UCLA Center for the Study of Women

The Second World War, better known in China as the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945), fundamentally changed the fate of the country. Faced with this national crisis, two leading parties, the Guomindang (GMD, or the Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), formed a united front to resist their common enemy, while citizens all over the country were motivated to support the cause of national salvation. People in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong Province in southern China, were no exception. As the center of activism for Chinese revolutionaries and the capital of the Nationalist Party in the early twentieth century, wartime Guangzhou remained the gathering place where contemporary patriots created a war resistance movement and even encouraged local women to participate in the effort of national salvation. However, very few studies have been conducted on the activities and views of local female activists during this significant historical moment. This study examines the national identity of Guangzhou female activists through their war activism and self-perceptions.