This volume presents a collection of papers demonstrating the current state of research on the Sino-Japanese War. Until now, fundamental aspects such as the causes of the war, the internal dynamics of pro-Japanese collaborationist regimes, the Japanese military's strategy and its impact on China, Japan's total mobilization policy, and the reality of China's occupation governance remained inadequately elucidated. Furthermore, the true nature of historical facts and memories, as well as the historical issues currently being politically mobilized in China, were not sufficiently understood.

The background to this insufficient research lies in archival constraints. This collection employs a multi-archive approach utilizing newly released materials from Taiwan, internal documents from China that were transferred overseas, and documents from Japan and other relevant countries. This enables the clarification of previously unseen factual relationships. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed elucidation of the sequence of events from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the full-scale war. Furthermore, it presents numerous challenges in methodology and research perspectives. While it naturally seeks to elucidate the history of the Sino-Japanese War from both Japanese and Chinese viewpoints, other key features include depicting Japan's occupation governance from new angles such as “development,” and providing detailed analysis of the evolution of Japan's wartime system domestically.

Shin Kawashima

Shin Kawashima is the professor of the Department of International Relations, the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the University of Tokyo. He started his career as an associate professor at Hokkaido University (1998-2006) and the University of Tokyo (2006-2015), and professor since 2015. He is also a Senior Fellow of National Security Agency (2014-2018), an associate member of Science Council of Japan (2014-), the advisory member of the Committee for the Promotion of the Declassification of Diplomatic Records, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2017-), the member of The Advisory Panel on Communications Concerning Territorial Integrity, the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty (2018-2019), and an academic adviser (the Young Forum) of Mt. Fuji Dialogue.

He was engaged in education and research at Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica (Taipei), Beijing Center for Japanese Studies, Peking University, National Chengchi University (Taipei), and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His research covers Chinese/Taiwanese diplomatic history and the contemporary international relations in East Asia. He has authored and edited several books and numerous articles, notably Formation of Chinese Modern Diplomacy (Nagoya University Press, 2004, awarded the Suntory Academic Prize), China in the 21st Century (Chuokoron-shinsha, 2016), Frontier of China (Iwanami Shoten, 2017), Japan–China Relations in the Modern Era (co-authored, London: Routledge, 2017), and U.S.-China Relations and the World Order After COVID-19 (co-authored, University of Tokyo Press, 2020).

He earned academic degrees at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (B.A.1992) and the University of Tokyo (Oriental history, M.A., 1994 and Ph. D., 2000).

Nobu Iwatani

Nobu Iwatani is Professor and Dean at the Graduate School of Public Policy, Hokkaido University. He earned his B.A. in Political Science from Keio University in 1999 and completed his M.A. in Political Science at Keio in 2003. After completing the doctoral coursework in 2007, he received his Ph.D. in Law from Keio University in 2008. During his graduate studies, he studied as a visiting student at the Department of CCP History, Renmin University of China (2000–2001) and as a doctoral fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica (2006).

Before joining Hokkaido University in 2016, he served as Research Fellow and Senior Researcher at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies (Ministry of Defense). His research focuses on the political and military history of modern China and Japan, particularly the Sino-Japanese War and the history of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang).

His major publications include The Conflict between Democracy and Dictatorship : Institutional Difficulties of Democratization through Kuomintang Party Rule in Mainland China (Chikura Press, 2024) and From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Sino-Japanese War (University of Tokyo Press, 2023). He has received multiple awards, including the Grand Prize of the Asia Pacific Award and the Kashiyama Junzo Academic Book Prize (2024).