Hans J. Van de Ven (A Chinese history professor at Cambridge), Diana Lary (A Chinese history professor at the University of British Columbia), and Stephen R. MacKinnon (A Chinese history professor at Arizona State University) in their collaborating book, Negotiating China’s Destiny in World War Two have brought an insight into how China was a country in deep financial trouble, weak military power, and had very little allies before the start of World War Two.
China had fought against European powers. Fighting five separate wars against the Europeans. China would have issues with American imperial policies as it did result in their economic, political, and military domination. Another issue would also include how China was not respected or thought as a world power during the Versailles Conference in 1919-1920 by the victorious countries in World War One. It was a very inconvenient time for China for hundreds of years. However; as World War Two was dying down, the scholar Diana Lary quotes about the book, “Our book sees the war both as a period when much damage was inflicted on China, negotiating all the progress that had been made until…show more content… Van de Ven, Diana, Lary, and Stephen R. MacKinnon presented the book in three distinct sections. The first section, ‘Old Empires and the Rise of China,’ deals with Japan’s expansionism on Western imperialism in Asia and on Western colonies. The second section, ‘Negotiating Alliances and Questions of Sovereignty,’ deals with China’s future alliances with the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries. The final section of the book, ‘Ending War,’ deals with the aftermath of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War Two for China as they had their positives of winning the war against Japan, but also the negatives of the resumption of control areas occupied by Japan, the reconstruction of the economy, and the containment of the Chinese Communist Party, as it had grown stronger with widespread support during the
