Significance of the Chinese military contribution to World War 2 disputed.

Actually Chiang is also doing it for himself. Despite already knowing Japan is going to be defeated, it is still too close a struggle to allow them any breathing space.

Also it's not like China hadn't already suffered enough by then, war started between Japan and China a few years earlier than WWII, and we've learned from previous deals that Japan simply cannot be trusted.

I posted this in another thread. For those of you who can read Chinese, please google for a book call 中日大决战. It details all the major battles between the Japanese and the Nationalist armies and how bravely the Nationalist armies fought in those battles

I highly recommend two books: 国破山河在 and 尊严不是无代价的 by 萨苏. He gathered historic documents from the Japanese archives to show what the Chinese forces did in the war. Very individual stories of Chinese soldiers' braveries. I have all books in ebook format. PM me if you want a copy.

I have seen some recent mainland movies and TV shows dealing with the Nationalist armies and in my opinion, they are shit. What they showed are nowhere near the stuffs I read in books

BTW, please leave the political discussions in other threads.

vincent said:

I have seen some recent mainland movies and TV shows dealing with the Nationalist armies and in my opinion, they are shit. What they showed are nowhere near the stuffs I read in books

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Movies and TV shows will always have elements of fiction and interpretation to the history they represent. Do you think "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is "shit" because it doesn't accurately represent the history of the Three Kingdoms era?

Also, just because history is recorded a certain way in one book, doesn't make that book the "bible". Many books will have different interpretations.

Suppose political forces turned out differently, and Japan followed through on its theoretical position of being the champion of Asia things would have turned out very differently. The Asian Co-prosperity Sphere would likely have defeated the USA in the Pacific with its great manpower and resources and taken Hawaii (no American century). Even Russian Far East would have fallen. Western forces would have been kicked out of South East Asia. Invasion would be conceivable against Australia and eventually British Indian Empire.

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What about the American development of nuclear weapons? Japan was never close to developing an atomic bomb. Even if Japan overran the entire Pacific region, as soon as the United States developed atomic weapons it could have launched long-range bombing missions on Japanese-occupied islands one-by-one, nuking them all the way to the home islands.

^^^ I think the US will still just nuke cities in mainland Japan to induce a quick surrender.

Atomic bombs are not easy to make back in those days, and they might want these islands clean for their own purposes after.

solarz said:

Movies and TV shows will always have elements of fiction and interpretation to the history they represent. Do you think "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is "shit" because it doesn't accurately represent the history of the Three Kingdoms era?

Also, just because history is recorded a certain way in one book, doesn't make that book the "bible". Many books will have different interpretations.

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Well, people in this thread mentioned that the shows and movies from mainland nowadays are showing the bravery of the Nationalist armies. I like to dispute that fact. I rather believe authors from outside of China than the ones from within. We all know everything from the mainland is censored by the government. I was born in China and I spent a few years back there recently, so I have first hand experience with the damn censors.

vincent said:

Well, people in this thread mentioned that the shows and movies from mainland nowadays are showing the bravery of the Nationalist armies. I like to dispute that fact. I rather believe authors from outside of China than the ones from within. We all know everything from the mainland is censored by the government. I was born in China and I spent a few years back there recently, so I have first hand experience with the damn censors.

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You're kidding yourself if you think authors outside of China are not biased. There is propaganda everywhere, not just in China. That's why critical thinking is essential.

solarz said:

You're kidding yourself if you think authors outside of China are not biased. There is propaganda everywhere, not just in China. That's why critical thinking is essential.

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Agreed, I find American people are by far, some of the most brainwashed people on earth. And there is more than 1 type of censorship, what China is doing is direct censorship. There is also the type of Western censorship of controlling the information flow, what to report, what not to report, which side of story gets the most coverage etc... In the end, you get the same or even worse result, because the people getting censored have no idea they are being brainwashed.

solarz said:

You're kidding yourself if you think authors outside of China are not biased. There is propaganda everywhere, not just in China. That's why critical thinking is essential.

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yes of course. Owen Lattimore, John Fairbanks and Edgar Snow are the most famous biased writers on 20th century China. the mainland Chinese historians when quoting foreign sources often referred to these 3 writers.

lightspeed said:

yes of course. Owen Lattimore, John Fairbanks and Edgar Snow are the most famous biased writers on 20th century China. the mainland Chinese historians when quoting foreign sources often referred to these 3 writers.

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Yes, there are people that are not biased, therefore it makes everyone else also unbiased. And since there are biased Chinese writers, therefore everything Chinese is bias as well.

Great logic.