Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade.
According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”
However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It was not the current PRC in Beijing that won the war, but the Republic of China (ROC), a partner of US and UK-led Allied forces, which governed China at that time and did much of the fighting against the Japanese invasion.
During the war against Japan, then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) used the conflict as a pretext to pause the civil war against the ROC. The party’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) took a passive policy toward resisting Japan, instead making efforts to strengthen its own troops. As a result, after the conclusion of WWII, the ROC government was defeated by the CCP and fled to Taiwan in 1949.
China nowadays consistently misrepresents the history of WWII for political purposes against Taiwan.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) in an event coinciding with the anniversary of the end of WWII falsely claimed that the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declamation required Japan to return territories seized from China, including Taiwan. The fact is that, after the end of the war, the Treaty of San Francisco, which is legally binding under international law to replace the informal Cairo and Potsdam declarations, did not hand over Taiwan to the PRC, but left Taiwan’s legal status undetermined, to be resolved later under the principles of peaceful settlement and self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter. The PRC has never ruled Taiwan.
Facing the bitter memory of the defeat of Japanese imperialism, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Emperor Naruhito at the country’s national ceremony on Friday last week — the anniversary of Japan’s surrender and the end of WWII — expressed “remorse” and called the war “a mistake” that the world should never repeat.
However, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world has again faced threats of wars of aggression. China has become more committed to strengthening its troops and expanding military exercises to inflame disputes in the Asia-Pacific region, from the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait to Oceania.
Oblivious to the casualties China sustained in WWII, Beijing’s military parade would demonstrate its own growing authoritarian militarism, against international principles against the unilateral use of force held sacrosanct since the war.
China has supported Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, causing frictions with Western powers over the conflict. China has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend its parade, further solidifying the alliance between China and Russia, as well as Iran and North Korea, who are also involved. They are forming a new bellicose “axis of evil.”
Taiwan has urged its nationals to spurn China’s parade and related events to defend against the CCP’s “united front” manipulation and propaganda operations.
WWII was a lesson to show how authoritarian countries could be defeated by a democratic alliance. Countries that cherish peace and freedom must unite to deter aggression, just as President William Lai (賴清德) said: “Unity leads to victory, while aggression leads to defeat.”
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