This thesis revisits the intersection between war and the Nationalist government’s state-building efforts in the mid-1940s through the War Production Board (WPB). As a trans-war agency, the War Production Board was established in November 1944 following the arrival of the American Production Mission. Its termination was officially announced by the Nationalist government in November 1945 after the Second World War. Despite its original preoccupation, the War Production Board gradually deviated its focus from increasing wartime production and ended up serving as a channel for the Nationalists to strive for more wartime resources and continuous postwar support from the Allies. This indicates an intricate sense of continuity between the regime’s wartime struggles for survival and postwar re...[ Read more ]

This thesis revisits the intersection between war and the Nationalist government’s state-building efforts in the mid-1940s through the War Production Board (WPB). As a trans-war agency, the War Production Board was established in November 1944 following the arrival of the American Production Mission. Its termination was officially announced by the Nationalist government in November 1945 after the Second World War. Despite its original preoccupation, the War Production Board gradually deviated its focus from increasing wartime production and ended up serving as a channel for the Nationalists to strive for more wartime resources and continuous postwar support from the Allies. This indicates an intricate sense of continuity between the regime’s wartime struggles for survival and postwar rehabilitation scheme. By demonstrating new aspects of the War Production Board from the angle of bureaucrats, the study argues that the agency demonstrates that the challenges encountered by the Nationalist regime were not merely rooted in the different priorities set by the Allies and the Nationalists on wartime and postwar state-building projects, but also came from the inner tensions among the Nationalists, which more or less involved contesting visions on the Nationalist regime’s state-building endeavor.