CENTURY OF THE DRAGON
In various stages, starting in 1931, the Chinese people endured a horrific occupation by a brutish militaristic regime. For fourteen years they were to suffer an occupation that was far worse than any by the Germans, provided you weren't a Jew , a gypsy, or some other unfortunate that the Nazi's didn't approve of.
The Russians were brutal masters as well, inflicting wholesale sexual degredations, terrible violence, slavery and murder on its occupied territories. But the manner and execution of the Japanese occupation forces was particularly sadistic only paralleled inside the Nazi deathcamps themselves, and in some ways--yes--even surpassed.
When they invaded on land they raped, tortured and enslaved the population that was left behind by the vanquished and fleeing Chinese armies. In Nanking alone, Japanese ground troops slaughtered over 300,000 civilians and raped over 20,000 women and girls even of pre-teen age. The carnage was so incredible that even representatives of the Nazi-German government complained to Hitler. Complaints which ofcourse fell on deaf ears.
The major problem the Chinese faced in defending against the Japanese onslaught was their lack of a central government. Their Emporer being virtually impotent for over two centuries was deposed shortly after the turn of the century. China was in total disarray politically, and was ruled by competing fuedal fiefdoms. or warlords.
Leading attempts to centralize power after the Boxer Rebellion shook out by the 1920s and fell into what was becoming a unique 20th century phenomenon. Two secular forms of "self-governance" were to compete for rule of a major nation-culture. The second communist revolution was taking shape.
A peasant named Mao Tse Tung was to carry the red banner for Marxism in the East. A right-wing militarist named Generalissimo Cheng Kai Chek would carry the torch for right-wing nationalism. Civil war ensued and was in full swing when the Japanese invaded. But a common enemy would find both leaders turning their attention to the brutal Japanese invader. For the time being.
Mao Tse Tung, Joseph Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, all atheists, killed more people than in all the religous wars thoughout recorded history.
