January 1941: New 4th Army Incident

Following the growth of Communist guerrilla activity across occupied China during the Wuhan Campaign, when Japanese forces were focused elsewhere and could not adequately respond to Communist activity, the Communists received permission to organize a second army, the New 4th Army, in Anhui and Jiangsu in 1938. Unlike the Communist 8th Route Army in northern China, the New 4th Army shared its area of operations with Guomindang forces and experienced friction with them. After skirmishes between Guomindang and Communist forces in Jiangsu, Jiang Jieshi ordered the New 4th Army to withdraw north of the Yellow River; the Communists refused and, during the first weeks of January 1941, were expelled by Guomindang forces.

Although both fighting the Japanese under the framework of the Second United Front, the Guomindang and the Communists had been at war until December 1936 and both planned to exclude the other from power after the end of the war. Tensions focused on the fact that the Communist strategy was more focused on gaining territorial control in rural China than it was on fighting the Japanese. The Guomindang both resented that it bore the brunt of fighting the Japanese and their collaborators and, rightly, suspected that the Communists were saving their strength to better fight the Guomindang after the end of the war. Guomindang forces were thus largely hostile to Communist operations and, in the case of local commanders, considered Communists to be a military adversary. Even figures who supported the Second United Front were suspicious of Communist intentions and wary of the expansion of Communist influence.

Communist and Guomindang sources feature opposing claims about the initial aggressor in the conflict, but it began with fighting between the New 4th Army and Guomindang forces under Han Deqin. Guomindang officials, including Jiang Jieshi, saw the fighting as evidence that the Communists were moving to expel the Guomindang from the region and thus advantage themselves in any future civil war. Seeking to preempt this conflict, Jiang ordered the Communist to remove themselves to northern China, which was uncontested. For their part, the Communists saw the conflict with Han and their expulsion as evidence of Guomindang treachery and a betrayal of the Second United Front.

The New 4th Army Incident marks the effective end of the Second United Front, which had already been decaying since the Guomindang retreat to Chongqing had cut lines of communication and separated the Communist theater of operations from that of the Guomindang. The greater power of the Guomindang and the continued threat of the Japanese and their allies means that clashes between the Guomindang and Communists will remain limited, but the stage for the later Chinese Civil War is set at this point. From this point onward, the Guomindang and the Communists fight two separate wars against Japan and its collaborators.