Second Sino-Japanese War (Yellowstone: 1936)

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Second Sino-Japanese War
Part of the Pacific War (from 1938)
Chinese troops entering Japanese-held Korea during the Chinese Offensive to Korea
Date July 7, 1937–October 5, 1942 (1,916 days) Location Mainland China, Korea Result Chinese Victory Territorial changes Chinese Forces liberated 192,900 km² of territory inside Japanese-held Korea
Belligerents
Republic of China United States (Air Support)	Empire of Japan with Collaborator support
Commanders and leaders
Chiang Kai-shek Chen Cheng Yan Xishan Li Zongren Xue Yue Bai Chongxi Wei Lihuang Du Yuming Fu Zuoyi Sun Lire Mao Zedong Zhu De Peng Dehuai	Hirohito Korechika Anami Yasuhiko Asaka Shunroku Hata Seishirō Itagaki Kotohito Kan'in Iwane Matsui Toshizō Nishio Yasuji Okamura Hajime Sugiyama Hideki Tōjō Yoshijirō Umezu Seizo Ishikawa Pu Yi Wang Jingwei
Strength
3,051,000-3,851,000 troops 18,944 tanks 19,836 guns 13,200 aircraft	6,280,000+ troops
Casualties and losses
301,900-308,000 killed in action and missing 49,532-80,000 severely wounded who were killed in hospital 200,000 captured and tortured to death 120,000 captured and escaped	Japanese source: 2,132,000-2,668,000 dead, missing, captured and wounded Chinese source: 3,292,000–4,308,000 dead, missing, captured and wounded
126,960 civilian volunteers killed

The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – ), called so after the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1941. China fought Japan with some foreign support, while Japan utilized collaborator states in China to aid them. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1938, the war merged into the greater conflict of the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It also believed to have made up more than 50% of the casualties in the Pacific War if the 1937–1941 period is taken into account.

The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and militarily and to secure its vast raw material reserves and other economic resources, particularly food and labour. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, so-called "incidents". In 1931, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army followed the Mukden Incident. The last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the beginning of total war between the two countries.

Initially the Japanese scored major victories in Shanghai after heavy fighting, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior. By 1939 the war had reached stalemate after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, which performed harassment and sabotage operations against the Japanese using guerrilla warfare tactics. On December 13, 1938, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day (December 14, 1938) the Allied nations of the British Empire, the Netherlands, and the American Pacific-Asiatic Zone declared war on Japan. The Allies began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road.