New Books In Military History

Since the outbreak of the Pacific War, British India had been taken as the main logistic base for China's war against the Japanese. Chinese soldiers, government officials, professionals, and merchants flocked into India for training, business opportunities, retreat, and rehabilitation. Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1942-45 (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Yin Cao is about how the activities of the Chinese sojourners in wartime India caused great concerns to the British colonial regime and the Chinese Nationalist government alike and how these sojourners responded to the surveillance, discipline, and checks imposed by the governments. The book demonstrates Chinese state building projects in British India during World War II and uncovers the British colonial anxieties toward overseas Chinese. It also provides fresh explanations on the origins of the postwar India-China conflicts. Overall, this book provides a subaltern perspective on the history of modern India-China relations, a topic that has been domi