Event · Twentieth century · China
Second Sino-Japanese War
1937–1945
Full-scale war between the Republic of China and Japan, dated from the Marco Polo Bridge clash on 7 July 1937 to Japan's surrender in 1945. Japan had taken Manchuria in 1931. Some historians start the war there.
Facts
- Full-scale start
- 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge, outside Beijing.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Second Sino-Japanese War
- Earlier seizure
- Japan took Manchuria after the Mukden incident, 18 September 1931. Some histories start the war at that date.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Second Sino-Japanese War
- End
- Japan announced surrender on 15 August 1945. The formal instrument was signed on 2 September 1945.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, World War II
The record
The Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist forces both fought Japan. Their own war paused and then resumed after Japan's defeat.
Deaths are estimates, not a census. Chinese military and civilian losses are commonly put in the tens of millions, and the range is disputed. Japanese losses in China are not the same figure as Japan's losses in the whole of the Second World War. This page does not print a single total as if it were settled.
The killing in particular cities and units is not narrated here. A later pass can add a sourced account of a named massacre on its own page, marked graphic, rather than fold it into a paragraph with no source line.
Connected
Links in both directions: what this page points to, and what points here.
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