Chinas New Remembering of The Anti-Japanese War of Resistance 1937-1945-Coble-2007

China's "New Remembering" of the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, 1937-1945
Author(s): Parks M. Coble

Source: The China Quarterly, No. 190 (Jun., 2007), pp. 394-410
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies
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394
China's "New Remembering" of the

Anti-Japanese War of Resistance,
1937-1945*
ParksM. Coble
In today's China, memory of the Sino-Japanese War of

1937-45 is often a frontpage issue, a source of diplomatic friction between
era, public memory of this conflict
Beijing and Tokyo. Yet in Mao's
the
of
role
communist forces under Chairman
virtually disappeared. Only
ABSTRACT
commemorated; other memories were consigned to historical

oblivion. This article examines the process by which memory of thewar re
Mao
was
in the reform era. Because
the government has emphasized

war
new
of
the
the
has
stressed a patriotic nationalist
memory
nationalism,
same
narrative of heroic resistance. At the
time, a second major theme has
been the emphasis on Japanese atrocities, virtually a "numbers game" in
appeared
historical writing. Thus despite the voluminous publications which have

appeared since the 1980s, the new writing on the war has stressed certain
themes while neglecting others.
Over
six decades have passed since the end of the Second World War. In most of
the public memory of the war is confined to ceremonies
the combatant nations
on special holidays when the few remaining veterans are honoured. In China,
however, the legacy of thewar has become a volatile, public issue the subject of
diplomatic friction between China and Japan. A defeat by Japan in a soccer
led a Chinese mob
to riot; the crowd yelled

slogans filled with references to Japanese atrocities in the Second World War. A
fewmonths later inApril 2005, anti-Japanese demonstrations erupted in several
major cities, protesting at the treatment of thewar in public school textbooks in
match
in Beijing
in August
2004
Japan. The "history question"

the two nations.1
remains an obstacle
to better relations between
Earlier versions of this article were delivered at Pomona College inNovember

2002, at a workshop
II diaries from Europe and Asia";
at the American
entitled "Reading and interpretingWorld War
Historical Association meeting in January 2003, and at the 18th International Association of Historians
of Asia conference inTaipei, Taiwan, December 2004. The author thanks Professor Samuel Yamashita,
the Pacific Basin Institute of Pomona College for its support, and the participants in theworkshop and
conference sessions for suggestions. The author also thanks Chang Jui-te, Charles Hayford, Stephen
Michael
MacKinnon,
Szonyi and Guohe Zheng.
1 Peter Hays Gries, "China's 'new thinking' on Japan," The China Quarterly, No. 184 (2005), pp. 831-50;
factor," China: An International
Peng Er Lam, "Japan's deteriorating ties with China: the Koizumi
Journal, Vol. 3,No. 2 (2005), pp. 275-91.
?
The China Quarterly,2007
doi:10.1017/S0305741007001257

War
of theAnti-Japanese
China's"New Remembering"
Views of the Second World War during the Mao Era
For much of the history of the People's Republic of China - theMaoist years mention of the anti-Japanese war of resistance almost disappeared from public
Peter Hays Gries has noted in his recent work, Chinas New
there was little research on the history of Japanese
Nationalism, "under Mao
view. As
aggression; praising the victorious leadership ofMao and the Communist Party
was more important. The newly established People's Republic did not wish to
dwell on Chinese suffering."2Major battles of thewar were seemingly forgotten.
the greatest achievement of Chinese forces in the war had been the
in April 1938. "At the time," notes Rana
victory at Taierzhuang
{nJUS:)
source
was
the
tremendous
"it
of
value for Chiang Kai
Mitter,
propaganda
Perhaps
shek's (3#^ViJ) government, then in retreat at its first temporary capital of

