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China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China Hardcover – February 12, 2018

by Hans van de Ven (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 31 ratings
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China’s mid-twentieth-century wars pose extraordinary interpretive challenges. The issue is not just that the Chinese fought for such a long time―from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 1937 until the close of the Korean War in 1953―across such vast territory. As Hans van de Ven explains, the greatest puzzles lie in understanding China’s simultaneous external and internal wars. Much is at stake, politically, in how this story is told.

Today in its official history and public commemorations, the People’s Republic asserts Chinese unity against Japan during World War II. But this overwrites the era’s stark divisions between Communists and Nationalists, increasingly erasing the civil war from memory. Van de Ven argues that the war with Japan, the civil war, and its aftermath were in fact of a piece―a singular process of conflict and political change. Reintegrating the Communist uprising with the Sino-Japanese War, he shows how the Communists took advantage of wartime to increase their appeal, how fissures between the Nationalists and Communists affected anti-Japanese resistance, and how the fractious coalition fostered conditions for revolution.

In the process, the Chinese invented an influential paradigm of war, wherein the Clausewitzian model of total war between well-defined interstate enemies gave way to murky campaigns of national liberation involving diverse domestic and outside belligerents. This history disappears when the realities of China’s mid-century conflicts are stripped from public view. China at War recovers them.

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  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    February 12, 2018
  5. Dimensions
    6.12 x 1.2 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674983505
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674983502
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Van de Ven’s book challenges contemporary memory by not only returning to the ‘war within the war,’ but also reclaiming war as a medium of politics. In doing so, his sensitive account recovers the Communist Party’s ‘People’s War’ (or ‘National Liberation War’ in van de Ven’s words), rather than Nationalist anti-fascism, as China’s most consequential legacy from World War II.”―John B. Thompson, Los Angeles Review of Books

“This is one of the best [books on China] I’ve seen in recent years…An exceptionally rich work of history, wary of moral posturing, unusually subtle, and beautifully written.”―John Wilson, First Things

“China in the twentieth century was as much at war with itself as with Japan and, in Korea, with the United States. In this outstanding account of modern China through the lens of war, van de Ven narrates this history with immense clarity, while also taking care to show how the violence of these decades shaped, and often consumed, the lives of individual Chinese fated to live in difficult times.”―Timothy Brook, author of Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China

“China at War is far superior to any comparable treatment I have seen. Sober, comprehensive, and well written, it is a book that will last.”―Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania

“A masterful narrative of the fifteen long years of war during which China was destroyed and transformed. For readers interested in military history on a global scale who may or may not have much knowledge of modern Chinese history, this book will become a classic of its kind.”―Stephen MacKinnon, Arizona State University

About the Author

Hans van de Ven is Professor of Modern Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press (February 12, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674983505
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674983502
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1.2 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

