The Project
   
 
 
      

The Second World War in China was the single most wrenching event in modern Chinese history. The conflict is often termed the second Sino-Japanese War, and known in China as the War of Resistance to Japan. There are arguments that the conflict began with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, but between 1937 and 1945, China and Japan were at total war. When Japan was finally defeated in 1945, China was on the winning side, but lay devastated, having suffered some 15 million deaths, massive destruction of industrial infrastructure and agricultural production, and the shattering of the tentative modernization begun by the Nationalist government.

This research group is based on a concept grounded in the discipline of history, but with rich implications for our understanding of postwar and contemporary China – that China’s conflict with Japan in the mid twentieth century must be brought to the forefront of our understanding of the wider path of Chinese modernity, and that to do so will bring about significant new historical and political insights, not only for the academic world, but also for the wider public understanding of China, a major commercial and diplomatic power in the twenty-first century.

Why do we need to think about a new research framework for the study of China’s recent past? The answer is that in this field, perhaps more than any other in twentieth-century history, there is a new urgency that comes from a combination of research opportunities within China unprecedented since the 1940s, along with a sense that a greater understanding of China’s past is essential for western engagement with that country’s present and future. While the basis of the project is historical, the developments which are proposed are interdisciplinary, stressing the importance of political, anthropological and sociological fieldwork in present-day China.

If you are not Chinese, then you may gain some idea of the importance of this framework simply by substituting the name of any major modern European or Asian society for “China” in the question: “Was the Second World War truly important in changing China?” It is so obvious that it now goes unremarked that the impact and legacy of the Second World War is central to the history of modern Britain, Japan, Germany, or the United States. In China, the war itself caused a fundamental reshaping of the political geography of China (for instance, the retreat of the Nationalist government to the far west), the creation of conditions for a communist revolution, and huge social disruption. Yet this history has not yet been fully integrated into either western or Chinese historiography.

Second, one might rightly ask: If the war was indeed so central to the reshaping of modern China, can it really be the case that the study of the war’seffects and legacy were ignored for more than half a century? Part of the answer lies in the unusual path of Chinese history during the Cold War. While the war against Japan was never completely forgotten, and was referred to by the new Communist government as part of its statebuilding policy, the dictates of history-writing in Mao’s China meant that there was never any true reckoning with the legacy of the war. By 1949, just four years after the conclusion of the conflict, it became almost impossible in the mainland to have any frank discussion of the role of the Nationalist (Chiang Kai-shek) government, collaboration with the Japanese, or the contribution of the foreign powers who were allied with China. The links between war and the communist peasant revolution did remain open for discussion, but while important, they could not capture the whole of China’s wartime history. Archival access was also very difficult for Chinese and foreigners alike.

This era is now over. This research programme seeks to follow up a series of newly-developed threads in the recent historiography of China and bring them to their logical conclusion. It will explore, through a series of linked projects, the effects of the Sino-Japanese conflicts of 1937-45 (as well as referring to earlier events such as the Manchurian Incident of 1931) on the shaping of China, both in recent history and in the contemporary era.

 

Research goals

The driving hypotheses of the programme are:

  • That China’s conflict with Japan from 1931, particularly the total war of 1937-45, was a devastating event that fundamentally changed the nature of Chinese society, politics and culture, and has had a lasting impact on contemporary politics and society in China and East Asia more widely;
  • That until recently, historiography has concentrated on other overarching narratives that have shaped the development of modern China, in particular, the rise to power of the Chinese Communist Party, and that the Sino-Japanese conflict has been seen more as a backdrop to the rise of communism, rather than being explored as a transformative set of processes in its own right;
  • That a combination of new archival access and a reshaping of the post-Cold War historiography of China have allowed the space for the war itself to become the interpretative lens through which contemporary history and politics of China should be explored;
  • That social science fieldwork in China is now feasible and allows the space for a truly meaningful assessment of the impact of war through the decades to be made;
  • That contemporary international politics (such as anti-Japanese demonstrations in Shanghai, and the rise of anti-Chinese right-wing popular culture in Japan) show that the legacy of the war’s experience is growing, not fading, in importance in East Asia;
  • That the time is therefore right to embark on an integrated research cluster that not only explores the war itself, but also uses it to explore a variety of linked issues that relate to the legacy and impact and memory of the war, including: the nature of Chinese society during the Cold War; transnational ideological links between Chinese nationalism and communism and its counterparts in interwar and postwar Europe and Asia; the impact of disaster on social life and environmental change in China and East Asia; the contemporary legacy on politics and historiography of the Sino-Japanese War.

 

We are also very much aware that pioneering scholars in several continents have already been active in pursuing rich new work in this field, and we will note and honour their contributions by links to this website as it builds up over time.