China was not just a winner of WWII. It won bigly, getting virtually all the lost territories restored, a permanent seat in the security council, and eventually nuclear power.
So on a strategic level, it is reasonable to say Chiang Kai-shek did at least OK (with what he had).
But with 20/20 historical hindsight, Chiang Kai-shek's clearest mistake was not finishing the civil war with the communist as he had intended.
Turned out he was correct. Japan would eventually be defeated. Japan was but a flesh wound, communism was the cancer.
Many historians claim that Chiang Kai-shek had no hope of winning WWII. But the same could have been said of England, France, or Russia. None of them could have defeated the Axis alone. So what makes China so different? Why do the historians and history buffs sagely tell teach other China could not defeat the Axis?
Of course that was true. But the Axis powers DID declare war on most of the world.
And no nation that fought the Axis had to fight alone. And nobody did.
The Axis bit off more than they could chew. And they choked on their ambition and arrogance.
So regarding China's performance in WWII. It was ugly, but respectable. Aside from the Flying Tigers (later the 14th air force), Allies support for China was minimal (relative to the support Russia received). Chiang had a premodern military, with an agrarian economy (having lost the most developed part of the country to Japan in the first years of the war). But the Chinese held the Japanese at bay for the entire War, tying down millions of japanese soldiers (inflicting millions of casualties), depriving Japan of resources that could have been directed towards the Pacific.
Ultimately, China was instrumental to the defeat of Japan. Had China surrendered like France. Chinese slave labor, Chinese mineral resources, Chinese grain, even impressed Chinese soldiers. along with hundreds of thousands of japanese troops would have been sent in the total war against the US.
That would have made the war in the Pacific at least an order of magnitude more difficult.
- "Ultimately, China was instrumental to the defeat of Japan."
My take: I'd go further, and say not just Japan, but also Germany.
On China's contribution to the Allies during WW2, which has been perenially & conveniently minimised as incompetent, here's the opinion of Hans van de Ven - a noted authority on 20th century China and the formation of the Chinese Communist Party - emphasis mine:
The time has come to disaggregate the Second World War and become attuned to the differences in each of its theatres. That is not to say that no connections existed between them: the Second World War was an alliance war, which the Allies won because they worked together much better than the Axis powers. Alliance members provided troops, ammunition and other aid to each other. America, a land of increasing plenty, supplied not just arms and ammunition but also food to Britain and the USSR. Events in one theatre impacted on others. The war in China made it difficult for Japan to join Germany’s war against the Soviet Union, leaving the latter free to concentrate on fighting the Wehrmacht. Had Japan succeeded in forcing a Chinese surrender, then China’s resources would have become available to Japan. We can only speculate about the consequences, but they would have been significant.
Source: China at War (Harvard, 2018), Introduction.
