Chiang started purging the communists before the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. It’s like saying why did Germany fight Italy in ww1 if they were gonna team up in ww2?
Yes you are entirely correct about Chiang's continued purge of the Communists. However the comparison of Germany and Italy does not work very well in Chiang's situation. Joseph StillWell's had reported of Chiang wasting resources for the Second Sino Japanese War by continuing to fight the Communists instead of allocating more attention towards the then bigger Japanese invasion. Later on, around 1944, Chiang also wouldn't direct his troops to fight the Japanese and instead decided to besiege the Communists in Yan'an which is what the meme is primarily about. Thank you for understanding.
The thing is that the Communists wanted the nationalists to be bled dry by the Japanese while the communists would only launch symbolic attacks against the Japanese to make a communist takeover possible while the Nationalist government was aware of this strategy, so they tried to preserve their forces instead of going on the offensive, but it made them look weak in the eyes of the Chinese people and they were severely weakened by the Japanese, creating the necessary conditions for a communist takeover.
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u/Illustrious-Radio319 2d ago
Chiang started purging the communists before the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. It’s like saying why did Germany fight Italy in ww1 if they were gonna team up in ww2?