Wuhan. Yet after 1949, Taierzhuang was rarely mentioned in China; it did not
become an iconic event like Dunkirk, Stanlingrad, Alamein or Midway for the
other Allied powers."3
Even though total military and civilian deaths in China may well have
surpassed 20 million, with perhaps 100million becoming refugees at some point,
and nearly half China's population
living for a time under an often brutal
occupation regime, Maoist China lacked memorials, museums, and historical
writing and literature devoted to thewar. A visit to China inMao's
day would
have given no hint of the magnitude of this conflict. As the historian Arthur
Waldron
has noted: "The post-1949 oblivion [to which the war had been
consigned] is evident in the very cityscape of Beijing. Here you will find no
central war memorial; there is no cenotaph, no tomb of the unknown soldier, no
elite honor guard, no eternal flame."4
The conclusion
course
civil war
brought not peace to China but of

and the Communists.
the Kuomintang
(BK^?)
a historical
victory in 1949, the Party mandated
of the Second World War

between
the communist
Following
narrative which privileged the revolution and the leadership of the Communist
Party and consigned other players and memories to historical oblivion. In an
official publication in 1954, for instance, Chiang Kai-shek

is given scant credit
for fighting in the war. Chiang, it notes, announced resistance to Japan, only
"under nationwide pressure of the people and in consequence of the serious blow
Japanese invasion dealt to the interests of Anglo-US
imperialism in China as
well as to those of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie whom Chiang Kai-shek
directly represented." It acknowledges that Chiang put up some resistance at
2 Peter Hays Gries, Chinas New Nationalism:
California Press, 2004), p. 73.
3 Rana Mitter, "'Old ghosts, new memories':
Pride, Politics,
and Diplomacy
(Berkeley: University
of
China's changing war history in the era of post-Mao

politics," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2003), p. 123.
4 Arthur Waldron,
"China's new remembering ofWorld War II: the case of Zhang Zizhong," Modern
Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4 (1996), p. 949. A related issue is that the Beijing government in the 1970s
was actively cultivating relations with the Japanese. As Rana Mitter notes: "Throughout the period up
to the 1970s ... the Sino-Japanese War, had been dealt with relatively cursorily in public memory and
education. The need to appease Japanese sensibilities had meant that itwas simply not tactful to recall
the horrors of war in detail." Mitter, "Old ghosts, new memories," p. 118.

395
396 TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
Shanghai under compulsion, but concludes that "even then right up to 1944,
never ceased his clandestine attempts to make peace with
Chiang Kai-shek
...
Japan
Chiang opposed the general mobilization of the people for total war,
and adopted the reactionary policy of passivity and resisting Japan but actually
opposing the Communists and the people."5
And
what
of the role of wartime
allies American
and Britain? This was
eliminated from the historical record. "Next to the war of resistance relentlessly
waged by the Chinese people and the People's Liberation Army, the chief factor
that accounts for Japan's defeat was the march into Northeast China of the
Soviet Army which put the million-strong
Japanese Kwantung Army, the
mainstay of Japan's armed forces, out of action."6 Those Soviet forces entered
thewar on 8 August
bomb on Hiroshima.
1945, two days after theUnited
States dropped
the atomic
The significance of the Soviet role in victory diminished dramatically after the
Sino-Soviet split of 1960, while as China approached
the Cultural Revolution
the role of Chairman Mao grew larger. On the 20th anniversary of victory over
Japan, Lin Biao
wrote:
(#Jr?), soon to be a key architect of the Cultural Revolution,
In the early stages of theWar of Resistance, the Japanese imperialists exploited their
military superiority to drive deep into China and occupy half of her territory ... The
Kuomintang was compelled to take part in thewar of resistance but soon afterwards it
adopted thepolicy of passive resistance to Japan and active opposition to theCommunist
Party. The heavy responsibility of combating Japanese imperialism thus fell on the
shoulders of theEighth Route Army, New Fourth Army and thepeople of theLiberated
Areas,
War
all led by
of Resistance
of China
the Communist
... The basic

reasons
Party
[for victory] were
was a genuine
war
led
people's
by the Communist
Japan
against
and Comrade
Mao
Tse-tung.7
that
the
Party
Party approach to thememory of thewar was not the

in China, itwas the only narrative. Beijing maintained a
The orthodox Communist

"dominant
narrative"
tight control over publishing which prevented other voices from being heard.
For a brief period in 1956-57 Mao
decreed that "a hundred flowers should
bloom," and opened up themedia to wider opinions. The result was a massive
in which hundreds of thousands were arrested and subject to
crackdown
5 Mao
and Perspectives of Combating Japanese Invasion

