XWW2 Update: Die Chinesen kommen!

Starting in the early thirties Japan began a series of aggressive attacks on China, designed to break it into many smaller, competing countries. The first phase of this plan was the separation of Manchuria. The fighting continued to increase in intensity until the Marco Polo Bridge incident, and the Invasion of Shanghai. After these events China was in a state of total war, though it did not officially declare such until after Pearl Harbor.

China's military was an odd mix of equipment. The Nazi forces had supplied much of the equipment during the thirties until the Axis powers later formed a pact. During the fighting with Japan the Soviet Union gave them some minor aide as punishment to Japan for the Khalin Gol incident, but they were largely starved of foreign supplies. Shortly before Pearl Harbor, American planes, weapon and pilots began entering into China, and were critical towards keeping the bulk of the Japanese forces out of the Pacific theatre of operations. In 1944 Japan launched Operation Ichi-go, a grand attack planning to link its forces with its forces in Burma and Vietnam, to do so it needed to cut through large swathes of Chinese territory. Though it succeeded in its drive, the loss in men and material far outweighed any gains it made in creating a single unified front.