In the Chinese Communist Party’s 93rd military parade, the party leader, Xi Jinping, emphasized that the CCP was the “mainstay” of the War of Resistance Against Japan. He also shook hands with veterans of the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army on the Tiananmen Tower. However, historical documents released by a Japanese think tank indicate that the CCP not only did not fully resist the Japanese during the war, but also colluded with the Japanese forces.
According to a report by “Shang Bao,” Chang Yungyu, the director of the Institute of Global Studies on China, pointed out in an article that Taiwan’s National History Museum declassified files revealed that on December 17, 1940, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek reported to the National Army Commander-in-Chief, Gou Zhutong, that the Communist forces in Jiangsu Yilin were purchasing and transporting 20,000 catties of cotton for the stationed Japanese in Huai’an in exchange for ammunition.
The telegram also mentioned that the Communist forces signed a “non-aggression treaty” with the Japanese, and when the Japanese attacked the National Army, the Communist forces took the opportunity to harass the National Army. Even when the Communist forces were mobilizing troops, the Japanese silently allowed them to pass.
Chang Yungyu explained that a paper from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences mentioned that the Nationalist government had cut off the ammunition supply to the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army as early as the beginning of 1940. Mao Zedong then ordered the troops to “buy ammunition from the Japanese,” explicitly instructing that this ammunition was to be used against the National Army.
She believes that the historical records show that the CCP did not fully resist the Japanese, but instead adopted a strategy of “uniting with minor enemies to fight the main enemy.” While the CCP outwardly claimed to be the “main force” in the war against Japan, it actually had clandestine dealings with the Japanese. Research articles from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences further confirmed the fact that “Mao Zedong conspired with the Japanese.”
Chang Yungyu also pointed out that Mao Zedong even betrayed the Nationalist Party during the war. According to a report by Voice of America, in December 2015, Chang Yungyu mentioned in her book “Mao Zedong, Man who conspired with the Japanese,” that in order to weaken the Nationalist Party, Mao sold military intelligence obtained from cooperation between the Nationalists and Communists to Japan to strengthen the CCP.
She cited memoirs of Iwai Eiichi, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s clandestine agency “Iwai Mansion” in Shanghai, which mentioned that the CCP sent agents to contact Japan to try to sign a ceasefire agreement. Chang Yungyu told Voice of America that this was Mao Zedong’s personal decision, executed by a few spies, and other senior CCP leaders were not informed.
Peter Vladimirov, a correspondent of the Communist International in Yan’an, recorded in “Yan’an Diary” that he had seen telegrams from the headquarters of the New Fourth Army showing that Mao Zedong maintained contact with the Japanese high command and received regular reports.
The report also pointed out that the CCP’s slogan of the “Anti-Japanese National United Front” was actually a strategic necessity of the Soviet Union and the Communist International. In 1935, the Seventh Comintern Congress called for the establishment of an anti-fascist united front, and the CCP then followed the instructions to proclaim the “August 1st Proclamation” and announce a strategic shift. Xie Youtian, author of the book “The Mystery of the CCP’s Growth,” said that the Soviet Union believed that only China’s war against Japan could hold back Japan and lessen the threat to the Soviet Union’s eastern regions.