Commemorative events offer historical lessons
WANG YIWEI CHINA DAILY ASIA NEWS NETWORK
To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945), and the founding of the United Nations this year, many countries, including China and Russia, plan to hold a military parade.
Beijing’s parade on September 3, in particular, is expected to be of unique significance compared with the previous ones. Besides inviting foreign troops to its upcoming parade for the first time, China has also made it clear that it has sent invitations to all countries concerned and welcomes them to attend the parade and commemoration activities. That means, Japan, too, has been invited to attend.
Beijing’s sincere and friendly gesture not only seeks to showcase China’s determination to contribute to the peaceful postwar global order, but also the country’s willingness to cooperate with other peace-loving states. The parade will celebrate the united efforts that defeated fascism, and highlight the historical lessons that should have been learnt.
Some western media outlets report that European countries are in a dilemma about whether to attend or not, because they don’t want to choose between China and Japan. In fact, China’s military parade is not intended to stoke the rivalry between China and Japan, nor fuel hatred among the two peoples. The parade, which is not aimed at humiliating any other country, is only part of the planned activities to remember the victory against fascism.
It is by no means meant, as an article in the Tokyo-based Diplomat magazine put it, as “a warning to Japan and the United States”. By over-interpreting an online report of People’s Daily, one of China’s official mouthpieces, on the parade, this piece arrived at the conclusion that “the parade is meant to convey the message that China has arrived militarily on the world stage”.
Such distortion has a lot to do with the Japanese rightists’ false reading of history. Denying and beautifying Japan’s wartime invasion, which inflicted considerable suffering on Asian neighbours such as China and the Republic of Korea, some of them still visit the Yasukuni Shrine where 14 A-class war criminals are enshrined, and play verbal games regarding the notorious Nanjing Massacre and the “comfort women”. Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lightly referred to the women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army as “victims of human trafficking”.
Besides, a host of Japanese right-wingers like to believe that the Japanese are superior to other Asian peoples, because Japan has been widely accepted by the West. Like US exceptionalism, Japan’s biased perception of history needs to be corrected and readjusted, if it truly wants to be accepted into the Asian community.
The Chinese government, in contrast, has been magnanimous by inviting both its anti-Fascist allies such as the US and its former enemy Japan to the upcoming commemorative events. It would be a pity if US President Barack Obama or Abe fail to acknowledge Beijing’s sincerity, or worse interpret the joint commemoration between China and Russia as a warning to them. European countries should also view the invitation to attend in the correct light.
WANG YIWEI is director of the Centre for European Union Studies at Renmin University, China, and a senior fellow of Charhar Institute.
