China’s forgotten legacy of cooperation with the US
Washington gave $1.6 billion in Land-Lease aid during World War II and rebuilt the Chinese Navy
Rivalry, competition and hostility define US-China relations today. Policymakers and commentators speak of “strategic competition” or a “New Cold War.” Yet history shows there have been moments of deep cooperation.
And that they continue to shape Asia’s maritime order in the 21st century.
Only eighty years ago, the United States and China stood side by side in a grand alliance against fascism. During World War II, the US, the Soviet Union, China and much of the West fought together against the Axis powers. This was a moment of profound solidarity.
Today, the United States courts Tokyo as a strategic partner to balance Beijing. Japan, which unleashed wars of aggression in East Asia, is now framed as a cornerstone of Washington’s regional order.
The Philippines, often at odds with China over the South China Sea, has become central to US strategic planning. So, current strategic competition makes it timely to revisit the US-China cooperation that emerged in the early 1940s.
Iconic symbol
One overlooked contribution of Washington to that period is its role in the making of the modern Chinese navy.
When Japan launched its full-scale invasion of China in 1937, the conflict was still seen as a regional war. It turned into a global struggle against fascism with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
China became a formal US ally, receiving logistical, military and financial support.
The most iconic symbol of this alliance was the American Volunteer Group – better known as the “Flying Tigers” – whose P-40 fighters boosted Chinese morale at a critical juncture. Yet aviation assistance was only one component of the far larger American Lend-Lease program.
Between 1941 and 1945, the US provided China with more than US$1.6 billion in aid, offering jeeps, artillery, engineering supplies, petroleum and raw steel.
Lend-Lease also built institutional capacity. American officials trained thousands of Chinese pilots, mechanics and officers in India, the United States and China itself, laying the foundations of a modern armed force.
Equally crucial were the supply routes that kept China afloat after Japan blocked the country’s eastern seaboard. US pilots flew the hazardous “Hump” airlift across the Himalayas, while Allied troops fought in Burma to construct the Stilwell Road.
This was crucial as it linked India to China. These lifelines brought ammunition, vehicles and medical equipment, keeping China in the fight.
Less remembered is the role this cooperation continued to play in building China’s navy. At the war’s end, the Republic of China’s fleet was small and battered.
Through Lend-Lease transfers and surplus arrangements, Washington provided the ROC with modern warships – including destroyers, landing ships and auxiliaries – that transformed its capabilities.
Direct role
These naval transfers enabled sovereignty operations in the South China Sea and marked the beginning of the country’s emergence as a modern maritime power. Alongside US transfers, China also received 34 Japanese warships redistributed by the Allies.
This was another reminder of the collective defeat of Japan by the Allied powers.
Several of these ships continued to play a direct role in South China Sea sovereignty operations. Vessels like the ex-USS Glendale (renamed Taihu) and ex-USS Thomas (renamed Hsian) became symbols of American-Sino maritime cooperation.
Most important was the ex-USS Caroline County (renamed Yung Hsing), which served as a flagship in the 1946 Chinese expedition to the South China Sea.
That voyage marked the nation’s formal postwar reassertion of sovereignty over islands previously occupied by Japan.
From the ROC’s perspective, this was not an act of expansion but a restoration of rightful sovereignty partly enabled by US naval support. Washington, in other words, was directly involved in legitimizing and empowering China’s claims.
Although some argue that the United States’ wartime partnership was only with the ROC – a government that later relocated to Taiwan – the administration under Chiang Kai-shek during that time included communist participation.
American support was aimed at empowering China to resist Japanese aggression, so it makes little sense to argue the wartime alliance was merely with Chiang’s regime.
After its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China acknowledged the legacy of American assistance and incorporated China’s wartime alliance with the United States into its own national narrative of resistance and solidarity.
Historically entangled
This shared history also helped the rapprochement of the 1970s, which opened the way to decades of constructive cooperation through the 1980s and into the early 2000s.
The history of Washington’s support in the making of China’s modern navy underscores Beijing’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea are historically entangled with its wartime alliance with the US.
It shows that the maritime balance in Asia today rests partly on foundations laid by cooperation in the 1940s rather than pure rivalry. The historical memory of that partnership remains relevant today.
It suggests that US and Chinese interests have converged in the past and could do so again under different geopolitical conditions.
Zhengxu Wang is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Zhejiang University. Shuhang Zhai is a student at Tabor Academy.
This edited article is republished from East Asia Forum under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.