Talk:Second Sino-Japanese War

Erroneous Casualty Statistics

The casualty figures are not supported by the citation. I have Clodfelter's book in front of me as I type this and there is no page 956. Where are these extreme figures coming from? Clodfelter estimates 3 million dead and states that the highest estimate is 6,325,000. (see page 394 -which does exits).

-Update: and now my edited figures, based on Clodfelter, 394, have been reverted by someone back to the 17-22 million based on non-existent page 956. So what is the point of the talk section exactly? Do we want facts or do we just want to make up stuff that sounds cool and cite non-existent sources?

We should have facts. Just keep reverting until the limit and then go to his talk page and work it out. Show him the proof Alexysun (talk) 16:01, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Has this matter been solved yet? It's been 9 months now. Heavenly Smile (talk) 12:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Long; incomprehensible

Volunteer Marek, I agree with the tag, in addition to the existing 'too long' one. Would you consider tagging specific sections if they were particularly difficult, or is it throughout? I thought, though it is 13 years old, to try looking at the version of the article that was nominated for GA for clarity, and wow, that was either a bad nomination, or it's new information to how much lower standards were. Does anyone have any more specific anchor points for how they might tackle this mammoth? Remsense留 05:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

In my view, the weakest area is the discussion on the actual course of the war. Largely unsourced, often too prose-y. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Also a lot of "play-by-play" but with skipping context and important developments in between. Reading it you constantly are asking yourself, as a reader, "what is this referring to? what is this talking about? who's this that all of sudden is mentioned?" Volunteer Marek 17:19, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Remsense: I just stumbled by and found this completely unreadable. Starting with the lead. I think the first paragraph is good. I would throw away everything south of there until the line "China was recognized as one of the Big Four Allies during the war, regained all territories lost to Japan" and maybe "and became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council" in the fourth paragraph.

I think "Entrances of the Western Allies" is huge. "Foreign aid/Western Allies/US" is oversized (US-centric?).

How much post-war stuff do you want? The Chinese Civil War has its own article. Taiwan is linked to "Legal status of Taiwan" but not "Taiwan" itself.

I don't do military history, this seems sort of obvious, I just thought that something posted might give you a hook to go on from. Sammy D III (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

The Chinese flag is the Taiwanese flag?

The Chinese flag has five yellow stars on a red background, and in this article, the Chinese flag comes out as the Taiwanese flag. Wouldn't it be possible to cause confusion if the flag of Taiwan was used as the flag of China when it was not even a war between Taiwan and Japan? Mamiamauwy (talk) 13:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

The flag is that of the Republic of China, which evacuated to the island of Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. In common parlance, we now call that country "Taiwan" in English, but the continuity of the government is still there. Remsense诉 13:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Trimmed unsourced version of Operation Ichigo

I recently trimmed the unsourced description of Operation Ichigo and replaced it with a sourced version adapted from that page.

I want to retain or archive the unsourced version here. There's some decent material here that could be restored if someone wants to find a citation for it. It's not what we want on the page when sourced material is otherwise available, but it could be worked with in the future.

_______________________

The United States saw the Chinese theater as a means to tie up a large number of Japanese troops, as well as being a location for American airbases from which to strike the Japanese home islands. In 1944, with the Japanese position in the Pacific deteriorating rapidly, the IJA mobilized over 500,000 men and launched Operation Ichi-Go, their largest offensive of World War II, to attack the American airbases in China and link up the railway between Manchuria and Vietnam. This brought major cities in Hunan, Henan and Guangxi under Japanese occupation. The failure of Chinese forces to defend these areas encouraged Stilwell to attempt to gain overall command of the Chinese army, and his subsequent showdown with Chiang led to his replacement by Major General Albert Coady Wedemeyer.

In 1944, China became overconfident due to several victories against Japan in Burma. Nationalist China had also diverted soldiers and deployed them to Xinjiang in 1942. Former Soviet client Sheng Shicai,who was allied to the Soviets since the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang in 1934, turned to the Nationalists. The fighting then escalated in early 1944 with the Ili Rebellion with Soviet backed Uyghur Communist rebels, causing China to fight enemies on two fronts with 120,000 Chinese soldiers fighting against the Ili rebellion.

