What the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) described as its efforts in “the theater behind enemy lines” did little to help in the Republic of China’s (ROC) War of Resistance Against Japan, according to a war historian based in Taipei.
If the so-called theater behind enemy lines had been the focus of the war, as the CCP claims, the Imperial Japanese Army would have been too busy fighting Communist forces to deal with the ROC Army on the “front lines,” World War II historian Teng Hsin-yun (滕昕雲) said.
Teng made the comments to reject China’s claim that it was the CCP that led the war effort against the Japanese.
The two-theater dichotomy was invented by the CCP in an attempt to play up the role of Communist forces during the war from 1937 to 1945, he said.
For example, the Japanese launched major offensives in 1944 as part of their efforts to secure lines of transportation without being hampered by the Communists, Teng said.
He also cited the number and concentration of aerial bombardments carried out by the Japanese as an indication of who posed the greater threat to the invaders.
During the eight-year war, the CCP’s main stronghold in Yanan, Shaanxi Province, was bombed 17 times, compared with 218 raids targeting Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
Teng said the question of who actually led the war can easily be answered by another question: To whom did the Japanese surrender?
Japanese forces in China were instructed by Tokyo to surrender to the KMT government instead of the Communist forces, even though the CCP now claims that its troops were responsible for “75 percent of the fighting,” Teng said.
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