Not long ago, Xinhua News Agency quoted a sentence from former US President Roosevelt in an editorial, which is as follows:

President Roosevelt did say this sentence that many media in our country have cited more than once, and some scholars often use this sentence as an annotation of Roosevelt's global view.

In fact, the original sentence of this sentence is longer:

"If there were no China, if China was defeated, would you think about how many divisions of Japanese soldiers could be transferred to other aspects to fight? They could immediately conquer Australia and India-they could defeat these areas without any trouble, and they could rush to the Middle East... Cooperate with Germany to hold a large-scale assault, meet in the Near East, completely isolate Russia, cut off Egypt, and cut off all traffic lines through the Mediterranean..."

We can also see from this passage that President Roosevelt believes that China cannot perish. If China is defeated, the Soviet Union will be defeated, India and Australia will be doomed, and Britain will naturally not be able to persevere.

So what is the reason for Roosevelt's view?

How Roosevelt viewed the Chinese War of Resistance

The Roosevelt administration's view on China's War of Resistance has never been static, but a dynamic process. In this process, the Roosevelt administration's attitude gradually shifted from negative to positive.

From the September 18th Incident to the July 7th Incident, the United States basically chose a strategy of passively safeguarding its vested interests in China and East Asia, and implemented a policy of appeasement of Japanese aggression.

The War of Resistance Against China has maintained a wait-and-see attitude, but with China's persistence in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the establishment of the two lasting anti-Japanese battlefields, the United States' attitude has also begun to change.

At the beginning of the July 7 Incident, the United States' attitude was actually absolutely neutral, and it was completely indifferent to China's war of resistance.

The political and mainstream public opinion in the United States only recognizes one thing, that is, "the Japanese-China armed conflict will pose a major blow to world peace and progress."

This view was repeatedly emphasized by US Secretary of State Hull on various international occasions that after the outbreak of the Battle of Shanghai in August 13, the United States only negotiated with China and Japan.

However, the US still does not pay attention to China's war of resistance. They only require the troops of both sides not to approach the public concession area within 10 kilometers, and to use the concession area and its surroundings as military bases.

It can be seen that the United States' main attitude towards China's war of resistance during this period was still focused on safeguarding its own interests in China, and did not care about the future of China and the Chinese. This was also a consistent choice after the September 18th Incident.

It's just that the right and wrong of China's war of resistance is very clear, so the American people generally have a sympathy towards China. From January 1937 to March 1938, American media published a total of 5,000 editorials about the "Japan-China War".

None of them defended Japan. While the political circle was still on the verge of waiting and watching, the mainstream American public opinion community took the lead in turning to sympathy with China, which greatly affected the decisions of the Roosevelt administration in the future.

In 1938, China's War of Resistance gradually turned to a stalemate stage, the Chinese government's determination to resist the war was fully demonstrated, and the White House also developed a new understanding of China's War of Resistance.

Based on Roosevelt's consistent intervention position, the United States began to try to link China's War of Resistance and American interests at the policy level.

In early January 1938, President Roosevelt made it clear to the Chinese ambassador that he "I hope China will continue to resist the war of resistance." This is the first time that the White House has cleared its position on China's war of resistance.

On July 5, the Far East Division of the US State Department began to add the title "The possibility of military supplies entering China" to the memorandum, and the United States began to consider providing a small amount of military aid to China through Hong Kong.

At the time when the Wang Puppet Regime was established, the US State Department also made it clear: "Twelve years ago, the US government and other governments recognized the National Government of the Republic of China. The US government had enough reason to believe that the vast majority of Chinese people are loyal to and support the government in Chongqing, which is now located in Chongqing. The US government will continue to recognize this government as China's legal government, not the Nanjing government."

At the end of 1940, Roosevelt began talking about China in a fireside conversation, calling it "another great defensive war in Asia that the Chinese people dragged the Japanese down for us."

In March 1941, Roosevelt once again said: "China also showed the illegal willpower of millions of ordinary people to resist the vain attempt to dismember their country... I have said that China will get our help."

In April, in order to win the support of Britain to China, Roosevelt said: "China will be the best line of defense to defend Singapore and India."

On May 6, Roosevelt officially included China in the scope of aid under the Lease Act. At the same time, Britain, the United States, Australia and the Netherlands have clearly reached a consensus.

In order to curb Japan's further southward entry to the Pacific, it must and can only assist China. It can be seen that one of the major reasons why Roosevelt suddenly changed his attitude was to ensure that the South Pacific "maintain the status quo."

Roosevelt actually never really concealed his views. Just as the sentence at the beginning of the article, Roosevelt clearly expressed his views. China's greatest role in World War II was to "block bullets."

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the United States intervened in World War II, and the White House and the Department of War formulated the overall strategy of "Europe first, then Asia".

Of course, given that the only Eastern Front was left on the European Continental battlefield at that time, the first large-scale intervention of the US military was actually the North African battlefield in Africa, but in any case, East Asia has always been the "lowest priority".

But the most intuitive threat to the United States is not Germany, but Japan.

It is China's insistence that it has delayed Japan and protected the United States...

The Forgotten Fourteen Years

Starting from September 18, 1931, it reached its climax at the July 7 Incident in 1937, and ended on September 3, 1945. China's War of Resistance was the longest battlefield in the entire history of World War II.

The Chinese resisted the Japanese army for fourteen years!

History should not be forgotten, and we should not forget it!

But nowadays, the West has long "forgot" China's contribution.

The West should not forget that the 14 years of resistance of the Chinese people were three and a half times that of the Soviet Union and the United States, and two and a half times that of Britain and France, ten years before the outbreak of the Pacific War.

China is always resisting alone!

The West should not forget that the Chinese army wiped out a total of 1.55 million Japanese troops, accounting for more than 70% of the Japanese army's losses on the battlefield of World War II.

The West should not forget that China lost 35 million people in World War II and displaced more than 100 million people. The Chinese battlefield and the Soviet battlefield are also the most tragic battlefields in the world.

At the end of World War II, the number of Japanese troops surrendered in China reached 1.28 million, accounting for more than half of the total Japanese troops surrendered overseas battlefields. However, these contributions have long been ignored by the so-called "mainstream narratives" in the West.

These Chinese soldiers wearing straw sandals delayed precious time for the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain. It was the Chinese who used their flesh and blood to forge a solid wall on the East Asian anti-fascist front.

Without China's sacrifice, the United States would not have enjoyed peace, got out of the Great Depression, and accumulated strength in the years before the full outbreak of the Pacific War.

Without China, the Pacific War faced by the United States would be difficult to hell. Perhaps before the U.S. Navy turned the tide, the Japanese army had already sent its army to the west coast of the United States.

Without China, it would be hard to imagine what the world pattern is today, and it would be hard to imagine whether that war could win.

At least Roosevelt was right, China cannot be defeated, as long as the anti-fascist camp loses China, everything is likely to be different...

References

"Roosevelt's eyes could rush to the Middle East without the Chinese resistance Japanese army" Guangming Daily June 11, 2015

"Xinhua Review丨Creating a New Historical Monument for the Peaceful Development of Mankind" Xinhuanet September 2, 2025

"The cognitive trajectory of the United States' status of China's wartime resistance" Han Yongli