The China Theatre was different to the Burma/India TO, moreso in the land war. With a land area greater than Germany, France, and the Low Countries. The Japanese had about 25 divisions to hold this area. there were a further 15 divisions or so on garrison in Manchuria. Five divisions remained in the home islands, 10 Divs in the Pacific and the east indies/Malaya/ Indochina. There were just 2 divs in Burma in 1943.
In China there was never a "font line" as such. The Japanese tended to garrison the urban centres, and the Chinese armies (there were at least two, KMT and CCCP, with numerous private armies under local warlords, some who would fight for either side) amounting to an estimated 500 divs (a div in china could be as few as 200 men, or as much as 40000, if such a thing as a typical KMT division existed, it was about 7000 men, with no logistic tail, no MT no Heavy weapons and no artillery) .
Most of the actual fighting was actually done by Mao's so called "cadres", another euphemism for armed partisans. these groups never conquered much territory, but they kept the IJA tied down and unsupplied for nearly 5 years. The result was in China a stalemate developed. In 1944, the Japanese raised additional troops and launched aseries of ofensives codenamed
Operation Kogo (battle of Central Henan) ,
Operation Togo 1 (Battle of Chanheng), and
Operations Togo 2 and
Togo 3, or the Battle of Gulin /Liazhou, . These were all lumped under the one operational plan, Ichi-Go, ahich had two objectives; open a land route to
French Indochina, and capture air bases in southeast China from which American bombers were attacking the Japanese homeland and shipping.
This offensive was a vicious affair, with Chinese peasants more often attacking the KMT. The KMT suffered more than 5000000 casualties, with the civilian casualties estimated to be 1bout 1.5million deaths. Japan and her local allies suffered about 75000 casualties (we don't know actual IJA casualties),
After the complete withdrawal from Burma, completed by May 1942, there was no contact between the Allied armies and the IJA. The monsoons from June to Late November brought mobile operations to a halt. Further the wholesale transfer of Indian rolling stock to enable the southern lend lease route to the souther Russian border in the Caucasus had led to large scale famines in Bengal, teetering on revolt, which tied down British forces for months. Eventually, however, some offensive moves on a very limited basis were organised into the Arakan Peninsula. The so called Arakan offensive, lasting from December 1942, through to May 1943, was in reality a small scale affair, involving up to 9 Indian army Brigadeds (under the control of 14th Indian Infantry Div) on the attack, being resisted by a single IJA regiment. Later the IJA switched over to attack, and their forcesd were increased to a full division. it was a disastrous campaign, revealing serious weaknesses in the Indian army and their british leadership. Fortunately for the allies, In June 1943, the monsoons intervened again and save their bacon . Some Indian army brigades were so poorly trained they had not even completed their basic training. most of the trained Indian army manpower of the home army was on garrison in Iraq or carrying out the conquest of iran. The 4 divs of the expeditionary forces were in the middle east and north Africa.
The operations of the chindits, the long range penetration group, was a brigade sized operation, aimed at cutting the Burma railway in northern Burma. A second brigade was added later. It was a substitute for the cancelled main offensive with the group commencing operations February 1943, and commencing withdrawal in April. Many troops, however took months to return
In comparison to what was going on in central China, the Burma theatre was small potatoes. The airlift operations didn't really have much effect until 1943, though the Japanese were very sensitive to any supplies reaching the KMT, understandable really given how badly they were outnumbered. in reality however, the gross corruption within the KMT meant that in reality the resources poured into supporting the KMT were a poor return for the effort. . in many ways those supplies would have been better used in building up and training the indian army
