Quick questions on The Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War 1937-1941: HSC Modern History National Study China

The Marco Polo Bridge (Lugouqiao) crossing of the Yongding River, ten miles west of Beiping, was the only Beiping-Hankou Railway crossing. Under the Boxer Protocol (1901) Japanese troops were stationed in the area. On the night of 7 July 1937 a Japanese soldier went missing during a night exercise. The Japanese garrison commander demanded entry to the walled town of Wanping; the Chinese garrison refused.

Chiang chose to open a second front at Shanghai to internationalise the war and protect his Yangtze Valley heartland. The Battle of Shanghai (13 August to 26 November 1937) drew in his best German-trained divisions (around 700,000 KMT troops in total) against around 300,000 Japanese.

Japanese forces under General Matsui Iwane took Nanjing on 13 December 1937. The retreating KMT failed to organise an evacuation or a defence of the population.

By 1939 the war had entered a long stalemate. Japan held the "points and lines" (cities and railways) of the east. The KMT held Chongqing and the south-west. Communist base areas grew rapidly behind Japanese lines (covered in the Yan'an dot point).

Chongqing endured the longest sustained aerial bombing of any city in the war. Between February 1938 and August 1943 Japanese air raids killed around 12,000 and destroyed much of the city. The KMT state moved to caves and tunnels; ministries operated underground.

Source A is an extract from the Tokyo Tribunal judgment on Nanjing. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain the impact of the war on Chinese society. [5 marks]

Evaluate the extent to which the Second Sino-Japanese War weakened the KMT relative to the CCP. [25 marks]

Compare the views of Rana Mitter and Hans van de Ven on the KMT war effort. [10 marks]