At Beijing’s Victory Day parade, President Xi Jinping sought more than just a display of military might. The event was also used to project China as the world’s leading power undercutting the United States under President Donald Trump, and to present the Communist Party as the decisive force that defeated fascism. That claim is false.
The parade on Wednesday marked the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender on September 2, 1945, which ended the Second World War. China was one of the Allied nations fighting Germany, Japan and Italy.
China now brands the conflict as the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.” In doing so, Beijing frames its war with Japan as the core of the global struggle, even though it was only one theatre.
In reality, China did not defeat Japan on its own, and the Communist Party was not the sole force in the fight. The Nationalists, who later retreated to Taiwan after losing the civil war, and the Communists fought the Japanese together with major support from the United States and other Western powers through weapons, training, advisers and troops.
In recent weeks, state media has been filled with articles claiming that the Communist Party was the central pillar of the war effort. One piece highlighted by the China Media Project quoted Shi Quanwei, a scholar working under the CPC Central Committee, writing in China Youth Daily that the Party was the “backbone” of the resistance. Shi said, “The experience of three revolutions, especially the War of Resistance, has given us and the Chinese people this confidence. Without the efforts of the Communist Party, without Communists serving as the backbone of the Chinese people, China’s independence and liberation would have been impossible.”
Another article quoted a descendant of a Soviet pilot who argued that the United States’ role in the war was overstated. “China’s resistance war was already underway before the Pearl Harbour incident. Chinese forces long tied down Japanese military strength and manpower, preventing them from extending their influence to the Pacific and the entire Far East region at that time,” the person said.
These claims do not stand up to history. The Nationalist government led most of the conventional fighting until 1943 and handled relations with foreign powers. Western weapons, training and soldiers were crucial to China’s ability to keep fighting and eventually turn the tide. Scholars agree that without this support the war would have dragged on for years, with China’s weak industrial base making victory far less likely and a stalemate or compromise much more probable.
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