President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reiterated yesterday that the Reublic of China’s government led the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never played a “pivotal” role in the conflict.
In a post on Facebook, Ma said that amid discussions on who had led the war of resistance against Japanese aggression during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), he has to point out that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was the national leader during the eight-year war.
Ma said that a decade ago, on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, China admitted that it was the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) army that led the frontline battles, while CCP troops fought further back.
In fact, Ma said, historic records have shown the public clearly that whether on the front lines or elsewhere, the ROC government played a “leading role” in the war.
The president said that in the 22 major engagements in the war of resistance, communist troops fought only one battle in 1937, defeating about 500 Japanese soldiers who were responsible for delivering supplies and equipment.
Afterward, the CCP troops moved away from the front lines and adopted a strategy of avoiding direct confrontation with the Japanese to conserve their strength, Ma said.
He said that only one of the 268 generals who perished in the eight-year war was from the CCP.
More than 3.2 million KMT troops died in the war, while the death toll among the CCP was about 200,000, Ma said.
It was also representatives of the ROC government who accepted the Japanese instrument of surrender in 1945, the president said.
All these historical facts show that it was the ROC government that led the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, Ma said, expressing regret at China’s insistence that communist troops had led the war and played a crucial role.
Historical records also show that although Taiwan was a colony of Japan during the Sino-Japanese war, the people did not pledge allegiance to Japan as their motherland, Ma said.
In fact, many Taiwanese fought against Japanese colonization and aggression from 1895 to 1945, he added.
Saying that there have been recent discussions in Taiwan about resistance to Japanese occupation during that period, Ma said he respects the historic memory of different ethnic groups.
However, the historical facts should not be “selectively forgotten,” he said.
In a recent controversial remark, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said he and his elder brother had fought in the Japanese army and navy respectively, for the motherland, referring to Japan.
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