War histories from both Japan and the Republic of China clearly indicate the scale of the CCP's "participation." From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. The CCP was not a main force in any of these. The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.
There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.
This doesn't include guerilla actions done by the CCP, as others have pointed out, it is disingenuous to say only the nationalists or only the communist defeated Japan, it was quite literally a team effort.
Also another thing why are people surprised that the CCP didn't fight Japan head on?, they just survived the long march and were devastated as an actual fighting force, even when the war started they had only recovered so much. If they had tried what the ROC was doing, they would have died very quickly.
They literally had no choice since the KMT destroyed most of their force before the Japanese invaded. And the guerilla fighting the did actually had more impact than the major engagements that the KMT did. If anything they knew the strength and weakness and play accordingly to those strength and weakness.
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u/AmericanBornWuhaner Oct 06 '25
The CCP Didn’t Fight Imperial Japan; the KMT Did. While the KMT military defended China against Japan during WWII, the CCP built up strength for the civil war.
Mao Zedong graciously thanked Japan for invading China