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The ROC nationalists "ran away" because they did almost all the anti-Japanese fighting during WWII, while the communists sat back and conserved their strength f

The ROC nationalists "ran away" because they did almost all the anti-Japanese fighting during WWII, while the communists sat back and conserved their strength for the coming civil war. Which they proceeded to win. Edit: It's true. Go read a book or something: https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial-japan-the-kmt-did/ https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial... > This would be the trend of the entire war. As two scholars note, “From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. The CCP was not a main force in any of these. The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.”

torstenvl 5y ago
Based on the downvote patterns in this thread, it's pretty obvious CCP trolls with HN accounts are highly active.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Well, it could be that there is an army of paid trolls targeting this relatively small and specialized forum, but it strikes me as much more likely that this is a contentious issue and not everyone feels the same way about it.
  - monksy 5y ago
    There are financial incentives to push propaganda on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Considering how frequently I find people who just don't like what I have to say accusing me of being bought off by some state, company, or other entity, I find such accusations less than compelling when thrown around on so little evidence.
- bakuninsbart 5y ago
  It is a very contentious discussion, and it seems like a lot of half-educated people are sharinng opinions. The way I understand it, today's population of Taiwan largely want to be an independent state, and all those uncreative jokes about ROC being the real China actually torpedo that. I'm generally very careful with downvotes on this platform, as I think they should only be used when something is plain wrong or detrimental to the discussion. For me, your comment falls into the second category though; it doesn't add anything to the discussion, but seeks to rile up people to start downvoting or brigading others.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I think the idea of independence is still fairly contentious within Taiwanese politics, though they're currently governed by a pro-independence party so maybe that doesn't really matter. It is true, though, that the current cross-Strait consensus would be upset by Taiwan NOT claiming to govern the Mainland, making the "West Taiwan" jokes not make any kind of sense.
- dang 5y ago
  You broke the site guidelines egregiously with this comment. Posting insinuations like this without evidence (no, patterns that you think you see in downvotes are not evidence) is seriously against the rules here, for reasons I've explained hundreds if not thousands of times over many years. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    I feel like "egregiously" is a little unfair, absent an aggravating factor. However, you're absolutely right, I'm absolutely wrong, and I apologize. This was an emotional and low-effort comment and I wish I could take it back. Mea culpa.
    - dang 5y ago
      You're right - "egregiously" was excessive. Sorry about that bit and thanks for the open-minded reply. That is rare in cases like this so I appreciate it.
emodendroket 5y ago
Traditional historiography (and Chiang's contemporaneous American advisers) held just the opposite.
- alentist 5y ago
  Where did you read that? Because it's definitely not true.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    There are revisionists who cliam Chiang was better than commonly held but, for instance, this book presents the traditional view and pretty extensively quotes from frustrated American advisers who didn't think he had much interest in fighting the Japanese himself: https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Against-Sun-American-Japan/dp/0394741013/ https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Against-Sun-American-Japan/dp/0...
    - alentist 5y ago
      Do you have a page number for your claim? Because the mainstream view is that the KMT did much more to fight Japan than the CCP. It is bizarre for you to claim that Chiang "didn't have much interest in fighting the Japanese" when the KMT suffered the bulk of the casualties (and led most of the battles) in the war against Japan.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        It's been a while since I read it and I have a digital copy but here's an excerpt from the beginning of chapter 15: > The reality of the war in China was far different. The Chinese army had not fought a serious battle with the Japanese since 1938. In the western sense it was really not an army at all, but a coalition of warlord bands scattered over twelve “war areas” which roughly corresponded to groupings of the old provinces of Imperial China. Each local warlord functioned as war area commander; in this capacity he exercised both civil and military control. Many of the warlord armies were ill-equipped and poorly trained. They seldom fought the Japanese, serving mainly to buttress the power of the war area commander instead. The core of divisions directly under the control of the generalissimo were better trained and equipped. But even they were undermanned and lacked artillery; in most cases they were commanded by officers chosen more for their loyalty to the generalissimo than for their military prowess.6 > “ ‘The general idea in the United States that China has fought Japan to a standstill and has had many glorious victories is a delusion,’ ” wrote a member of the American military mission to China. “ ‘Japan has generally been able to push forward any place she wanted to. She has stopped mainly because of the fact that a certain number of troops can safely hold only a certain number of miles of front. . . . The will to fight an aggressive action does not yet exist in the Chinese Army.’ ”7 > Corrupt, demoralized, inefficient, and oppressive, Chiang’s Kuomintang government was uninterested in “aggressive action.” It was interested in surviving the war against Japan with its armies intact, ready to deal with the generalissimo’s rivals among the warlords and his far more dangerous enemies, the Chinese Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung. A handful of Americans on the scene, like Ambassador Clarence Gauss, a dour New Englander with few illusions, attempted to enlighten Washington about the actual state of things, but had no discernable impact.8 And here's some discussion of Mao found in chapter 17: > Yet the Communists profited from their mistakes. Under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung (who blamed the setbacks on his rivals, whom he then purged), the Communists concentrated on guerrilla warfare by small, widely dispersed units; their strategy emphasized the importance of building a solid base of support among the peasants by living among them and sharing their burdens and hardships.38 As Japanese units were gradually withdrawn from northern China to meet the Allied attacks in the Pacific, the Communists stepped up their guerrilla attacks. The Ichigo offensive brought them still more opportunities. By the fall of 1944 the Communists controlled large portions of four provinces. Their base areas were established in territory supposedly held by the Japanese but where the latter were too weak or too thinly spread to exercise any real control. > At the start of the Ichigo attacks, Vice President Henry Wallace, on a special visit to Chungking, had urged that the Communists and Nationalists attempt to settle their differences in the face of the common danger and that an American military mission be allowed to visit the Communist base areas in the north.39 Chiang reluctantly agreed. The so-called “Dixie Mission,” composed of a small group of American soldiers and foreign service officers under Colonel David Barrett, arrived at Yenan in July 1944. > The men of the Dixie Mission were favorably impressed by the Communist display of energy and aggressiveness. Communist leaders like Chu Teh, Chou En-lai, and Mao Tse-tung—with their informality, homely manner and apparent frankness—struck the Americans as a favorable contrast to the traditionalism and ritual formality of Koumintang leaders in Chungking.40 Discussions were held; plans were made by Wedemeyer’s headquarters and the OSS for military cooperation between the Americans and Communists, and for the Communist forces to receive lend-lease military supplies and American military instructors. (The OSS had, in fact, already begun some elementary small-arms and demolition training for Communist soldiers.41) All these projects came to nought, however, because of the strong opposition of General Hurley who, shortly after Stilwell’s recall, had replaced Clarence Gauss as U.S. ambassador to China. Hurley was in the midst of tortuous and ultimately futile negotiations to persuade the Chinese Communists to enter a coalition government under Chiang’s leadership; he wanted to use access to military assistance as a bargaining tool.42 I'd say that the comparison of the number of traditional battles fought that you're offering as evidence does not make sense given the nature of the two forces.
VictorPath 5y ago
> From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. Communist guerilla armies tend not to deploy regiments regularly. Mao discusses this in "On Guerilla Warfare". The NLF in Vietnam, the 26th of July movement in Cuba etc. we're not big on regiments. Vietnamization and US withdrawal from Vietnam happened without much regiment deployment (other than the Tet offensive and a handful of other occasions). The guerilla tactics were fairly effective though. "Guerrilla armies should fight like large, well funded armies" is a very old complaint that has been made. I'm sure the British and loyalists used it against George Washington.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  If you look at the article, there's plenty more to make it clear the communists did no pulling: > The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.” and > Specifically, in January 1940 Zhou Enlai sent a secret report to Joseph Stalin which said that over a million Chinese had died fighting the Japanese through the summer of 1939. He further admitted that only 3 percent of those were CCP forces. Also, guerilla tactics are effective when the enemy is not willing to exterminate the enemy population. The Japanese absolutely were. > I'm sure the British and loyalists used it against George Washington. This is kinda overwrought. The US continental army did refrain from some continental-style line-up-and-shoot "tactics", but outside the south they engaged mostly in pitched battles. They didn't win by sniping redcoats here and there.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    > The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.” This is implausible, considering the Eighth Route Army (counted as the 18th Group Army by the Nationalists), which participated in e.g. the Battle of Taiyuan, started out with more than 30,000 soldiers and grew to several hundreds of thousands over the course of the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army The only way you could come to the conclusion that the Communists only fought once is if you tried to assign all soldiers to either Nationalists or Communists, and discounted all Communist forces fighting as part of the United Front, which officially placed them under Nationalist command.

torstenvl 5y ago

Based on the downvote patterns in this thread, it's pretty obvious CCP trolls with HN accounts are highly active.

emodendroket 5y ago
Well, it could be that there is an army of paid trolls targeting this relatively small and specialized forum, but it strikes me as much more likely that this is a contentious issue and not everyone feels the same way about it.
- monksy 5y ago
  There are financial incentives to push propaganda on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Considering how frequently I find people who just don't like what I have to say accusing me of being bought off by some state, company, or other entity, I find such accusations less than compelling when thrown around on so little evidence.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
It is a very contentious discussion, and it seems like a lot of half-educated people are sharinng opinions. The way I understand it, today's population of Taiwan largely want to be an independent state, and all those uncreative jokes about ROC being the real China actually torpedo that. I'm generally very careful with downvotes on this platform, as I think they should only be used when something is plain wrong or detrimental to the discussion. For me, your comment falls into the second category though; it doesn't add anything to the discussion, but seeks to rile up people to start downvoting or brigading others.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I think the idea of independence is still fairly contentious within Taiwanese politics, though they're currently governed by a pro-independence party so maybe that doesn't really matter. It is true, though, that the current cross-Strait consensus would be upset by Taiwan NOT claiming to govern the Mainland, making the "West Taiwan" jokes not make any kind of sense.
dang 5y ago
You broke the site guidelines egregiously with this comment. Posting insinuations like this without evidence (no, patterns that you think you see in downvotes are not evidence) is seriously against the rules here, for reasons I've explained hundreds if not thousands of times over many years. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- torstenvl 5y ago
  I feel like "egregiously" is a little unfair, absent an aggravating factor. However, you're absolutely right, I'm absolutely wrong, and I apologize. This was an emotional and low-effort comment and I wish I could take it back. Mea culpa.
  - dang 5y ago
    You're right - "egregiously" was excessive. Sorry about that bit and thanks for the open-minded reply. That is rare in cases like this so I appreciate it.

emodendroket 5y ago

Traditional historiography (and Chiang's contemporaneous American advisers) held just the opposite.

