Your View: Truman's decision an act of barbarism?

Chiang Kai-Shek was one shady character, as Takao said he lost China to Mao and the communists. R.J. Rummel estimates that Chiang's KMT killed 10,214,000 Chinese civilians between 1927 and 1949. This number excludes military deaths and deaths during conscription.

"From the earliest years to their final defeat on the mainland, the Nationalist likely killed from 5,965,000 to 18,522,000 helpless people, probably 10,214,000. This incredible number is over a million greater than all the aforementioned 8,963,000 war dead in all the hundreds of wars and rebellions in China from the beginning of the century to the Nationalist final defeat. It ranks the Nationalists as the fourth greatest demociders of this century, behind the Soviets, Chinese communists, and German Nazis. This democide is even more impressive when it is realized that the Nationalists never controlled all of China, perhaps no more than 50 too 60 percent of the population at its greatest."

China had been in a civil war since 1927, there was somewhat of a truce during Sino-Japanese War. Why on earth would Truman, after going through the carnage of the war with Japan over the last several years, get us involved in China's internal conflict in 1945? Truman didn't hand China to the communists; they took it from a corrupt, authoritarian KMT government that had little support from the civilian population after decades of depredations. Unfortunately, for the Chinese people, the communists were even worse. It is totally unfair to blame Truman for the results of something that had been ongoing for over half a century.

 

Well, now we talk about the A-bomb. If there would have been an invasion we would be asking why the **** did Truman not use the A-bomb but killed some 500,000 US military instead. This way or that way, there had to be a solution and I put my money on not killing 500,000 of my country men if possible. Just my View. Not the happy decision but either way the blame is yours.

 

^^^This is an excellent point. It's well worth noting chemical weapons were used on the battlefield in WWI but not on the battlefield in WWII because they knew about the aftereffects of chemical weapons. No nation wanted to open that Pandora's box.

 

Well, no, not exactly. Chemical weapons were used against those who could not respond in kind. The Japanese are reported to have used chemical weapons against the Chinese over 2,000 times

 

Fair enough. They were also used in the Concentration Camps. However, given the scale of the war (and in comparison to WWI) they were used comparatively little. Although chemical weapons were manufactured and stored in large quantity during WWII, the US chose not to use them.

 

Ask Hitler why he did not use the neuro-chemicals. I am happy he did not. (Sarin)