Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi are expected to travel to China for the 80th anniversary of its victory over Japan.
On Wednesday, China will hold one of its largest military parades in history to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The anniversary celebration in Beijing is notable for several reasons—most significantly in that the event will significantly downplay the role the United States and other Western powers played in the conflict, instead focusing on China’s struggle against the Empire of Japan. In that sense, China’s parade is much like Russia’s own “Victory Day” parade, celebrated on May 9, which heralded Moscow as the primary power in defeating Nazi Germany.
China’s parade is likely to place similar emphasis on the Chinese role in World War II. Of course, It wasn’t Chinese atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or Chinese strategic bombers that destroyed many of Japan’s other cities, and it certainly wasn’t on a Chinese battleship where the Empire of Japan officially surrendered. But the military parade will tell another story.
Chinese propaganda efforts to whip up patriotic fervor in advance of the 80th anniversary have included a wave of movies that tell the heroic struggle of the Chinese against Japan. One of the more notable entries in this trend has been this summer’s Dead to Rights, set during the Nanjing Massacre. The film topped the Chinese box office this summer.
What Role Did the Chinese Communists Play in World War II?
Beijing has attempted for decades to remind the world that it suffered tremendously during World War II, in which an estimated 20 million Chinese lost their lives. Though the West conventionally dates World War II from September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, China and Japan had been engaged in a brutal war since 1937, which was later subsumed into the larger conflict. Even before the outbreak of full-scale war in 1937, Japan had steadily encroached on Chinese territory throughout the 1930s—beginning with the Mukden Incident in 1931, when Japan’s Kwantung Army seized Manchuria and created the puppet state of Manchukuo.
China thus stood alone for years before the British in Europe.
“China’s experience of World War II was devastating. It was the longest theater of war of any of the Allied powers,” Rana Mitter, China historian at the Harvard Kennedy School, told NPR.
However, even in attempting to set the record straight, Beijing has chosen to emphasize certain facts over others. Overlooked in its selective showing of history is that most of the fighting against Japan was taken on by the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-Shek, then the rulers of most of China. This element of World War II is unlikely to receive much attention at the upcoming parade.
“Historians would say that overall, the majority of the wartime effort, including the set battles, were actually fought by China’s Nationalists,” Mitter added.
It would not be correct to say that the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong did not play a significant role in the wary. After an uneasy peace deal between the two sides in 1936, they shifted their war from fighting the Kuomintang to the Japanese, making a considerable contribution. Yet the story told today in the People’s Republic of China is that Mao won World War II, at least in the Pacific, and Beijing will maintain the current world order.
“World War II is being used as the framing to argue that China is now the real inheritor of that 1945 global order,” Mitter further told The Associated Press.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi are expected to attend Wednesday’s parade. Notably, along with China’s President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking officials, the foreign leaders will be among the only individuals to see the parade in person. Unlike the United States Army’s 250th anniversary parade in Washington, DC, the victory parade in Beijing will be largely closed to the public. Instead, it will be streamed live on state media due to security reasons—likely so that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can control every aspect, apart from the weather.
The Parade Is a Show of Strength by the Chinese Government
Beyond the parade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will hold other events throughout September to mark the 80th anniversary of China’s victory in World War II. That will include a People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) open house in Changchun, Jilin Province, later this month, where some of its newest aircraft will be on display. That open house will reportedly include a static display of the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon, China’s highly touted fifth-generation stealth fighter. As noted by Interesting Engineering, the public show of the aircraft likely symbolizes China’s growing “openness and confidence” in the J-20’s maturity.
The PLAAF will also conduct low-level flyovers of its bombers and present demonstrations from its various aerobatic teams. Although the PLAAF was not formally established until after the CCP’s victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and the PLA operated only a handful of aircraft during World War II, these demonstrations are again mostly about showcasing modern China, eight decades after the war.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image: Shutterstock / Michelakis Ppalis.