The aim of the Japanese Operation Ichigo was to destroy American airfields in southern China that threatened the Japanese home islands with bombing and to link railways in Beijing, Hankou and Canton cities from northern China in Beijing to southern China's coast on Canton. Japan was alarmed by American air raids against Japanese forces in Taiwan's Hsinchu airfield by American bombers based in southern China, correctly deducing that southern China could become the base of a major American bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands so Japan resolved to destroy and capture all airbases where American bombers operated from in Operation Ichigo.

Chiang Kai-shek and the Republic of China authorities deliberately ignored and dismissed a tip passed on to the Chinese government in Chongqing by the French military that the French picked up in colonial French Indochina on the impending Japanese offensive to link the three cities. The Chinese military believed it to be a fake tip planted by Japan to mislead them, since only 30,000 Japanese soldiers started the first maneuver of Operation Ichigo in northern China crossing the Yellow river, so the Chinese assumed it would be a local operation in northern China only. Another major factor was that the battlefront between China and Japan was static and stabilized since 1940 and continued for four years that way until Operation Ichigo in 1944, so Chiang assumed that Japan would continue the same posture and remain behind the lines in pre-1940 occupied territories of north China only, bolstering the puppet Chinese government of Wang Jingwei and exploiting resources there. The Japanese had indeed acted this way from 1940 to 1944, with the Japanese only making a few failed weak attempts to capture China's provisional capital in Chongqing on the Yangtze river, which they quickly abandoned before 1944. Japan also exhibited no intention before of linking the transcontinental Beijing Hankow Canton railways.

China also was made confident by its three victories in a row defending Changsha against Japan in 1939, 1941, and 1942. China had also defeated Japan in the India-Burma theater in Southeast Asia with X Force and Y Force and the Chinese could not believe Japan had carelessly let information slip into French hands, believing Japan deliberately fed misinformation to the French to divert Chinese troops from India and Burma. China believed the Burma theater to be far more important for Japan than southern China and that Japanese forces in southern China would continue to assume a defensive posture only. China believed the initial Japanese attack in Ichigo to be a localized feint and distraction in northern China so Chinese troops numbering 400,000 in North China deliberately withdrew without a fight when Japan attacked, assuming it was just another localized operation after which the Japanese would withdraw. This mistake led to the collapse of Chinese defensive lines as the Japanese soldiers, which eventually numbered in the hundreds of thousands, kept pressing the attack from northern China to central China to southern China's provinces as Chinese soldiers deliberately withdrew leading to confusion and collapse, except at the Defense of Hengyang where 17,000 outnumbered Chinese soldiers held out against over 110,000 Japanese soldiers for months in the longest siege of the war, inflicting 19,000–60,000 deaths on the Japanese. At Tushan in Guizhou province, the Nationalist government of China was forced to deploy five armies of the 8th war zone that they were using for the entire war up to Ichigo to contain the Communist Chinese to instead fight Japan. But at that point, dietary deficiencies of Japanese soldiers and increasing casualties suffered by Japan forced Japan to end Operation Ichigo in Guizhou, causing the operation to cease.

JArthur1984 (talk) 18:14, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Derim Hunt and JArthur1984 edits

Derim Hunt deleted sourced edits because he said in his edit summary "I think, that is wrong..." and "I've never read of many things that are described in the Xinjiang section here..."

How in the world are those valid reasons to deleted edits which have sources? Then I can blank the whole article because "I think that is wrong" and "I have never read this before".

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Sino-Japanese_War&diff=prev&oldid=1211445843

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Sino-Japanese_War&diff=prev&oldid=1209707033

JArthur1984's edits are full with POV issues.

