China suffered civilian casualties during the second Sino-Japanese War (about 16 million) than any other nation/demographic during World War II. It was a terrible, bloody war. Many Chinese starved from the famine and mass-displacement caused by brutal scorched-earth tactics used by both Chinese and Japanese. The Chinese government was defending itself tooth-and-nail, and it would do everything in its power to keep Japan from profiting from China, even at the expense of its own citizens' lives. The Japanese, on the other hand, fed up from the flooded rivers, obliterated crops, and guerilla insurgents, would capture villages and then proceed to kill everyone in it, burning it to the ground.

Every nation that was significantly involved in World War II has a lot of innocent blood on its hands, but it's a sad fact that China, along with the USSR, suffered the most from this 'collateral damage' as you might call it. All of the major forces involved could be accused of numerous war crimes. World War II is a story of nations and 'nationalism' in their most desperate and beast-like means, the story of out-dated ideals clashing with the cruel reality of the modern industrial world. that's the lesson to be learned; it doesn't matter how good of a person you are; nationalism that justifies violent acts of war makes demons of us all.