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The two big props of Communism, were started by backhanded revolultionaries that hurt a country during war. In WWI, the revolutionaries pitched the czars during WWI forcing Russia out of the war with extensive loss of territory. In WWII, the KMT was sacked by those cowards who wouldn't fight the Japanese, but would carve up their fellow kin.
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Chiang & the KMT stood up briefly to go toe-to-toe against Imperial Japan in China. The KMT couldn't hold, & they lost the cream of their troops & lots of equipment & supplies. In the end, Chiang preferred to stockpile weapons & money & power against the day he would fight it out with the Chinese Communist Party. The KMT lost - because of poor discipline & a warlordish mentality on the part of the senior KMT officers. Their rank was simply a pass to extort, steal, divert money - ghost troops, lost or missing food, transport, weapons, fuel.
Yah, the Chinese CP had its faults - but they were willing to fight IJ, & had the discipline not to steal nor mistreat the peasantry. In the end, they won the hearts & minds of the population, & that meant the end of the KMT. The Chinese CP was very cautious in fighting IJ, but they did fight & persisted, while the KMT reached a kind of de facto truce with the IJ forces.
US Army Gen. Stilwell (our man in China in WWII) had a high opinion of Chinese troops - but he thought their (KMT) officers were a complete loss. With US or US-trained officers & NCOs, the Chinese troops fought well. & he thought Chiang & his cohort were far more interested in lining their pockets than in fighting off the IJ. See Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45, by Barbara W. Tuchman and published in 1971 by Macmillan Publishers.
US Army Gen. Stilwell (our man in China in WWII) had a high opinion of Chinese troops - but he thought their (KMT) officers were a complete loss.
Not really. For example, Virginia Military Institute graduate General Sun li-jen, helped save 7,000 besieged British soldiers in Burma in 1942. And that was before General Stilwell took charge.
General Sun was awarded Medal of Honor from King George VI and FDR. Even CCP recognized his merits. A TV series portrayed the feat of Chinese Expeditionary Army in Burma under leadership of General Sun.
In fact, according to Mainland China TV series "Chinese Expeditionary Army" produced by Yunnan TV network in 2011, over 33,000 Japanese soldiers were killed by the New First Army led by General Sun in Burma in various campaigns.
The myth that KMT did not fight is untrue. Otherwise how could China tie up one million strong Japanese army in China for over 8 years (1937-45)?
Compared with France and the US-held Philippines, or British-held Malaya and Singapore, or the Dutch-held East Indies (present day Indonesia) which suffered almost instant defeat and surrender, China persevered.
Communism had friends in the media that protected and apologized for it. Some were even communists.
True.
The kind of journalists like Edgar Snow.
And celebrities like Shirley MacLaine and Jane Fonda. The former openly showed her admiration for Cultural Revolution. Even Deng Xiaoping, who suffered during that period, was pissed off by her.
China is a big country, & IJ was much too optimistic
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Originally Posted by Ian_Lee
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The myth that KMT did not fight is untrue. Otherwise how could China tie up one million strong Japanese army in China for over 8 years (1937-45)?
Compared with France and the US-held Philippines, or British-held Malaya and Singapore, or the Dutch-held East Indies (present day Indonesia) which suffered almost instant defeat and surrender, China persevered.
The KMT did stand & fight for a time. But they lost a lot of soldiers & materiel. The Chinese Communist Party, to my knowledge, was more consistent in fighting IJ, if more conservative of their soldiers & supplies - they had to adapt guerilla fighting to their circumstances. IJ committed a lot of troops to China - but they shattered the government so thoroughly that there was no one left to negotiate with - & the KMT was not the sole contender for power in rump China. Besides the Chinese CP, there were warlords & other factions contending for power.
I don't know that it's quite true to say that the Philippines were held by the US - Gen. McArthur was off the US chain of command as a Field Marshall in the Philippines - after they gained semi-independence in 1935. The Philippine Army was federalized by the US in July 1941 - but draftee intake, training & equipment & bases were seriously behind schedule. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougla...hilippine_Army for a discussion of the issues.)
& as far as that goes, PM Winston Churchill was seriously embarrassed that Malaya & Singapore fell to IJ quickly, while the US & some Philippine units hung grimly on there. Of course, if the latter (& the former, I'm sure) had known what would happen to them as POWs, they would have likely fought to the death
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China is a big country, & IJ was much too optimistic
