Firn,

Two good maps. Is there one showing how far the Japanese expanded? In 1940 IIRC they occupied northern and then southern (Vichy) French Indo-China; my recollection is that the Japanese were by then on the land border.

More generally and I rely on a conversation with Professor Steven Tsang, a British academic whose life target is to complete a biography of Chiang Kai-Shek.

The Nationalists lost their best divisions, first the German-trained divisions in 1940 that tried to hold onto Shanghai (August to November 1937) and when they were reformed and re-equipped they were sent south to Yunnan, to help the Allies in Burma and re-opened 'The Burma Road' (December 1941-late 1944). Steven remarked that these divisions could ably resist their opponents - if Japanese air power was absent.

Wiki links:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanghai