extent to which the Second Sino-Japanese War influenced Chinese politics, focusing in particular on: (i) the extent to which the Communist Party benefitted from the Japanese invasion in 1937; (ii) the ways in which the Communists capitalise on the situation in which they find themselves; (iii) the extent to which the Communists insist on ideological purity among the people they are trying to recruit and their own senior leadership; (iv) the reasons for the decline in the reputation of the Nationalists; (v) the disadvantages of the Nationalists’ position compared to the Communists’; and (vi) the extent to which Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War was a foregone conclusion in 1945.

Course

In this course, Dr Tehyun Ma (University of Sheffield) explores the causes, course and consequences of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45). In the first module, we think about why the Japanese occupied Manchuria in 1931. After that, in the second module, we consider why the Japanese launched a full invasion in China in 1937, before turning in the third module to think about why the Japanese lost the war. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth modules, we think about the impact of the Second Sino-Japanese War on Chinese society, the Chinese economy, and Chinese politics, respectively.

Lecturer

Dr Tehyun Ma is Lecturer in International History at the University of Sheffield. Her main research interest is in the history of state- and nation-building in twentieth-century China and Taiwan, particularly under the Chinese Nationalist (Guomindang) government.