alentist 5y ago
Where did you read that? Because it's definitely not true.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  There are revisionists who cliam Chiang was better than commonly held but, for instance, this book presents the traditional view and pretty extensively quotes from frustrated American advisers who didn't think he had much interest in fighting the Japanese himself: https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Against-Sun-American-Japan/dp/0394741013/ https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Against-Sun-American-Japan/dp/0...
  - alentist 5y ago
    Do you have a page number for your claim? Because the mainstream view is that the KMT did much more to fight Japan than the CCP. It is bizarre for you to claim that Chiang "didn't have much interest in fighting the Japanese" when the KMT suffered the bulk of the casualties (and led most of the battles) in the war against Japan.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      It's been a while since I read it and I have a digital copy but here's an excerpt from the beginning of chapter 15: > The reality of the war in China was far different. The Chinese army had not fought a serious battle with the Japanese since 1938. In the western sense it was really not an army at all, but a coalition of warlord bands scattered over twelve “war areas” which roughly corresponded to groupings of the old provinces of Imperial China. Each local warlord functioned as war area commander; in this capacity he exercised both civil and military control. Many of the warlord armies were ill-equipped and poorly trained. They seldom fought the Japanese, serving mainly to buttress the power of the war area commander instead. The core of divisions directly under the control of the generalissimo were better trained and equipped. But even they were undermanned and lacked artillery; in most cases they were commanded by officers chosen more for their loyalty to the generalissimo than for their military prowess.6 > “ ‘The general idea in the United States that China has fought Japan to a standstill and has had many glorious victories is a delusion,’ ” wrote a member of the American military mission to China. “ ‘Japan has generally been able to push forward any place she wanted to. She has stopped mainly because of the fact that a certain number of troops can safely hold only a certain number of miles of front. . . . The will to fight an aggressive action does not yet exist in the Chinese Army.’ ”7 > Corrupt, demoralized, inefficient, and oppressive, Chiang’s Kuomintang government was uninterested in “aggressive action.” It was interested in surviving the war against Japan with its armies intact, ready to deal with the generalissimo’s rivals among the warlords and his far more dangerous enemies, the Chinese Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung. A handful of Americans on the scene, like Ambassador Clarence Gauss, a dour New Englander with few illusions, attempted to enlighten Washington about the actual state of things, but had no discernable impact.8 And here's some discussion of Mao found in chapter 17: > Yet the Communists profited from their mistakes. Under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung (who blamed the setbacks on his rivals, whom he then purged), the Communists concentrated on guerrilla warfare by small, widely dispersed units; their strategy emphasized the importance of building a solid base of support among the peasants by living among them and sharing their burdens and hardships.38 As Japanese units were gradually withdrawn from northern China to meet the Allied attacks in the Pacific, the Communists stepped up their guerrilla attacks. The Ichigo offensive brought them still more opportunities. By the fall of 1944 the Communists controlled large portions of four provinces. Their base areas were established in territory supposedly held by the Japanese but where the latter were too weak or too thinly spread to exercise any real control. > At the start of the Ichigo attacks, Vice President Henry Wallace, on a special visit to Chungking, had urged that the Communists and Nationalists attempt to settle their differences in the face of the common danger and that an American military mission be allowed to visit the Communist base areas in the north.39 Chiang reluctantly agreed. The so-called “Dixie Mission,” composed of a small group of American soldiers and foreign service officers under Colonel David Barrett, arrived at Yenan in July 1944. > The men of the Dixie Mission were favorably impressed by the Communist display of energy and aggressiveness. Communist leaders like Chu Teh, Chou En-lai, and Mao Tse-tung—with their informality, homely manner and apparent frankness—struck the Americans as a favorable contrast to the traditionalism and ritual formality of Koumintang leaders in Chungking.40 Discussions were held; plans were made by Wedemeyer’s headquarters and the OSS for military cooperation between the Americans and Communists, and for the Communist forces to receive lend-lease military supplies and American military instructors. (The OSS had, in fact, already begun some elementary small-arms and demolition training for Communist soldiers.41) All these projects came to nought, however, because of the strong opposition of General Hurley who, shortly after Stilwell’s recall, had replaced Clarence Gauss as U.S. ambassador to China. Hurley was in the midst of tortuous and ultimately futile negotiations to persuade the Chinese Communists to enter a coalition government under Chiang’s leadership; he wanted to use access to military assistance as a bargaining tool.42 I'd say that the comparison of the number of traditional battles fought that you're offering as evidence does not make sense given the nature of the two forces.

VictorPath 5y ago

> From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. Communist guerilla armies tend not to deploy regiments regularly. Mao discusses this in "On Guerilla Warfare". The NLF in Vietnam, the 26th of July movement in Cuba etc. we're not big on regiments. Vietnamization and US withdrawal from Vietnam happened without much regiment deployment (other than the Tet offensive and a handful of other occasions). The guerilla tactics were fairly effective though. "Guerrilla armies should fight like large, well funded armies" is a very old complaint that has been made. I'm sure the British and loyalists used it against George Washington.

bpodgursky 5y ago
If you look at the article, there's plenty more to make it clear the communists did no pulling: > The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.” and > Specifically, in January 1940 Zhou Enlai sent a secret report to Joseph Stalin which said that over a million Chinese had died fighting the Japanese through the summer of 1939. He further admitted that only 3 percent of those were CCP forces. Also, guerilla tactics are effective when the enemy is not willing to exterminate the enemy population. The Japanese absolutely were. > I'm sure the British and loyalists used it against George Washington. This is kinda overwrought. The US continental army did refrain from some continental-style line-up-and-shoot "tactics", but outside the south they engaged mostly in pitched battles. They didn't win by sniping redcoats here and there.
- yorwba 5y ago
  > The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.” This is implausible, considering the Eighth Route Army (counted as the 18th Group Army by the Nationalists), which participated in e.g. the Battle of Taiyuan, started out with more than 30,000 soldiers and grew to several hundreds of thousands over the course of the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army The only way you could come to the conclusion that the Communists only fought once is if you tried to assign all soldiers to either Nationalists or Communists, and discounted all Communist forces fighting as part of the United Front, which officially placed them under Nationalist command.