7 - Chinese Strategy, 1926–1949

Summary

Although the early part of the century involved the Nationalist Party (KMT) campaigns – the Northern Expedition (1926-28) – to reunify China after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the history of China’s military strategy in the twentieth century is largely dominated by the activities of the Chinese Communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Embroiled in the first civil war with the Nationalists and avoiding annihilation during the latter’s five encirclement campaigns (1927–1937), the PLA under Mao Zedong’s leadership began to develop some of the core ideas of Communist Chinese military strategy – People’s War, and Active Defense. During the anti-Japanese War of Resistance, the Communists and the Nationalists arrived at a temporary truce to fight Japanese invaders (1937–1945). This period was largely marked by stalemate, but still involved millions of casualties, the use of guerrilla warfare, and the movement of millions of troops across China. Mao’s vision of military strategy unfolded with the resumption of the Communist–Nationalist civil war: guerrilla warfare; manoeuvre warfare; a hybrid of conventional and unconventional operations; conventional warfare; and then a war of annihilation, culminating in the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan.