Second United Front

The Second United Front (traditional Chinese: 第二次國共合作; simplified Chinese: 第二次国共合作; pinyin: dì èr cì guógòng hézuò; lit. 'Second Nationalist-Communist Cooperation') was the alliance between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to resist the Imperial Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which suspended the Chinese Civil War from 1937 to 1945. In practice, the United Front functioned more like a non-aggression pact than a truly proactive military alliance.

Background

In late 1935, Chiang Kai-shek started secret negotiations with the Soviet Union in the hopes of gaining material assistance if war broke out between China and Japan. As a precondition for an agreement, the Soviet Union wanted Chiang to negotiate a ceasefire with the CCP. Although reluctant to engage with a group he saw as rebels, Chiang cautiously sought to establish contact with the CCP. The CCP Central Committee told them that the CCP was interested in a united anti-Japanese army under a government of national defense. Given the wide gap between the CCP and KMT's conditions, further negotiations did not take place during the first half of 1936.

Meanwhile, the CCP opened up separate negotiations with the Nationalist forces besieging them in northwest China. They managed to sign secret ceasefire agreements with Zhang Xueliang, leader of the Northeastern Army, and Yang Hucheng, leader of the Northwestern Army. These generals were frustrated that Chiang was prioritizing Civil War over resistance to Japan. Yan Xishan, another neighboring warlord, also signed a secret agreement with the CCP, although he was not as closely aligned with them as Zhang or Yang.