Hi All,
Being Chinese (Taiwanese), there's always been debate (amongst both Chinese and Taiwanese historians) about the role of 8th Route army. No doubt, their efforts/activity has been greatly advertised in Modern PRC history but more and more reports (From both sides of the strait) giving more credit to the KMT's war efforts. (For example, my chinese friend who has been through education in China said their college professors actively stated that 8th Route did not participate in very many actual combat against IJA, Partially because KMT didn't want to give them too much power/land to control, and partially to conserve effort for the civil war afterwards)
So I would like to ask Historians, How much did 8th route army actually engage in combat against the IJA during WWII and how much credit do they actually deserve as compared to their KMT counterparts?
Hello! I don't have time at the moment to write out a full response, but I did touch upon this question in a recent AMA (link here). There's a growing consensus that the CCP didn't do much fighting against the Japanese, and recent scholarship has proved much more favorable toward Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT in general. Sorry I can't write more!