Latest POD for China to win the second Sino-Japanese War on their own by 1945

[HagenWest]

So as far as I understand, China was barely holding on for the first half of the second Sino-Japanese War, and even in the second half they were not really pushing the japanese out, with operation Ichi-Go being a defeat for China and losing lots og territory.
My question would be, what is the latest point of divergence for China that leads to an outcome similar to the Soviet Union, so after suffering initiall defeats, they slowly push the japanese out of China by 1945?

 

[Lee-Sensei]

China and the Soviet Union are different, because the Soviet Union was an industrial juggernaut roughly in the same tier as Germany. China only really has a manpower advantage on Japan and not by much, because it was poorly developed. Industrialization is the key. It would also help if the country was more united.

 

[alberich]

Avoiding the warlord era would be a great star.
I read sometime ago of the industrial policies of Yan Xishan warlord of Shanxi, perhaps if such policies could be applied on a national scale, China could be better prepared in industry and training.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

It's a cheat, but push back the outbreak of war a little. Marco Polo was a highly contingent incident, and neither the Japanese nor Chiang wanted a full-scale war at that point. Once they began committing troops, things spiralled.

The problem is that the Japanese officers couldn't accept a situation where they backed down to China, Chiang's subordinates couldn't stomach any more concessions to Japan and tensions were running so high that there was likely to be some kind of equivalent incident anyway.

Possibly if you can arrange some incident in 37 or 38 which both sides can believe they won- a Chinese riot at a Japanese factory leads to Tokyo demanding reparations. Chiang publicly says he won't pay the demanded sum, but offers a lower deal. The IJA and IJN are having one of their feuds and Tokyo accepts.

Japan can say that they upheld their honor, China can say they made Japan blink.

Then when war breaks out in 1939 or 1940, China's military and industry are in a far better state- and the KMT are likely to be in more control of the countryside, too. They go into the war in the unique position of being backed by the Soviets, the UK, the US, France and with German trained troops.