Obviously excluding the Chinese Civil War, they got kicked in WWII, Boxer Rebellion, etc., what was the last war some conglomeration concievably considered “China” won?
The initial phases of the Korean intervention were a massive victory for the Chinese and an embarrasing debacle for the US (or US led Coalition, if you will). Now they never did succeed in pushing the US out of the Korean penninsula completely, but neithere did the US have any hope of moving in the opposite direction, and China achieved quite successfully all of their publicly stated objectives. 20 years later the threat of massive intervention across the border was the main reason the US never invaded North Vietnam.
I would argue that China emerged from the Korean war victorious in the Clauswitzian sense of the word.
Well, they didn’t “win” the Korean War, but they forced it to a stalemate against the US. That’s practically a win by most standards.
I seem to recall… er, I’m not sure? Laos or Cambodia, Tibet? Some of of those teemsy border countries.
I assume, from his user name, that Operation Ripper is already an expert on the Korean War, so I expect some debate on this one. 1950 wasn’t just a small debacle, we’re talking about the “longest retreat in US military history”, “entire American divisons now considered combat ineffective” kind of debacle. The Chinese only had one chance to mount an offensive action that could succeed, there was no hope of a second one getting anywhere significant once the Americans managed to get back on their feet and their enormous logistical advantage was brought to bear. The ultimate end result was better than what the Chinese could probably have expected at the beginning.
You’re thinking of the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979. They mostly lost that one. It was all downhill after Korea. 
Not a full scale war, but I believe China gave India a pretty good beating in the border conflicts of the early Sixties.
And of course they kicked the Reactionaries asses during the Cultural Revolution. 
The border skirmish/war of 1962 ended in a virtual stalemate. Roughly equal casualties on both sides, and the Chinese advance ended all of fifteen kilometres into the disputed territory.
I’m surprised that nobody has called the OP on this one yet. You can’t really consider China to have “lost” its war against the Japanese any more than you can say that Russia “lost” against the Nazis.
There’s a difference between winning a war and being on the winning side in a war. The British fought the Germans - the Soviets defeated the Germans. The Chinese fought the Japanese - the Americans defeated the Japanese.
Agreed (though I think you’re doing a disservice to the British war effort). Chiang Kai-Shek was perfectly content to leave fighting the Japanese to the US so he could concentrate on the communists.
You know what? I think it is a disservice to everyone to blithely say that the “U.S. defeated the Japanese” and that that is the end of the story of China in WWII.
From 1937 to mid 1938 the Japanese Imperial Army JIA did everything it wished within China and conquered most of the Eastern seaboard including almost all the major cities.
But by mid-1938 the Japanese offensive had stalled and the puppet Japanese governments were under constant guerrilla attack – despite the fact that by 12-07-41 [Pearl Harbor] roughly 80% of the Imperial Japanese Army’s manpower was inside the today borders of China.
For your further consideration:
The Chinese strategy had been to prolong the war until it had sufficient strength to defeat the Japanese. And in fact, places like Changsa never really fell – despite repeated JIA attempts to take it.
The JIA lost at least 1.1 million killed, wounded and captured 1938-1945 in China. The total for the same period for all Japanese Services (military not including Civilians) was 2 million .
General Stillwell was terrified that Chang would accept the Japanese peace overtures – what mattered to the U.S. and allies was keeping the stalemate going – that helped win the War.
To the OP I am not saying China won the peice of WWII in China by any means – but they had sacrificed 10’s of millions of lives to fight Japan to a standstill and were a factor in Japan’s defeat.
I have nothing but the highest of respect for the British war effort. But the fact of the matter is that bravery doesn’t win wars - the Belgians, the Poles, the Yugoslavians all fought bravely but they lost because usually the side with more guns win. The same with the United Kingdom - they were strong enough to resist the Germans successfully (with an assist from geography) but realistically there was no hope that the British Army was ever going be able to invade the European mainland and attack Germany directly without help from the Soviet Union or United States.
A similar case can be made about China. As jimmmy points out the Japanese already occupied a major portion of the country. They hadn’t won the war but it’s pretty clear who was ahead. Unlike the Soviet Union, China did not have the internal resources to build its own army and turn back the invader. So as long as it remained a contest between China and Japan the only issue was how long the war would last before China surrendered. The very fact that Japan was willing to start a new war with a major power indicated that they had no doubts about their ability to hold the line in China.