He says on Second-Sino Japanese war "Replacing unsourced version of Operation Ichi-Go", but all the things he replaced was sourced, to the citation . Its the same stuff on Operation_Ichi-Go#Prelude article itself and the link there corroborates everything that was written. The paragraphs he deleted were source to one cited book, just because there aren't inline citations after every single sentence in the paragraphs doesn't mean its unsourced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Sino-Japanese_War&diff=prev&oldid=1218925479

He replaced it with stuff he edited himself into the Operation Ichigo article and then copied into the Second Sino-Japanese article that is full of mistakes. He edited this easily proven false claim by a source who is not a military historian:

" By October 1944, Sichuan was the only large province still in Nationalist control.[13]: 19 "

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Ichi-Go&diff=prev&oldid=1180937757

? The entire Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia provinces were still in Nationalist control. Shaanxi was entirely under Nationalist and Communist control. Guizhou was mostly under nationalist control and most of Yunnan too was never occupied by Japan. In fact, Japanese were expelled from the only part of western Yunnan they occupied in the battle of Tengchong while Ichigo was going on and Yunnan fully returned to Nationalist control.

Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi were never occupied by Japan at any time in the war, not even one county of them came under Japanese control.

The majority of Fujian, Yunnan didn't come under Japanese occupation. Only some ports in Fujian and a sliver of western Yunnan were and the Japanese were expelled from all of those parts by force.

This is an obvious thing that doesn't need a source like "the sky is blue", look at maps of China after Ichigo like [File:Situation at the End of World War Two.PNG] and name the Japanese units and generals which occupied those provinces (you can't because it never happened) but if you want sources for other provinces never being occupied [1] [2]

The Nationalist government took complete control of Gansu (Hexi) in 1942 (from warlord control) followed by Xinjiang. Gansu was never taken by Japan:

"As discussed above, Chiang Kai-shek had balked at Kong Xiangqi’s 1938 suggestion of removing Ma Buqing from power, but four years later the central government was in a much stronger position in the northwest. In July 1942, Chiang ordered Ma to move his forces to the remote Tsaidam 柴達木 Basin and moved central government forces into the Hexi region. At the same time, Xinjiang governor Sheng Shicai turned away from his Soviet patrons and toward the Nationalist state, welcoming central government advisors and expertise into Xinjiang for the first time. Central government troops followed in spring 1944 (Lin, 2009: 203–205). Xinjiang and Gansu, linked by motor road in 1937–1938, were now politically connected for the first time since 1912—even if, as Justin Jacobs (2011: 385–88) shows, the Nationalist state struggled to follow up its rise to power in Xinjiang. The Northwest Highway was crucial to this Nationalist takeover. Between 1942 and 1944, the trucks of the NWHTA supported the key aspects of this expansion: takeover of civil administration, movement of troops to Xinjiang and western Gansu, resettlement of refugees, exploitation of the Yumen oil field, and the numerous surveying and prospecting expeditions to the region (He, 1944: 4–5).As discussed above, Chiang Kai-shek had balked at Kong Xiangqi’s 1938 suggestion of removing Ma Buqing from power, but four years later the central government was in a much stronger position in the northwest. In July 1942, Chiang ordered Ma to move his forces to the remote Tsaidam 柴達木 Basin and moved central government forces into the Hexi region. At the same time, Xinjiang governor Sheng Shicai turned away from his Soviet patrons and toward the Nationalist state, welcoming central government advisors and expertise into Xinjiang for the first time. Central government troops followed in spring 1944 (Lin, 2009: 203–205). Xinjiang and Gansu, linked by motor road in 1937–1938, were now politically connected for the first time since 1912—even if, as Justin Jacobs (2011: 385–88) shows, the Nationalist state struggled to follow up its rise to power in Xinjiang. The Northwest Highway was crucial to this Nationalist takeover. Between 1942 and 1944, the trucks of the NWHTA supported the key aspects of this expansion: takeover of civil administration, movement of troops to Xinjiang and western Gansu, resettlement of refugees, exploitation of the Yumen oil field, and the numerous surveying and prospecting expeditions to the region (He, 1944: 4–5)."

Most of Fujian was also under Nationalist control and west Hunan, south Jiangxi, west Guangxi remained under Nationalist control.

