Patriotism, peace and pain: The politics behind China's World War II narrative

Straits Times

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A girl looking at an image of corpses in a pond at the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing on July 8.
In a dark museum hall, a seven-year-old girl stared intently at a black-and-white image of corpses strewn haphazardly in a pond, part of a slideshow depicting the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing during World War II.
The next slide showed a close-up of a dead toddler. The girl blinked and turned away.
'No, I don't worry that my daughter will have nightmares from such gory photos,' her father Zhao Fei told The Sunday Times. 'She needs to know what terrible things the Japanese did to us, so that one day, if our country needs her, she will step up.'
Asked whether he meant that if there is a war, he would want his daughter to take up arms, he replied emphatically: 'Yes, of course. Boy or girl, we must all do our part.'
Mr Zhao had travelled with his daughter from Jinan city in Shandong province, some 400km away, to Beijing specifically to visit the newly reopened Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
China officially counts its anti-war efforts as starting from 1931, when the Japanese invaded its north-eastern territories. The museum was established in 1987 at the site of the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident, which marked the beginning of Japan's full-scale invasion of China.
The museum exhibition is one of a series of events China is organising to mark the 80th anniversary of its 'victory against Japan and fascism'. The commemoration will culminate in
a military parade at Tiananmen Square on Sept 3 , which Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend and US President Donald Trump has reportedly been invited to.
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Hatred of Japanese militarism, commitment to peace, and love for the motherland have long been three recurring themes in China's narrative of World War II. They reflect Beijing's self-image of the country as a peace-loving nation that has risen from a century of humiliation, partly inflicted by Japan. But there are also times in which these themes do not fit with the realities of the present.
The hatred many Chinese feel towards Japanese militarism is rooted in undeniable historical trauma.
Historians may debate the exact number of people killed in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, or whether tales of soldiers who leapt off a cliff rather than surrender were overly glorified.
But the tragic truth remains: Japan's 14-year invasion of China resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Japanese troops engaged in systematic torture, rape, biological warfare and the destruction of entire villages. The Beijing museum devotes a hushed chamber to the martyrs, their names a silent roll call of sacrifice.
When Japanese politicians, bowing to right-wing pressure, visit the Yasukuni Shrine that honours convicted war criminals among others, or allow textbooks to whitewash wartime atrocities, it deepens a lingering belief among some Chinese that justice was never fully served, and that Japan does not deserve forgiveness.
But when historical pain is repeatedly inflamed, such as by social media commentators eager to stoke outrage for clicks, it risks hardening into a nationalism that no longer targets militarism alone, but expands to vilify the Japanese people more broadly.
On Sept 18, 2024, the anniversary of Japan's invasion of north-eastern China, a Chinese man
fatally stabbed a Japanese schoolboy in front of his mother. Earlier that year, another man tried to attack a Japanese child and his mother,
stabbing to death a Chinese school bus attendant trying to protect the pair.
The government responded swiftly: Death sentences were handed down to the perpetrators, and viral videos falsely claiming that Japanese schools in China trained spies were taken offline.
But the Japanese community in China is rattled. It has seen how hatred of past aggressors can morph into hostility towards innocent civilians today.
A second theme in this year's commemorations is China's proclamation of its enduring commitment to peace.
The tag line for the Beijing war museum exhibition is: 'Remembering history, honouring the martyrs; cherishing peace and creating a better future.'
For Beijing, peace is not only an aspiration, but also a moral high ground that it claims as it rises on the world stage.
China often portrays itself as a benevolent power that offers shared development and has never colonised or invaded another country, unlike the Western powers in the past. It is a potent message – especially to the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that Beijing seeks to rally around under the banner of the Global South.
Beijing's claim largely holds true. Compared with Europe or the Middle East, where wars still smoulder in Ukraine and Iran, Asia is relatively peaceful and stable.
But some of China's neighbours are not totally convinced by Beijing's pacifist posture.
Some South-east Asian countries, like the Philippines and Vietnam, remain wary of China's assertiveness in the South China Sea. Japan is uneasy about Chinese coast guard patrols near the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands over which it has overlapping claims with China. And Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, feels regularly threatened by Chinese military drills.
China's moral support for Russia, now three years into its war against Ukraine, has also placed it on shaky moral ground in the eyes of many Europeans.
Love for the motherland, or patriotism, is the third element in China's World War II narrative, alongside hatred of Japanese militarism and commitment to peace.
The intensity of each of the three themes ebbs and flows over time. This year, patriotism comes across as the strongest theme.
President Xi Jinping underscored this when he visited a war museum in Shanxi province on July 7, which marked the 88th anniversary of the start of Japan's full-scale invasion of China.
Speaking to the youth gathered at the Shanxi museum, he congratulated them for 'being born in the right time', and urged them to be 'dignified, honourable and proud Chinese', and to 'bravely shoulder the great responsibility of national rejuvenation'.
Mr Xi's remarks are best understood when contrasted against a 'century of humiliation' – a narrative drilled into every school child.
Over the 100 years from the first Opium War that broke out in 1839 – in which British gunboats forced open Qing dynasty ports – to World War II, when China suffered devastating losses to an Asian country with a much smaller population, one painful lesson endured: Weakness invites aggression.
Mr Xi has cast himself as the leader who made China strong. Today's strength is both a source of national pride and a shield against future humiliation. The public is encouraged to feel grateful – for being born into a powerful China, and for having a leader who has delivered that strength.
This call for national pride doubles as a rallying cry for unity under the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Since the CPC derives some political legitimacy from its war efforts, it has been careful not to give too much credit to the Kuomintang, which some historians argue had borne the brunt of the fighting against Japan during the war. The CPC had fought the Kuomintang, which had ruled China from 1912, to gain control over China in 1949.
This may explain why Mr Xi chose to visit the Shanxi museum, the site of the Hundred Regiment Offensive, one of the largest military campaigns against the Japanese led by communist forces. He was not at the July 7 reopening ceremony of the Beijing museum, which stands at the site of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, where Kuomintang troops were on the front line.
Back at the Beijing museum, the exhibition concluded with a towering message in red characters on a white wall – clearly intended by curators as the final word: 'The Communist Party of China is the most resolute in defending our people's independence and interests, and the bravest in resisting foreign invasion.'
A display at the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression reminding visitors that the Communist Party of China is the bravest in resisting foreign aggression.
ST PHOTO: YEW LUN TIAN
China's narrative around World War II is all the more poignant when viewed against the biggest geopolitical challenge it now faces – the United States.
Official Chinese commentators often frame the US as seeking to block China's rise. Remarks by some US politicians toying with the idea of regime change have also worried some party leaders.
Today's threat does not come in the form of foreign troops, but tariffs, sanctions and tech bans. The battlefield has shifted from trenches to trade; the weapon from gunpowder to semiconductors and rare earths.
Drawing from past lessons, Beijing's strategy is: Only strength can keep China safe. And in this new struggle with the US, the ruling party is determined to prove China won't be pushed around again like 80 years ago.