The Dragon's War

Making full use of significant new sources in Chinese-language materials, U.S. Naval Academy professor Maochun Yu provides Western readers with the first detailed account of military and intelligence operations conducted inside China by foreign powers between 1937 and 1945. He also addresses the profound impact of these operations upon China's nationalism, wartime politics, and overall military campaigns. Arguing that operations by the USSR, the United States, Britain, and France, in particular, challenged the authority and legitimacy of the Chinese nationalist government, he illustrates how the failure of the Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-shek to control these operations contributed to its demise following World War II. This provocative work unveils like never before the extraordinary intrigue, command and operational manipulations, international espionage, and politics surrounding military and intelligence operations in wartime China among the allies. It covers such topics as foreign military aid programs to China; the Chinese secret police's massive joint intelligence organization with the U.S. Navy; special intelligence initiatives conducted by the British, Free French, and Americans; secret British and American dealings with the Chinese Communists; America's first covert overseas military operation (the Flying Tigers); and Soviet and American military personnel in the China theater. The author points to the remarkable political and military ramifications that these operations had in China, including the inadvertent creation of conditions that allowed the rise of Communist China. With its implications on the world scene today, such an important new perspective of China during its war against Japan will appeal to a general audience as well as to students of World War II and specialists in the military and intelligence communities.