China’s Best Ambassador

Song Meiling, China’s First Lady during the war, was her country’s best ambassador by far. “China’s Joan of Arc,” she was called, and “the most powerful woman in the world.” … Continue Reading →

The Battle Erupts (II)

“Launch the assault.” This was in essence the message sent from supreme Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek to his frontline commanders near Shanghai during the night between August 13 and 14. … Continue Reading →

The Battle Erupts (I)

Friday, August 13, 1937 marked the start of the epic, three-month battle of Shanghai, at least according to official Chinese historiography, where the date is so widely accepted that a … Continue Reading →

Time Travel in Cyberspace

This article about a new project to chronicle World War Two in Asia in real time was first published on the website of the Danish Broadcasting Corp. It was written … Continue Reading →

A Scrap Of Silk Tells An Airman’s Story

Read how the discovery in a military file of a scrap of silk, a “blood chit” of the kind that saved  numerous lives in the China theatre, led to the … Continue Reading →

Iacta Alea Est!

Wargaming is a method for historians, professionals and hobbyists alike, to get inside the minds of the actors of past conflicts. The games, or simulations, can take place at the … Continue Reading →

Fall of Beijing, 1937

On July 29, 1937, China’s old imperial capital Beijing fell to Japanese forces. The image above shows the emperor’s troops marching through Qianmen gate into the city, officially called Beiping … Continue Reading →

More Than A Thousand Characters

With their immediate impact and their appeal to the emotions, images have been used in war propaganda since ancient times. Therefore, it’s no surprise that they were employed in China … Continue Reading →

‘Evergreen’

China and Germany were involved in close military cooperation in the 1920s and 1930s, manifested for example in the dispatch of a small but influential corps of German advisors to … Continue Reading →

A Social and Visual History of the Dadao: China’s ‘Military Big-Saber’ (II)

Author and scholar Ben Judkins describes the Dadao, or ‘big saber’, a weapon that saw use even during the war with Japan in the 1930s and 1940s. This is the first … Continue Reading →