Summary of Rana Mitter's Forgotten Ally

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Clash between China and Japan did not begin in 1937. It had been brewing for decades. The story of the first half of China’s twentieth century is the story of its love-hate relationship with its smaller island neighbor.

#2 The Chinese influence was at its peak during this period. The dynasty was established by ethnic Manchus who rode into the Chinese heartland from the lands of the northeast. Even though the Manchus had conquered China’s territory, they still respected China’s powerful social norms.

#3 China’s success in the eighteenth century was largely due to their small, efficient bureaucracy. But when a new threat appeared in the early nineteenth century in the form of imperialism from the West, China was forced to sign unequal treaties that gave away their sovereignty.

#4 The Treaty of Nanjing, which was signed in 1842, allowed trading rights to be granted to the trading city of Shanghai. The Qing dynasty had to rethink its entire strategy of dealing with the Western world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822506497

IRB Media

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Insights on Rana Mitter's Forgotten Ally

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Clash between China and Japan did not begin in 1937. It had been brewing for decades. The story of the first half of China’s twentieth century is the story of its love-hate relationship with its smaller island neighbor.

#2

The Chinese influence was at its peak during this period. The dynasty was established by ethnic Manchus who rode into the Chinese heartland from the lands of the northeast. Even though the Manchus had conquered China’s territory, they still respected China’s powerful social norms.

#3

China’s success in the eighteenth century was largely due to their small, efficient bureaucracy. But when a new threat appeared in the early nineteenth century in the form of imperialism from the West, China was forced to sign unequal treaties that gave away their sovereignty.

#4

The Treaty of Nanjing, which was signed in 1842, allowed trading rights to be granted to the trading city of Shanghai. The Qing dynasty had to rethink its entire strategy of dealing with the Western world.

#5

The Taiping rebellion was the result of a young man named Hong Xiuquan from Guangdong province having visions of being the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and being sent to earth to drive the Manchus from China and establish the Taiping Tianguo.

#6

China’s political system was opened up to the public in the 1860s, which led to a wider culture of violence that targeted foreigners. The country never formally lost its sovereignty, but foreigners were free to roam across its territory with little fear of legal consequences for actions they took, which led to many troubling encounters between the Chinese and the intruders.

#7

Chiang Kai-shek was born in 1887 in China. He was a stubborn, manipulative, and callous man, but he had firm commitments coming from his experience as a Bible-reading Confucian firmly committed to revolutionary anti-imperialism.

#8

The Meiji Restoration in Japan was a revolution that replaced the Tokugawas with a different aristocratic elite in response to the foreign threat. Within just three decades, Japan had been transformed. It had a disciplined, conscripted army, and a constitution and parliamentary system. It was Asia’s most heavily industrialized society.

#9

The Russo-Japanese War had a huge impact on the Japanese public. Songs such as Comrade became popular hits, with lines such as Here, many hundreds of leagues from home, the red setting sun of distant Manchuria shines down on a stone at the edge of a field, beneath which my friend lies.

#10

The Qing Dynasty, which had ruled China for nearly a thousand years, was nearing its end. The dynasty had tried to reform itself in the 1900s, but conservative figures at court stymied these efforts. The Boxer Uprising proved a disaster for the dynasty, as it had supported the rebels.

#11

The end of the old system created new opportunities for learning that had never been available to an older generation of Chinese. Sun Yat-sen, a Hong Kong–trained physician, was a major figure in the new political philosophy, and he spent much of the 1880s and 1890s moving among