UK book revives Sino-Japanese war history
- By Zhang Lulu
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 29, 2014
Up to 14 million Chinese died and another 80 million were displaced during World War II, or China's War of Resistance against Japan, as revealed by Oxford historian Rana Mitter in his book "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945," first published in 2013 and recently released in a Chinese edition.
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Rana Mitter, author of "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945," attends the launch event of the book's Chinese edition in Beijing on Wednesday. [China.org.cn/Zhang Lulu] |
Though the excruciating history of WWII has gripped the Chinese collective memory for years, China's role as an ally during the war is often forgotten by the outside world, which has frequently paid homage to the United Kingdom, the United States and, in post-Cold War years, the Soviet Union.
"If China had surrendered to Japan in 1938, then the whole story of China, Asia and the world would be different," Mitter said at the launch event of the book's Chinese edition in Beijing on Wednesday.
The book also reveals details of atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in China, with chapters dedicated specifically to the horrors of the Nanjing Massacre and the lesser-known bombing of Chongqing, China's wartime capital.
The book comes out in the midst of a low point in the soured relationship between China and Japan, prompted by Japanese leader Shinzo Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine last December, and worsened by the recent furor over Japan lifting its ban on collective defense.
Mitter acknowledged that "some figures in Japanese society either downplay, ignore or even deny many things that we know happened -- war crimes in China and also elsewhere in Asia during the wartime period," but he also reminded the audience that Japan is a pluralist society and that "the viewpoint of the right wing in Japan is not the viewpoint of the whole society."
"The lesson for today is that both China and Japan should develop an empathetic understanding of each other's history," Mitter told China.org.cn on Wednesday.
He hoped the book "can help China and the rest of the world to learn about the importance of cooperation in future by learning the lessons of the terribly turbulent past."
Zhou Mingwei, president of the China International Publishing Group, which runs the press that publishes the book's Chinese edition, complimented Mitter's book on Wednesday.
"The book can help the international community come to realize the history of the Sino-Japanese War, and help Japan learn lessons from history as well," Zhou said.
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