"China made a major contribution to the Allied war effort during World War II," said Dr. Harold Raugh, president of the International Commission of Military History, in a recent exclusive interview with South.
Raugh noted that two major battlefronts shaped the Pacific theater: the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater and the Pacific Ocean Theater. After Japan launched its surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the strategic importance of the CBI Theater became increasingly clear to the United States.
Raugh elaborated that by engaging large numbers of Japanese troops on Chinese soil, China effectively tied down forces that might otherwise have been deployed against American, British, and other Allied troops elsewhere in the region.
World War II remains the deadliest conflict in human history, with an estimated 90 to 100 million casualties worldwide, and possibly more.
Raugh stressed that diplomatic and strategic tools exist to defuse tensions and manage crises before they escalate into conflicts of such devastating scale.
"With military operations ongoing in many parts of the world today, we must be extremely cautious," he said. "We need to ensure that none of them triggers a global conflagration like World War II."
Reporter | Mao Shujie, Liu Jialun
Video Editor | Lu Xiao
Video Script | Mao Shujie, Liu Xiaodi
Text | Mao Shujie, Liu Xiaodi
Editor | Yao Yijiang, Yuan Zixiang, James Campion
