China's Securing foreign military supplies before and after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War

In the mid-19th century, the East Asian country, which relied on traditional weapons and guns to maintain national defense and security, was cruelly trampled on by advanced Western weapons equipment. After that, East Asian countries promoted modernization out of curiosity and need for Western weapons. Although munitions factories were established in various parts of China, their achievements were limited. Going through the ‘long war’ from the opening of ports to World War II, China focused more on securing military power to solve the urgent war immediately than fostering the systematic military industry. After the collapse of Sun Yat-sen's first Sino-Soviet cooperation, China imported weapons from many countries until just before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, but among them, Germany was the largest trading partner, and furthermore, it also purchased weapons from other countries through Germany. Germany maintained arms trade with China even as Germany signed an anti-Comintern agreement with Japan in 1936 and the crisis of Japan's invasion of China was escalating. However, when the Sino-Japanese War broke out, and Germany stopped trade in 1938, China had no choice but to rely on the Soviet Union. China signed a loan agreement with the Soviet Union for $250 million and purchased weapons from the Soviet Union.Soviet weapons were advanced weapons used by the Soviet Union on actual battlefields at the time. Various types of Soviet military supplies, including airplanes, tanks, hardeners, and heavy weapons, played an important role in China's defense of Japan in the first half of the Sino-Japanese War.