Changes

====The Sino-Japanese War: 1937-1945====

====The Sino-Japanese War: 1937-1945====

A determined campaign of assassination and coup attempts by ultranationalist junior officers left the Japanese leadership cowed by 1936. Despite the alliance with Germany, Japanese army leaders had no stomach for a war with the Soviets. Instead, they began to prepare for war with China, whose army was not nearly as formidable. The budget for 1937 proposed an unsustainable 40 percent increase in spending. The Nationalists and the Communists responded by forming a "Second United Front" in December. All the same, China was ill-prepared when the Japanese finally launched their offensive in July 1937. Japan quickly overran a vast coastal area and cut off China's access to seaports. The Nationalists retreated to Chongqing in the southwest, the Communists to Yan'an in the northwest. A puppet state led by Wang was set up in Nanjing. The Chinese cause received much sympathetic attention in the U.S. press, and the [[Flying Tigers]], an aviation squadron, was lionized. So was Chiang's wife, first lady Song Meiling, a U.S.-educated Christian. The Burma Road, and later the Ledo Road, were built to allow US "lend-lease" aid to reach the Chinese army. The Nationalists' Y Force drove back the Japanese in Yunnan during a May–June 1944 offensive, but otherwise military results were disappointing.

A determined campaign of assassination and coup attempts by ultranationalist junior officers left the Japanese leadership cowed by 1936. Despite the alliance with Germany, Japanese army leaders had no stomach for a war with the Soviets. Instead, they began to prepare for war with China, whose army was not nearly as formidable. The budget for 1937 proposed an unrealistic 40 percent increase in spending. The Nationalists and the Communists responded by forming a "Second United Front" in December. All the same, China was ill-prepared when the Japanese finally launched their offensive in July 1937. Japan quickly overran a vast coastal area and cut off China's access to seaports. The Nationalists retreated to Chongqing in the southwest, the Communists to Yan'an in the northwest. A puppet state led by Wang was set up in Nanjing. The Chinese cause received much sympathetic attention in the U.S. press, and the [[Flying Tigers]], an aviation squadron, was lionized. So was Chiang's wife, first lady Song Meiling, a U.S.-educated Christian. The Burma Road, and later the Ledo Road, were built to allow US "lend-lease" aid to reach the Chinese army. The Nationalists' Y Force drove back the Japanese in Yunnan during a May–June 1944 offensive, but otherwise military results were disappointing.

====Chinese Civil War: 1946-1949====

====Chinese Civil War: 1946-1949====