Chinese Cultural Learning Blog

6 responses so far ↓

• 1    Alex // Oct 14, 2008 at 3:38 pm

  When exactly the war occurred is a difficult question to answer. The war started in 1927 when the Communist Party of China split off from the Kuomintang and began fighting. The war temporarily ended when Japan began a military campaign against China and the two factions united to fight the common enemy. Fighting began again after a truce agreement fell apart in 1946. The fighting in the war ended in 1950, but there was no treaty indicating a victory or surrender, so technically the war is on-going.

  The Communist Party was able to defeat the better equipped Kuomintang through a variety of methods. The main reason though was the war with Japan. During the truce, the two sides never completely united, so they were never seen as “the Chinese Military” but rather as the two individual sides, that just happened not to be fighting. In this way, their individual victories and defeats were attributed to them after the end of the Sino-Japanese War. The Communist faction had more of an appeal to the people, and their guerrilla fighting against the Japanese created the perception that they fought for the people. Conversely, the Kuomintang sustained heavy losses at the hands of the Japanese and came out of the war drained of resources. They also had much larger areas to govern and their use of warlords as generals cause a great deal of corruption, lessening their popular perception

• 2    Drew Marcy // Oct 15, 2008 at 9:27 am

  The war is an on going oine with no official peace treaty or armistce being signed. The peace is an uneasy one between People’s Republic of China and Nationalist controlled Taiwan. The war began in April of 1927 and the fighting ended in May of 1950. The war also took a break when the Japanese invaded in 1937-1945 when they were finally ousted. The war restarted in 1946 and has never officially been ended.
  The nationalist party had huge obstacles that they were unable to overcome such as lack of support as many locals blamed them for allowing Japanese forces to conquer parts of China. They also had corrupt warlords who were unwilling to risk their own men and only cared about keeping their power and so were little help to the Nationalist cause. The communist on the other hand gained local support as they were seen fighting Japanese forces in Manchuria. Communists were able to gain weapons from pro-Japanese warlords who just left them to be picked up by the Communist. The Nationalist party also sustained heavy lossese fighting the Japanese incursion of China and therefore was extremely weakened when it came time to turn their attention back to the Communists.

• 3    Christina Schueth // Oct 22, 2008 at 2:14 pm

  The Civil War in China broke out in 1927 and came to a close in 1950. However, there was a break durring the civil war, in order to be at war with the Japenese after they invaded, and when the civil war was restarted the fighting did end in 1950 as stated above however tensions are still high today because no resolution was ever achieved.
  Although the Nationalist Party was much better equipped they did not have as much support in their country as the Communist party did. In addition the Nationalists suffered a large ammount of loses durring the intermediary battle against the Japense while the Communist party mangaged to obtain resources from them. Thus when both sides came back after the fight with the Japanese the Nationalists were less powerful than before and the Communists had more going for them which led to the defeat of the Nationalist party.

• 4    Jake Berman // Oct 22, 2008 at 2:29 pm

  Jake Berman
  Chinese001
  10/22/08
  Culture Blog 4
  The Civil War started in 1927 when the Communist Party seceded from Sun Yat Sen’s National People’s party and began fighting. The official end to the fighting occurred in 1950; however, during the Japanese invasion of China, the 2 parties set aside their differences and fought the Japanese as 2 entirely separate entities. This did nothing to subdue the hate they had for each other, but they knew if they needed to survive they could not fight each other as well as the Japanese at the same time. There has technically been no end to the fighting because a truce agreement still has to be waged, although since 1950 the Communist Party has been in control of China with no opposition.
  There were a number of factors that caused the Communist Party to take over the much better equipped Kuomintang. First, the Communists were viewed in a higher light than the Kuomintang because they did not sustain heavy losses when fighting the Japanese because of their guerilla tactics. These heavy losses resulted as another reason that the Kuomintang lost their power to a much smaller, less armed force soon after the war. The Communist Party also claimed to be fighting for the people while the Kuomintang only fought to keep their separate wealth and power intact, often not caring about the others around them. Another factor that led to their defeat was the Kuomintang’s lack of organization. They had to control large swaths of land throughout China and because of this they were blamed when the Japanese took over these lands. Finally, the leaders of the Kuomintang were corrupt and the public treated them with disdain and felt they couldn’t trust them while the Communist Party seemed to fight for the people and were more ambivalent toward the common person.

• 5    Ike // Nov 9, 2008 at 5:52 pm

  When was the Chinese civil war and how long did it last?

  The Chinese civil war lasted from April 1927 to May 1950 between the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist Party. The War symbolized the ideological split between the Western KMT and the Soviet Communist party. To this day there has been no treaty between both sides, however both keep good relations through economic ties.

  How could the Communist Party with limited military resources and supplies defeat the US assisted well-trained and equipped Nationalist Party military?

  Different factors led to the Communist victory. First, we know that the Communist party had a disadvantage in terms of military resources. Many times when this happens a disadvantaged party will resort to different tactics to help reduce losses. This is exactly what the Communist party did: Guerrilla warfare. This non conventional way of fighting helped Mao reduce loss of life and weaken the KMT spirit. Also, the Communist party was often seen as the party for the people. This made it easier to support the Communists and help defeat the Nationalist.

• 6    Brooke Campbell // Nov 18, 2008 at 9:27 pm

  The war started roughly in 1927, and was interrupted by the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), and resumed once more in 1946. In 1950 the major hostilities came to an end, but there never was a signed peace treaty or armistice.

  Much of why the Communist Party was able to succeed was due to guerrilla tactics and some luck. The party also was able to spread its appeal to the masses in how they recruited and helped peasants and poor while confiscating the munitions and food that they needed from warlords. The Second Sino-Japanese war also hurt the KMT’s forces to a great extent, which they were not able to recover from entirely. The Communist Party took advantage of this later on. The KMT’s probably fatal mistake was when the leader Chiang Kai-shek tried to dissolve the warlords while taking over the mainland at the same time. The warlords, who could offer a great deal of help with the fight between the two parties, were not exactly happy about the situation–it also made a loss of support in Japanese dominated areas since the Nationalists were fighting with Japanese troops and further alienating the local populations.

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