Strategic Context
Following the Mukden Incident in 1931, Japan began its invasion of Manchuria, China. Because the Communists and the Kuomintang (KMT) were engaged in the Chinese Civil War they were distracted from mounting a concerted defence against the Japanese who swiftly captured major Chinese cities in the northeast. In 1937, however, the Chinese communists and nationalists agreed to form a united front. The KMT then formally started an all-out defence against the Japanese threat. It is likely that China fielded the largest army in the world at the time in terms of troop numbers. However, the Chinese army was poorly trained and equipped: some regiments were armed primarily with swords and hand grenades and few had anti-tank weaponry.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Nanking
Famous quotes containing the words strategic and/or context:
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)