China Formally Declares War on Japan, Germany, and Italy
China and Japan had been at war in all but name since Japan's full-scale invasion in July 1937, following the earlier seizure of Manchuria in 1931 -- but China had never issued a formal declaration of war, partly to avoid triggering neutrality laws in the United States that would have cut off supplies. For four years, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government fought Japan's advance largely alone, retreating its wartime capital first to Wuhan and then to Chongqing while absorbing enormous losses, including the fall of Nanjing and Wuhan and years of aerial bombing of Chongqing. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 transformed China's isolated struggle into a shared Allied war: within days, Chiang's government issued formal declarations of war against Japan, Germany, and Italy, and China was subsequently recognized (at least nominally) as one of the 'Big Four' Allied powers alongside the US, UK, and USSR. Despite this new alliance, China's war effort remained severely under-resourced compared to the European and Pacific theatres: the overland supply route to China was cut when Japan took Burma in 1942, forcing Allied supplies to be flown over the Himalayas (the 'Hump'), and China's simultaneous civil war tensions between the Nationalists and the Communists under Mao Zedong persisted even as both nominally fought Japan.
- Year: 1941 CE
- Category: Military
