The Sino-Japanese War

In Our Time: History

BBC

History

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2014

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. After several years of rising tension, and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, full-scale war between Japan and China broke out in the summer of 1937. The Japanese captured many major Chinese ports and cities, but met with fierce resistance, despite internal political divisions on the Chinese side. When the Americans entered the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese found themselves fighting on several fronts simultaneously, and finally capitulated in August 1945. This notoriously brutal conflict left millions dead and had far-reaching consequences for international relations in Asia. With: Rana Mitter Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford Barak Kushner Senior Lecturer in Japanese History at the University of Cambridge Tehyun Ma Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Exeter Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time for more details about In Our Time
0:04.1	and for our terms of use please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio 4.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.7	Hello, 10 miles southwest of the Chinese capital Beijing.
0:15.1	A handsome and venerable stone bridge crosses the Yongding River.
0:18.7	It's commonly known as the Marco Polo Bridge,
0:21.3	because an earlier structure here was described by the Italian traveler
0:24.8	in his account of his journey through China in the 13th century.
0:28.6	But the Marco Polo Bridge is also known for an incident
0:31.4	which occurred on the night of July the 7th, 1937.
0:35.6	Sparking one of the centuries most terrible conflicts,
0:38.3	the second Sino-Japanese War.
0:40.8	A dispute over a missing Japanese soldier rapidly escalated,
0:44.6	beginning a war that was to last another eight years.
0:47.7	This conflict between Japan and China,
0:49.9	the second in 50 years was long and bitter and cost millions of lives.
0:53.9	It was a huge significance for the future of Asia,
0:56.7	although in the West it's often been overshadowed
0:59.1	by the contemporary events of the Second World War here.
1:02.2	We'd be to discuss the Second Sino-Japanese War R,
1:06.0	Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China
1:09.1	at the University of Oxford,
	...

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