There are many critics of how both Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and General Joseph Stilwell handled the war in China. While not excusing poor judgment or bad decisions, I believe their choices were very much constrained by the impossible situations they found themselves in.

Stilwell was responsible to General Marshall and President Roosevelt as U.S. Theater Commander in China, Burma, and India, Chiang Kaishek as the Allied Chief of Staff in China, and British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as Deputy Commander of Southeast Asia Command. Since none of Stilwell’s bosses ever agreed with each other, it made his position very difficult. The fact that the U.S. and Britain failed to carry out almost all of their promises to China severely handicapped his dealings with Chiang. None of Chiang’s prerequisites for Chinese action in Burma were met by the Allies. The fact that Stilwell accomplished anything in North Burma shows that he exceeded his basic responsibilities and sacrificed any political capital he had to make what little action he could happen. To do this, he coerced Chiang using his control of lend-lease supplies. Stilwell would have been stupid to think the Ledo Road could carry any more than it did. It would have been useful to facilitate a more general Chinese advance into Burma, but it could not facilitate the large-scale arming of a Chinese Army to eject Japan from Asia. Given the lack of resources Britain and the United States were willing to put toward the project, it was unlikely the China Theater would amount to anything more than it did.

Stilwell believed that Chiang Kaishek did not do what was necessary to increase the efficiency of the Chinese Army or reform the Nationalist political structure. It is true that Chiang was imperfect, a somewhat Machiavellian leader trying to hold onto power. However, Chiang was also in an impossible situation. There was certainly enough quality troops and equipment for Chiang to consolidate the over 300 paper divisions in China into a smaller number of effective fighting units. However, he could, in fact, do very little to reform the Chinese Army. Nationalist China was not a nation, in the Western sense. It was more a fragile coalition of warlords and provincial governments. When the Japanese captured the China coast, they isolated the Nationalist government from merchant and banking interests that formed its fiscal core. In remote Sichuan, Chiang was forced to rely heavily on the fickle loyalty of provincial governments and warlords. To each governor, each division commander, his troops constituted his power and wealth. It was the division commander’s privilege to distribute his troops’ pay – of which he often secreted away a substantial portion. Any loss of troops or equipment in battle was a loss of that commander’s power and wealth. Thus, the Chinese Army was predisposed to avoid direct action. In order to keep his tenuous grip on power, Chiang could not ask for more commitment,  support, or reform than he knew the provincial governments and warlords would provide. Such a request would precipitate a crisis that would highlight how little control he really wielded.

Thus both Stilwell and Chiang were in impossible situations at odds with each other. The U.S. could have eased the situation by distributing Stilwell’s responsibilities amongst three or more capable officers instead of putting him in positions at odds with each other. This was eventually accomplished in the fall of 1944, but by then it was too late to save Stilwell’s reputation in China and prevent his dismissal.