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Hans J. Van de Ven

Hans J. Van de Ven

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
31 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Neil Silver
5.0 out of 5 stars If you found this review, just go and buy the book now; you won't regret it.
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
If you care about modern Chinese history, you won't want to put this book down. Despite minor quibbles about some material in later chapters, this is an excellent, highly readable, historiographically up-to-date, fresh untangling of China's intertwined struggle against Japan (1937-45) and its (even lengthier) Nationalist-Communist civil war. The author succinctly introduces and analyzes key decisions, events and trends, frequently substantially revising judgments delivered by earlier historians. He is particularly good a periodizing these two struggles, noting, for instance, the effect of Japan's highly effective Ichigo campaign of 1944 in weakening Nationalist morale and territorial control, and the concomitant increase in Communist strength at this critical juncture. The autho relies heavily on the Chiang Kai-shek diaries (which only become available in the 2000s, over 25 years after Chiang's death), skillfully weaves in material from two Chinese memoirs of life the 1930s-40s, along with highly relevant journalistic accounts and other "cultural" material. It helps that the author is widely read and educated way beyond his commitment to Chinese studies. My quibbles with later chapters: (1) the author jumps from explaining early post-WWII Soviet antipathy toward Chinese Communist expansion plans in Manchuria to its later heavy material support for (i.e., provision of Soviet and captured Japanese weapons to the Chinese Communists there, without dealing with the reasons for the Soviet shift toward annoyance of and then disregard of the Nationalist government; (2) the author mistakenly asserts that, in early 1950, Kim Il-sung gained Mao's agreement to transfer back three Korean divisions from the People's Liberation Army (in support of Stalin's and Kim's decision for war), when other scholars have shown that this repatriation began a year earlier, with only smaller, remaining Korean units being repatriated in early 1950; and (3) the author asserts that "[China's involvement in the Korean war] worked out for Mao Zedong and his colleagues....[,]" failing to address the impact on China of its post-Korean war three-decade long estrangement with the U.S., and its lost chance to invade Taiwan in 1950. Some other material in the last chapter ("Transitions") is also a bit less considered and certain that the main body of this excellent book.
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Hande Z
4.0 out of 5 stars Memoir as history
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2021
Verified Purchase
There have been many books on the war in China against the Japanese during World War II, and they invariably cover a three-pronged fight between the Communist Chinese under Mao, the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang, and the Japanese. There was, indeed, a war within a war.

This book by de Ven is distinguished, first, by its close following of the contribution of Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist forces, and secondly, by following the personal experience of two Chinese – Chi Pang Yuan, who eventually wrote a memoir of her account of the war; and Chen Kewen, who kept a diary of the times.

This book also made it plain that in spite of the Chinese civil war, they were able, at times disparately, and at times in arms together, to debilitate the Japanese war machine such that the Western allies were able to make gains elsewhere in the Pacific theatre of World War II.

This book is filled with vignettes of individuals and events such as the death of Chiang’s General Zhang Zizhong – the highest ranking general to have been killed. Even the Japanese honoured his death. One other is the involvement of the American General Stilwell. Stilwell did not have much respect for the Chinese although he was impressed by the communists for their incorruptibility and discipline, he was contemptuous of Chiang; so much so that he was implicated by Senator McCarthy when the latter searched for American communists outside the USA.

Another good book on this subject is Rana Mitter’s ‘China’s Good War’, 2020 Belknap Press.
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Bob Cl
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative & an Easy Read
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2022
Verified Purchase
I found this book very informative. It showed in a diverse way the many factors leading up to WW2 & after, that lead to what is now the "People's Republic of China", and the "Republic of China". It also showed in a much less intricate way how this played into the Korea situation, Soviet interests at the time, and how it entwined with the United States foreign policy.

An interesting book to read in conjunction with this is titled, "A Different Kind of War" by Vice Admiral Milton E Miles. He was United States Navy, whom had experience in China before WW2, during as a guerrilla warfare leader teamed with Chiang Kai-Shek's forces, and his intimate issues with the United States Army, OSS, & and United States diplomats. I had to purchase that book outside of Amazon, as it's out of print.
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Top reviews from other countries

catholic reader
4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive, full of information, a rather 'hectoring' style
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2021
Verified Purchase
The author's depth and breadth of knowledge and his obvious devotion to later Chinese history are clearly evident in this book. A lot is covered, and quite a few opinions and hypotheses offered, some perhaps - given the author's knowledge maybe not clearly supported and give the impression of 'superior opinion' rather than clearly supported argument. Given the breadth of the material covered- the rise of the KMT; its limitations; the enduring 'war' with the Communist; the Japanese;, 'patriotic' collaboration; the Allies; the Korean War and; the early Cold War, this is not surprising. The author's apparent fascination with epigraphs, Clausewitz and the Book of Deuteronomy and in the last chapter some philosophising do not necessarily make the reading of an already intense, perhaps pontificating style any easier. It is, however well worth the effort, a great deal of information and thought is contained in this book, and I doubt it will be the last of the author's books I read.
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