“The backbone of China's resistance”: Mass labour mobilisation for the construction of the Ledo road and Allied airfields in China, 1942–1945

This article investigates airfield construction for the US Air Force in China, and Ledo Road construction in south-western China and north Burma, during World War II. It explores in detail the local processes and consequences of mass Chinese labour mobilisation for these two projects. Using English- and Chinese-language sources, it uncovers how hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were deployed to pave runways and motor roads, and the everyday hardships and dangers that characterised their work. It highlights an underrated theme in transport history, especially in the context of preindustrial Asia: that the creation of transport infrastructure invariably required massive labour input, and thus was rooted in grassroots resource and labour organisation. Assessment of transport infrastructures on local lives must begin at the stage of construction, not completion. This perspective moves us beyond elite echelons of planners and engineers to reach the subaltern communities who turned infrastructural blueprints into physical reality.