And in the case you try use sneaky logic to claim you only meant "large provinces" controlled by Nationalists and claim that the entirely Chinese controlled Gansu, Shaanxi, Ningxia aren't "large" (which they are), Sichuan by default is the largest province in China after Xinjiang (also under Nationalist control in 1944). Xinjiang is the largest and Sichuan is the second largest by its current area. If Japan never invaded China and nationalists controlled all other provinces occupied by Japan like Hebei, Jiangsu and so on, Sichuan is still the only "largest province" of China under their control (excluding Xinjiang). And as said Xinjiang was the largest province under Nationalist control in 1944.

What kind of logic is he operating on? You only have a single source for your claim that Sichuan was the only province under Nationalist control which is outweighed by multiple sources pointing out other provinces never fell to Japan. Even if your source was by a reliable historian (not by a military historian), he made a major mistake and is outweighed by multiple other sources and can be removed from the article.

And if you use the argument that all the other provinces were controlled by warlords, that's false. Gansu was under complete Nationalist central government control while Sichuan was shared by Nationalists and warlords.

Then there's this he add

"The 170,000 Nationalist troops defending northern Guangxi were largely unwilling to fight and units disintegrated.[13]: 21  Leaders of the Guangxi Clique like General Bai Chongxi deciding that that neither Guilin nor Liuzhou could be successfully defended and Chinese forces abandoned those cities.[13]: 21"

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Ichi-Go&diff=prev&oldid=1180940600

Operation Ichigo itself has a link in its intro to a sourced article about the battle over Guilin and Liuzhou, Battle of Guilin–Liuzhou but he didn't provide a link to that battle at all. He's misleading making it seem as though no battle was fought in those cities and they were just abandoned when there was a battle. There are sources showing that a battle was fought there.

He also deleted a statement that Japanese outnumbered Chinese at Hengyang by tens of thousands and suffered more deaths, both according to Japanese statistics and Chinese statistics, but he deleted it and just wrote that both sides suffered heavy casualties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Ichi-Go&diff=prev&oldid=1180940600

He also added a non-reliable source for casualty estimates, the authors are not military historians, "The Fear of Chinese Power: an International History". Maybe this source is good for history of Chinese diplomatic relations, military history is not the author's area of expertise. There are already casualty estimates in the infobox by Cox. Can this "historian" even break down how many soldiers were killed vs captured or deserted? Where did how did this "historian" estimate those figures?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Ichi-Go&diff=prev&oldid=1218924402

He also added other assertions which are vague, like Japan controlling Henan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Ichi-Go&diff=prev&oldid=1180938369

Japan only controlled parts of Hunan, Henan and Guangxi after Ichigo, none of those provinces were entirely occupied unlike provinces such as Hebei, for the entire war. Japan even fought a battle trying to occupy the rest of Hunan in 1945 but they were defeated. Clarify what you mean. Controlling most of Henan? Controlling eastern Henan?

None of the sources like Parks M. Coble which he used were by military history specialists and one of his "academic" sources makes an untenable assertion that the Nationalists lost control of all China except Sichuan. They may be academics on Chinese diplomatic relations or historians focusing on business or journalism history but military historians should override all other sources on these topics. Coble's focus is on diplomatic, business and war journalism history. War journalism history is not war history, it's the study of journalistic reporting during wars.88thD (talk) 06:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

You’re doing the same thing you complain of the other editor doing — taking issue with material because coming from a position of SYNTH, you say it’s wrong. But worse, you’re disagreeing with RS while ascribing silly motives to me in an uncivil way with things like “sneakily…”

Just get out your Reliable Sources and start adding sourced material. You’ve cited something which you say has a more precise description of provinces controlled. Feel free to take out the sentence you disagree with sourced to Coble and add that.

But this soapbox and your synth is not helpful. Bring forward the RS to support specific edits you have in mind, instead. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't need to give any credence to Parks M. Coble's views on this topic. Coble is not an RS on military history. Per Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Giving_"equal_validity"_can_create_a_false_balance anything that's not reliable can be removed.

