Second Sino-Japanese War

Full-scale war began in 1937 after years of Japanese expansion in northeast China. Japanese forces captured major cities and transport corridors, while the Nationalist government moved inland and continued resistance from Chongqing. The conflict included conventional campaigns, occupation government, bombing, atrocities and guerrilla warfare across an enormous territory.

Nationalist and Communist forces opposed Japan while also preserving their organisations for the struggle that would follow. Civilians faced displacement, requisition, famine and the destruction of communities. The war became part of the wider Pacific conflict after 1941 and ended with Japan’s surrender in 1945.

This context supports fiction about divided loyalties between China and Japan, wartime evacuation and families separated by invasion. Pearl S. Buck’s The Patriot makes Japanese aggression the test of Wu I-wan’s marriage and political identity, while Letter from Peking begins with a family divided by the war.