China during ww2, i know that some provinces were Japanese invaded (even prior to ww2) but how come China wasnt involved in ww2? (or highly involved?)
It was, the majority of the Japanese Army was still in China when they surrendered. China was split between different factions - Communist, Nationalist etc, so as a nation China wasn’t involved heavily, but all of the factions fought the Japanese and each other. They were supplied by the British and Americans flying very long and hazardous supply missions over the Himalayas from India. The Americans also supplied some fighter planes and pilots.
oh so the communists and the nationalist didnt unite as 1 to fight off the japs
Kind of, but from what I’ve read there was still a lot of hostility between them.
Most of the hostility was from 1937-1940, things like the rape of Manchuria occurred. 
the rape of Manchuris was probily the worst event by the Japanese
Before the time when Japan invaded (probably the reason, because a unified China would have been much too strong), there was a civil war going on between the Communists under Mao Zedong, the nationalists, who followed a fascist ideology (Chiang Kai-Shek’s son got trained in Germany, I’ve seen pictures of him in SS uniform, they also had German advisers later fighting the Japanese), under Chiang Kai-shek and various regional private armies commanded by provincial warlords.
Occasionally in the 1920s the Communists and the Nationalists united to fight a common enemy, since both hated the warlords, but alliances usually broke up very fast due to ideological differences.
Chiang started attacking his Communist Allies first in 1927. After the warlords were defeated in 1928 by the nationalists, he turned on the communists, with initial victories, leading to the famous “Long March”, by which the communist army escaped from encirclement by Chiang’s troops.
From then on it was open war between the communists and the nationalists, which even continued after the Japanese invaded.
In fact, Chiang often prefered to attack the communists over fighting the Japanese, which cause a mutiny of his own more patriotic officers (the Shansi incident). Under pressure of his officers, he had to agree in 1936 to form an alliance with the communists to drive the Japanese out.
This alliance held until nationalists attacked a communist unit under nationalist command in 1941. Afterwards, the civil war opened again and there was no concerted efford to fight the Japanese on large scale.
The communsis though fought a guerilla war against the Japanese mainly in northern China, while there was only a token resistance by the nationalists in the south. Chiang was highly corrupt and I also believe that he secretly admired the Japanese model and dreamed of installing a similar government under his leadership in China.
One thing which weakened the nationalist troops as well was the fact that Chiang didn’t trust his own unit commanders and used the American aid (weapons etc.) to reward loyality, at the same time preparing for a civil war decision with the communists. So weapons and ammo were not given to the units which could use them best against the Japanese, but to those which were most likely to defend Chiang’s powerbase.
Jan
thank you, that explained everything for me
cheers
Another point:
The communists basically recruited from the poor peasants and farmers in the rural provinces (though urban intellectuals joined them as well). They were often highly motivated because, whatever happened, life could only improve for them.
Chiang’s troops were mostly urban, and often forcibly recruited. The officers often came from the Chinese upper class.
In China traditionaly soldiers were considered to be the lowest of low and were often mistreated and abused by their commanders.
The communists changed his, at least during the civil war time and up to the late 40s, the communist commanders would share hardships with the soldiers and population, and live in much the same way, while, as I’ve mentioned, Chiang’s government was considered to be highly corrupt.
Jan
I assume you are referring to the rape of Nanking?
Manchuria was annexed to Japan in 1931.
Between Dec 1937 and Mar 1938 about 350,000 Chinese were killed in the nanking area.