That and an embargo on scrap metal exports to Japan (to reduce their bomb making capacity), and an overly generous lend-lease program with the Nationalists (who failed to use the weapons effectively against the Japanese), and finally a cut-off of oil exports to Japan.Getting to the meat of the lesson, the teacher said Japan decided to pursue its own longtime desire for a continental empire, and attacked China. The presentation lingered on a famous 1937 picture of a Chinese baby sitting in the middle of a Shanghai road amid the Japanese aerial bombing of China. Then, moments later, the teacher announced plainly, "America's attitude toward the Japanese invasion of China stopped at empty moral criticism."
What did the Communists do? They holed up in Northern China and waited the war out. They took potshots at the Japanese, but never produced any real insurgency to stop Japanese aggression.
For a better review of China during the war years, I highly suggest "Stilwell and the American experience in China: 1911-1945".
