Before I attempt to cover the Pacific War, it is important to clarify certain facts.

While World War 2 did officially start in 1939, the Pacific War as we understand in modern definition did not start until 1941 when Japanese launched series of attacks on Allied territory. Secondly, the Chinese were already engaged in a war with Japanese, the Second Sino-Japanese War, since 1937. The Second Sino-Japanese War was rolled into part of the Pacific War as it erupted and China became a member of the Allies.

In 1941, China was already in a dire position. By the Pacific War, China had already lost control of its coastal areas, where majority of its population, industrial capacity and economic hubs were located at. Its well-equipped and well-trained elite divisions had long been smashed at the Battle of Shanghai in 1937 and subsequent string of defeats. The air force had essentially disintegrated, there were few working artillery pieces, no mechanized formations and insignificant number of armoured formation running on outdated or captured equipment.

The Nationalist government, which was the de facto ruling government of Republic of China headed by Guomindang and its leader, Jiang Jieshi/Cheng Kai-Shek, was pushed back inland. The frontline did manage to stabilize centred around Changsha after series of successful defenses, but it had more to do with Japanese over-extension and inability to properly control and supply beyond the coastal areas due to vastness of China and its population.

Now onto China’s effectiveness and accomplishments.

To be summed up, China failed to achieve much in the entire course of the war. As previously mentioned, China had little industrial capacity to begin with, but what little they had fell mostly into the Japanese hands when the coastal areas were lost. This also included financial centres to fund the war from. Cheng’s saving grace was the Allied supply trains from The Hump (airlifting supplies over Himalayas) and the Burma Road. Even then, the logistical affair was time consuming and costly for the Allies.

As Cheng suffered major losses, yet had to continue on the war, the GMD (Guomindang) enforced harsher and harsher conscription to replace the losses. This led to popular discontent and loss of support for GMD from local population as well as troops with little to no training and low morale. The serious lack of equipment and supplies did not help either.

One of the most important problem to plague the Nationalists were rampant corruption, cronyism, warlordism and general disorganization. There were people constantly switching out supplies to sell for their own profit, lack of organization in many areas, and most of all, organizational and doctrinal backwardness that lingered on. Perhaps the biggest problem of all were the fact that Cheng had never managed to solve the issue of warlordism and cliques still remained intact in the Nationalist army. The cliques often had their own side acts going on and disregarded Cheng’s orders when it didn’t suit them.

Besides the warlords and cliques, infighting also posed problem. Most notably, the United Front (alliance between Nationalists and Communists to fight off Japanese invasion) was anything but united. Cheng was an avid anti-communist and even stated “The communist are the disease of the heart, the Japanese are but a disease of the skin.” during the height of the war. On many occasions, the Nationalists and Communists refused to co-operate with each other despite being allies, going so far as to attack each other in some cases.

Perhaps last nail in the coffin was general lack of willingness by the Nationalists to take on more active stance. Due to no shortage of list, ranging from lack of supplies, low morale, unwillingness to go on offensive due to series of previous defeats, and stockpiling to fight the Communists, the Nationalist army remained rather passive fighting mostly in ambushes and guerilla warfare, until the Axis defeat looked imminent around 1944-45. Even then, the Nationalist army gain was small and Japanese remained firmly in control as they approached closer to coastal area.

Suffice to say, you can see how they have not and could have not achieved much. Rather than what Chinese have achieved, it would be easier to say that they prevented Japanese from doing many things.

First, due to vastness of China and its population, as well as the size of the opposing force, Japan was forced to commit huge number of men and supply to China. The estimation is that 60% of the entire Japanese force (this includes Manchuria) were tied in China despite the fact they were making essentially no gains outside their initial conquest. The % of Japanese army that fought against Americans account for less than 15% of their army. Failure to defeat China also led to inability to fully cannibalize or deploy reserves stationed around Shandong and the Kwantung Army to fight the Americans. You can see how Allies would be keen on keeping China in the war despite the cost.

Second is limiting the Japanese strategic movements. As mentioned previously, large part of the Japanese force had to be deployed around the Chinese frontline. This drastically reduced men and supply available for the other areas. The Nationalists also engaged in active guerilla and ambush style warfare to cut down on Japanese supply as much as possible. An example for this is Chinese contingent in Burma Campaign. The Chinese contingent saw to destruction of Japanese northern army’s supply line, essentially forcing the northern one of the two pronged attack towards India to a halt.

Third is less tangible in terms of war, but it was a moral victory. One of Japan’s justification for war was the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”. Yet, here was the largest and the most populous nation in east Asia fighting against Japan’s thinly veiled justifications. This obviously provided strong moral ground for Allied forces, who were predominantly non-Asian.

In the end, they didn’t achieve much in terms of active achievement, but more so on their passive role and simply just by being in the war, they prevented Japanese from doing many things.

As for why the Pacific War is not readily taught, a lot has to do with the country you received the education in. Naturally, as you grew up in US, they would focus more on American role in WW2 than others. As per “Europe first policy” adopted by Allies, American commitment was greater in Europe than Pacific theatre, thus the proportional focus would be on the European theatre.

Second is inherent “Western/European” bias that exists in the discipline. Though the bias is less strong in modern time, it still permeates, and we seek to understand the discipline from “western hemisphere” perspective. As such, it will naturally focus much more on the exploits of the “western world” than the “eastern world”.

Third would be that after WW2, the Nationalists were defeated by the Communists in the civil war and subsequently China became communist. In a similar way that Soviet Union was downplayed in their role in WW2 due to the fact Soviets were the enemies during the cold war, what little Chinese achievements were downplayed as well.

Anymore would be my personal speculation, so I won’t go on. It is great that you have interest in Pacific War that gets glossed over so much other than atomic bombing, Iwo Jima and so forth. If you are interested, you can read more up on Rape of Nanking, Unit 731, Burma Theatre, Indians in WW2 and Australians in WW2.

• edited for grammar.