Editing Cairo Conference (section)

=== First Quebec Conference (1943) ===
In October 1942, British and American generals had already reached a preliminary agreement to participate in the battle to recover Burma with British and Indian divisions. However, Britain repeatedly tried to overturn the decision afterwards.<ref name=":2"/> In August 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt decided at the [[First Quebec Conference|Quebec Conference]], codenamed Quadrant, to establish a new joint "[[South East Asia Command]]" with British [[Field marshal|Field Marshal]] [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Lord Mountbatten]] as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in the region.<ref name=":1"/> He would be directly under the command of the British-American Combined Chiefs of Staff, with the main task of establishing an [[airlift]] route through China as soon as possible and sending troops to seize Myanmar and link up with Chinese troops invading from Yunnan.

Churchill, however, wanted Britain to defeat Japan by force and to restore Britain's position in her Asian colonies<ref name=":1"/> even though he and the British military had no real intention of retaking Rangoon and fighting all the way to China. Eventually, he agreed reluctantly when he was prompted by the Americans to mobilise the British Navy to move east from Europe in preparation for a counterattack on Burma.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Liang |first=J.D. |date=1972 |title=The Background of the Cairo Conference |url=http://www.mh.sinica.edu.tw/MHDocument/PublicationDetail/PublicationDetail_1218.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210322223415/http://www.mh.sinica.edu.tw/MHDocument/PublicationDetail/PublicationDetail_1218.pdf |archive-date=2021-03-22 |website=[[Institute of Modern History]] |pages=1–24 |language=zh}}</ref>

On October 2, Mountbatten went to Chongqing with the Quebec Resolution to present it to Chiang Kai-shek with a secret letter from Churchill that specifically mentioned that military action in southern Burma would depend on Chinese military action in northern Burma.<ref name=":2"/> Mountbatten wanted the Chinese troops to support the British in their recovery of Burma and suggested for him to be in command all Chinese troops entering Burma along with the Allied Southeast Asian Command.<ref name=":1"/> China believed that the counterattack on Burma should be carried out simultaneously in southern and northern Burma and that fighting in southern Burma should be to cut off the enemy's rear and that otherwise attacking from only the north would be a waste of manpower. This made China reluctant to field troops.<ref name=":2"/>

Meanwhile, the US military had established an [[island-hopping]] strategy in the Pacific,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Island-Hopping |url=https://www.historycrunch.com/island-hopping.html#/ |access-date=2024-10-04 |website=HISTORY CRUNCH - History Articles, Biographies, Infographics, Resources and More |language=en}}</ref> the efficacy of which had not yet been tested,<ref name=":3"/> but the Allies already had already developed the tendency of ignoring the Chinese Theatre. In October 1943, the British and American Joint Chiefs of Staff began to formulate a plan to attack Japan from the Pacific without going through mainland China, and the US military hierarchy doubted the strategic importance of China.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Zou |first=D. |title=America's Failure in China |publisher=[[Shanghai People's Publisher]] |year=1997 |isbn=7208024901}}</ref>

Regarding the European Theatre, Churchill and Roosevelt had several disagreements. Churchill wanted to meet Roosevelt alone before the Cairo Conference to discuss the Grand Alliance plan of action in Europe for fear of heavy casualties to British forces, but the United States did not want to postpone the counterattack because of Stalin's insistence for the Anglo-Americans to open a second front to relieve the pressure faced by Soviet troops against Germany. Churchill strongly advocated action in the eastern Mediterranean to hold the Germans back so that they could not be drawn into France since if the Allies controlled the eastern Mediterranean, they would not have to go through Iran to support the Soviet Union, and the British Navy in the Indian Ocean could be used elsewhere. The United States, however, resolutely opposed action in the eastern Mediterranean.<ref name=":1"/>