The end of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the post-war balance, including the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, the race for territory, the Chongqing negotiations, and the Marshall Mission

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain the situation at the Japanese surrender, the race for Japanese-held territory between the KMT and CCP, and the failure of negotiation under the Chongqing talks and the Marshall Mission to prevent renewed civil war. Strong answers integrate the Soviet invasion, the Yalta-Sino-Soviet Treaty, the US airlift, and the underlying structural incompatibility.

The answer

Japan's collapse

The Japanese Empire entered 1945 in industrial collapse. The B-29 firebombing of Tokyo (9-10 March 1945) killed around 100,000. By June, Japan had lost the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. The Potsdam Declaration (26 July 1945) demanded unconditional surrender.

The atomic bombings (Hiroshima 6 August, Nagasaki 9 August) and Soviet entry into the war (8 August) broke the Cabinet's resistance. Emperor Hirohito recorded the surrender broadcast on 14 August; it was broadcast on 15 August 1945 (V-J Day). The formal surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945.

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria

Stalin had promised at Yalta (4-11 February 1945) to enter the Pacific war within three months of Germany's surrender. Operation August Storm launched on 9 August 1945 with around 1.5 million Soviet troops under Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky. The Kwantung Army (around 700,000 troops, equipped at 1941 levels) collapsed within two weeks. Soviet forces overran Manchuria, north Korea, and Karafuto. Around 600,000 Japanese prisoners were taken to Soviet camps.

Soviet policy toward Yan'an

Stalin's formal policy was pro-KMT. The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (14 August 1945) recognised the KMT government, accepted KMT sovereignty over Xinjiang and Manchuria, and in return reasserted Soviet naval and railway rights in Manchuria (Port Arthur, Dairen, joint railway operation), as Yalta had promised.

In practice the Red Army in Manchuria handed huge quantities of Japanese arms to Lin Biao's CCP forces. The 700,000 rifles, 14,000 light and heavy machine guns, around 4,000 artillery pieces, and 700 tanks of the Kwantung Army's arsenal that ended up in CCP hands transformed Lin Biao's force from a guerrilla army into a conventional one. Stalin's double game reflected both Yalta obligations and his desire to keep Chiang weak.

The race for territory

Japanese forces in China proper numbered around 1.05 million, plus 900,000 collaborationist troops; with Manchurian Kwantung Army, the total was around 2.6 million surrendering Japanese. The question was who took the surrender.

US policy was clear: General Order Number 1 (15 August 1945) instructed Japanese forces in China (excluding Manchuria) to surrender to the KMT. The US Air Transport Command airlifted around 500,000 KMT troops to north China cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing) over the next three months. US Marines temporarily garrisoned Tianjin, Beijing, and other northern cities.

CCP forces under Zhu De ordered Japanese garrisons to surrender to them; most refused and waited for the KMT. But in the countryside between the cities, CCP forces moved in, accepted local Japanese and collaborationist surrenders, and acquired weapons. The CCP took control of perhaps 250,000 square kilometres in Manchuria, north China, and central China by late 1945.

The Chongqing Negotiations

Mao flew to Chongqing on 28 August 1945 under US escort (General Patrick Hurley personally accompanied him). The visit, his first to Chongqing, was a political risk balanced by enormous publicity value. Talks ran from 28 August to 10 October 1945.

The Double Tenth Agreement (10 October 1945) committed both sides to:

• A "free and democratic" China.
• A Political Consultative Conference to plan the post-war state.
• Recognition of "the equal and legal status of all political parties."
• Demobilisation and integration of armed forces.
• Local elections.

The terms were not enforceable. Fighting in Shanxi between Yan Xishan's forces (KMT-aligned) and CCP units broke out as Mao flew home. The agreement died on paper.

The Marshall Mission

President Truman dispatched General George C. Marshall as Special Envoy on 27 November 1945. Marshall's mandate was to broker a coalition government and avert civil war.

Marshall's first cease-fire (10 January 1946) was substantially honoured for several months. The Political Consultative Conference (10-31 January 1946) agreed on principles for a coalition. The PCCRC plan (February 1946) called for integrating CCP and KMT forces in a 10:50 ratio over eighteen months.

Both sides reneged. KMT hardliners (the CC clique, the Whampoa clique) saw the plan as surrendering KMT advantages. CCP hardliners saw it as surrendering political autonomy. Fighting in Manchuria (Siping, April-May 1946) became major war. By June 1946 Marshall conceded failure. He returned to Washington in January 1947, having identified KMT corruption and CCP intransigence in roughly equal measure.

Conditions for war

By summer 1946:

• The KMT had around 4.3 million troops, the modern German and US-trained core, US Lend-Lease equipment, and nominal control of all major cities and railways.
• The CCP had around 1.2 million regulars, 2.6 million militia, base areas covering around 100 million people, and the Japanese arsenal acquired in Manchuria.
• The US had given up on a negotiated settlement; Soviet aid to the CCP was active but covert.

Renewed full-scale civil war was a matter of weeks.

Timeline August 1945 to mid-1946

Historiography

Odd Arne Westad (Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War 1946-1950, 2003) is the standard military and political history.

Suzanne Pepper (Civil War in China: The Political Struggle 1945-1949, 1978) on the political and intellectual dimension.

Steven Levine (Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria 1945-1948, 1987) on the Manchurian theatre.

Daniel Kurtz-Phelan (The China Mission, 2018) on Marshall.

Hans van de Ven (China at War, 2018) on the transition from war with Japan to civil war.

How to read a source on this topic

Sources include the Yalta protocols, the Sino-Soviet Treaty, the Double Tenth Agreement, Marshall's reports, contemporary US press coverage (Henry Luce's Time was pro-KMT, the New York Times more balanced), and CCP press from Yan'an. Three reading habits.

First, separate Soviet rhetoric from Soviet action. Stalin signed a treaty with the KMT and supplied the CCP. The double game served Moscow's interest in keeping China weak and divided.

Second, treat the Marshall Mission as the moment of US policy choice. Marshall's failure foreclosed any coalition solution; his report shaped the Truman administration's reluctance to invest further in Chiang.

Third, follow the Manchurian weapons. The numerical fall of the KMT in 1948 is unintelligible without the Japanese arms transferred to Lin Biao in late 1945.

Common exam traps

Treating the Soviet role as straightforwardly anti-CCP or pro-CCP. It was both: pro-KMT diplomatically, pro-CCP on the ground in Manchuria.

Treating the Marshall Mission as a US failure of will. Both Chinese parties chose to fight; Marshall could not impose what neither would accept.

Confusing the Chongqing Negotiations with the PCC. Chongqing was August-October 1945, two-party. The PCC was January 1946, multi-party including minor parties under Marshall.

In one sentence

Japan's surrender in August 1945, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and the race for Japanese-held territory created a post-war balance the KMT and CCP both expected to consolidate by force; the Chongqing Negotiations (Double Tenth Agreement, October 1945) and the Marshall Mission (December 1945 to January 1947) failed because the parties' projects were incompatible, and full-scale civil war resumed in mid-1946.