I already gave the source on other provinces like Gansu and Shaanxi never being occupied. Here's another source on Gansu and Shaanxi [3] On Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai never being occupied [4] Another sources for Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai never being occupied [5]. The maps on Ichigo article itself shows all those provinces being unoccupied by Japan, next to your edit citing Coble claiming only Sichuan was under Nationalist control.

All of the things you cited to Coble need to be deleted from here. Don't edit war, I already challenged the reliability of your edits and you need to revert to the neutral version (the version before you edited) until you prove Coble is reliable.

Being a reliable source in one field doesn't make them a reliable source in another field. Coble's focus is own business history, diplomatic relations history and war journalism history, not war history. Just because he's published by a university press doesn't mean you can automatically use him as an RS on all articles.

Cite Coble on an article about journalistic coverage of the Second Sino Japanese war, on articles about reporters who reported on the war, not on articles about battles themselves. Prove that Coble has the necessary academic background to make statements on military history.

A completely qualified historian on pottery made in China during World War II published by a university press can mention World War II battles in passing in his book, that doesn't mean we use his book as an RS on articles about WW II just because its published by a reputable publisher and he has a degree. We use his book as an RS on articles about pottery.

As mentioned Parks M. Coble is a historian of war journalism history, not of war history. Either Coble has a deliberate bias or he is incompetent at military history matters, regardless, his works paint a false image of military situations. In his 2015 book he briefly mentions that a journalist was at Zhijiang air base when it was under attack by Japanese and used by the US air force since a journalist named Huang Yaowu was briefly flown to the airbase.

The battle at Zhijiang was the Battle of West Hunan and it was the last major campaign of World War II to involved over 100,000 troops and resulted in Japanese defeat with tens of thousands of casualties. There's sources on the Battle of West Hunan page and there's more sources by military historians on the scale of the battle.

Coble doesn't mention anything else in the battle and in the rest of the book he portrays it as though Japan suffered no military defeats in China after Ichigo and Zhijiang was a minor skirmish, and falsely portrays Japan as withdrawing from Guangxi and Fuzhou all on their own with no military pressure due to losses from China.

Coble writes books on journalism history and diplomatic matters and he is not a military expert.88thD (talk) 23:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

The original figure of 750,000 in ichigo came from this thesis by Samuel J Cox. majoring in military art and science at a naval academy in the US, "750,000 men had been either destroyed, rendered combat ineffective, or simply melted away, 2"

That is not the same as Coble's claim of "killing, capturing, or otherwise eliminating 700,000 Nationalist Chinese soldiers".

Many Chinese units in Henan broke down and the soldiers escaped without being killed or captured or their guns were taken by peasants as they fled which is why Cox clarified "rendered combat ineffective, or simply melted away", Cox did not imply that Japanese killed and captured 750,000 soldiers but included soldiers who fled from the battlefield and escaped and the Nationalist government was unable to recall them. That is why the Ichigo infobox includes " put out of action" under the 750,000 estimate and doesn't say they were all killed or captured.

Coble, who is not majoring in military science or military history unlike Cox, changed this figure into Japan killing and capturing all 750,000 soldiers. Coble is not a reliable source for this.

Coble makes an untenable claim that the Nationalist government only controlled Sichuan after Ichigo. Again Coble has proven himself to be unreliable and his area of expertise is not military history.88thD (talk) 03:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

You are making sweepingly broad statements based on things that are not inconsistent. You say Coble is not reliable because, you write, "Coble[...] changed this figure into Japan killing and capturing all 750,000." But that is not at all what Coble says. The proposition here is "killing, capturing, or otherwise eliminating 750,000." "Otherwise eliminating" necessarily means something different than the preceding "killing" or "capturing" -- otherwise it would not be separately listed.

Feel free to substitute the Cox thesis on this point if you suggest if you think "rendered combat ineffective, or simply melted away" is clearer than "otherwise eliminating". It's a good idea -- you were evidently confused by "otherwise eliminating" so it's reasonable to think other readers might be also.

Overall, you will be better off focusing on specific propositions and raising specific alternative sources instead of arguing these unnecessarily broad points from a position of SYNTH. JArthur1984 (talk) 03:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)