• Denjin@feddit.uk
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        2 days ago

        China suffered the second greatest number of civilian and military casualties of any power involved in WW2 behind the Soviet Union. China was fighting Japan in open conflict from 1937 until 1945 so are also the only allied power who fought for the entirety of the conflict.

        India mustered 2.5 million men, all volunteers making it the largest volunteer army in history and also the only military who fought in every single theatre of operations in WW2.

      • paultimate14@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        China kind of depends on who you ask and how you look at it. Some historians argue that if you remove a euro-centric bias, WW2 really started with the 2nd Sino-Japanese war in 1937. Or you could look further back to territorial disputes and skirmishes between Japan and China going back to 1931.

        India was a British colony until 1947 and participated as part of the British Empire.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          1 day ago

          Those historians are correct, the difference is just racism. It is accepted that separate wars that started earlier merged into the greater WW2, why would the one with over 25 million casualties by some counts not? China (for a certain value of China meaning the KMT) even joined the Allies officially.

          The real hot take is calling the Spanish Civil War a part of it. Mild spicy is the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy.