| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Maboroshi no Shinchitsujo to Ajia Taiheiyo: Dainijisekaitaisenki no Beichuu-Domei no Atsureki, 1941–1945 (Illusionary new orders and the Asian Pacific: The Chinese-American alliance in the war against Japan, 1941–1945). By Xiaohua Ma. (Tokyo: Sairyusha, 2000. 350 pp. ¥4,000, ISBN 4-88202-557-4.) In Japanese.

The history of Sino-American relations during World War II is a well-researched field. Historians from Barbara Tuchman (Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1970) to Liu Xiaoyuan (A Partnership for Disorder, 1996) have explored the political dimension of the important yet troubled alliance between the two countries across the Pacific. Xiaohua Ma's book takes a somewhat different approach. Focusing largely on the United States, it examines wartime Sino-American relations through issues such as the movement to aid China, abolition of the unequal treaties, and above all the repeal of anti-Chinese immigration laws in the United States. By tackling those issues together and beyond the confines of conventional diplomatic history or the history of Asian immigration, Ma emphasizes their historical significance for both China and the United States. Ma credits World War II for China's ability to shed its "semi-colony" status since the Opium War and to gain full independence and even a promised Great Power position after the war (p. 310). The repeal of the anti-Chinese immigration act in 1943, she argues, also "gave new meaning to national integration in the U.S. and played a great role in the formation of a multi-cultural society" (p. 313). This is somewhat ironic since much of the envisioned postwar order in East Asia, as the book's title suggests, proved to be illusions.

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