China At War 1901 1949

Few phases of history were as heavy with implications for the world at large than the turbulent years through which China moved from the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty in 1911, through anarchy, civil war and invasion, to the final triumph of the Communists in 1949 - yet few periods are as little known by the wider world, and so little understood. Professor Dreyer's impressive account of China at war is both an important contribution to this new series of studies of modern wars in their full political, social and ideological contexts, and also a valuable introduction to the birth- confused, bloody and painful as it was - of the future superpower.

China is one of the great powers of the modern world. Yet in the late 19th century China was a ramshackle and isolated medieval empire upon whom the European colonial powers could impose their wishes at will. China's Wars describes the series of conflicts from 1894 to 1949 that forged modern China, from colonial clashes such as the Boxer Rebellion, through the chaotic years of warlord domination to the Japanese invasion, the Second World War and the bitter Civil War that followed. Previously unpublished photographs, contemporary pictures and specially-commissioned maps illustrate these tumultuous events and the men who fought them, events that would end with the eventual triumph of the Communist Party and the rise of modern China.

Many books have tried to analyze the reasons for the Chinese communist success in China's 1945-1949 civil war, but Suzanne Pepper's seminal work was the first and remains the only comprehensive analysis of how the ruling Nationalists lost that war--not just militarily, but by alienating the civilian population through corruption and incompetence. Now available in a new edition, this authoritative investigation of Kuomintang failure and communist success explores the new research and archival resources available for assessing this pivotal period in contemporary Chinese history.

Includes selections from the daily bulletins of the China Information Committee.

China's Civil War is the first book of its kind to offer a social history in English of the Civil War in 1945-9 that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power. Integrating history and memory, it surveys a period of intense upheaval and chaos to show how the Communist Party and its armies succeeded in overthrowing the Nationalist government to bring political and social revolution to China. Drawing from a collection of biographies, memoirs, illustrations and oral histories, Diana Lary gives a voice to those who experienced the war first-hand, exemplifying the direct effects of warfare - the separations and divisions, the exiles and losses, and the social upheaval that resulted from the conflict. Lary explores the long-term impact on Chinese societies on the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have all diverged far from pre-war Chinese society.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the largest army in the world. China is predicted to be on the brink of overtaking the USA as the world's largest economy, and China's military capabilities and global ambitions are the single greatest long-term pre-occupation of Western governments. The PLA has progressed steadily – if slowly – since its creation in 1949, from a mass army of unsophisticated infantry limited to 'human wave' tactics into a highly sophisticated force with wide capabilities. The most recent reforms (1989 to the present day) have been made possible by massive economic liberalization, and have seen not only the modernization of all the armed forces but the beginnings of global outreach, even including Chinese participation in UN peace-keeping missions to Africa, the Middle East, and Haiti. Featuring rare photographs and specially commissioned color artwork, this study explores the developing structure, organization, equipment, appearance, and character of the Chinese People's Liberation Army from its creation until today.

By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, China had become one of the great powers of the modern world. Economically, politically, and militarily, its power and international reach is only exceeded by the United States, the world's one remaining superpower. Its military spending, though dwarfed by the United States, is over $100 billion a year and it is busy developing an aircraft carrier, a stealth fighter jet, and missiles that can shoot down satellites - all in an effort to project its power on a global scale. This is all a far cry from its position at the end of the 19th century, when it was a ramshackle and isolated medieval empire upon whom the European colonial powers could impose their wishes at will. The period from the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 through to the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War ending in 1949 was one of near-constant conflict that saw China emerge as a fledgling new world power. Militarily at least, this is the defining period in Chinese history. This is the period that saw the breakdown of the traditional imperial system of control, under threat from a series of rebellions throughout the 19th century, and the rise of the warlords and civil war in 1911. Despite the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, the country was still riven by internal strife as different factions sought to control the fledgling state, while much of the power in the land was exercised by regional warlords in a constant state of conflict with one another. The 1920s saw the rise of two opposing revolutionary movements, the Kuomintang, led first by Sun Yat-Sen and later Chiang Kai-Shek, and the Chinese Communist Party, one of whose early leaders was Mao Tse-Tung. The Kuomintang managed to gain control of the majority of China by the late 1920s, and started a long running conflict with the Communists at the same time. The late 1920s also saw the first significant Japanese intervention in China, and in 1931 the Japanese took control of the whole of Manchuria. By 1937 this had escalated into out and out conflict with the Chinese, a conflict which would last till the Japanese defeat in World War II in 1945. Even then China had to struggle through four years of painful civil war before the Chinese Communist Party finally established control in 1949. In this new study Philip Jowett traces the complicated military history of China during these pivotal years, describing in detail the conflicts that forge the modern superpower that is China today.

This history of modern China under the regime of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek traces the development of military and political forces within the Nationalist government, the Kuomintang, and the Communist Party through the end of World War II.