Tse-tung (Zedong), The Policies, Measures,
(Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1954), pp. i-ii.
6 Liao Kai-lung, From Yenan to Peking: The Chinese People's War of Liberation (Peking: Foreign
Languages Press, 1954), p. 1.
7 Lin Piao
[Biao], Long Live the Victory of thePeople's War! In Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary
of Victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japan (Peking: Foreign Languages Press,
1965), pp. 1-2. The Soviet role has resurfaced. In Jiang Zemin's speech on the 50th anniversary of
victory, he noted that "the Chinese war of resistance obtained support from theworld's people. I want
here to mention the human and material support given by the Soviet Union, the United States, and
England and other anti-fascist allies of China's war of resistance." See The Scientific Research Bureau
of the Party History Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (ed.), Jinian
zhanzheng shengli 50 zhounian xueshu taolun hui wenji {Collected Essays of an Academic
the 50th Anniversary of the War of Resistance against Japan), 3 vols.
Conference to Commemorate
(Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 3.
kangRi

War
of theAnti-Japanese
"thought
reform." Careers
to labour
people
were
shattered, marriages destroyed, countless

lives and histories were
camps. As people's
consigned
scrutinized, those who had served with the Kuomintang military during the
war or had worked for theWestern allies - activities which might well have been
- were now
considered "enemies of the people." As
considered patriotic
Timothy Brook has written: "The post-liberation purges in the early 1950s,
in any
the Communist Party rounded up anyone who had collaborated
sense with anyone other than itself,meant that those who might later have
written about the war ended up publicly humiliated, shot, or lost in a labor
when
camp.
When Mao
launched his Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution
in 1966 the
scope of attack widened. Many within in the Party itself became targets. Those
who had been in the underground during thewar and operated behind Japanese
areas were accused of having been secret

Red
invaded
Guards
homes, destroying and seizing property. Personal
spies.
as
or
diaries from the war era could be found and used as
letters
material such
lines or in Kuomintang-controlled
that someone had been an "enemy agent." Private documents were

dangerous. During the course of the Cultural Revolution, virtually anyone in a
position of responsibility was required to write a life history, which could
evidence
the subject of a "struggle session." "Historical memory"

"contested space" not in an academic sense but in a real way. One's
during the war era could lead to imprisonment or worse.
become
was
actions
virtually shut down China's academic and

publishing worlds. Save for the Quotations of Chairman Mao and a few selected
texts, hardly anything was published during the next few years
certainly no
historical literature on the Second World War.
China's most prominent
In 1966 the Cultural Revolution
Historical Research), for instance,

journal, Lishi yanjiu (U^^M%,
in 1966 and did not resume until
with
its
issue
second
publication
historical
ceased
in 1976 thememory of the Sino

1974. By the death of Chairman Mao
Japanese War had virtually disappeared from public space in China.
December
The Post-Mao Era

Yet not long after the death ofMao, China moved in a new direction with the
era of reform and opening to the outside world. Among themany changes was a
gradual restoration of public memory of China's war against Japan. Discussion
of thewar began to surface gradually in scholarly writing in themid-1980s, and
then, as ifa floodgate broke, thewar became the subject of an enormous number
of both academic
and popular publications
as well as such outlets as television
8 Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites

Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 14.
inWartime China

(Cambridge, MA:
397
398 TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
dramas, films and cartoon books. By themid-1990s a "new remembering" of the

war had developed, to borrow a phrase from Arthur Waldron.9
But the process was gradual. When Lishi yanjiu reappeared in late 1974, it
carried almost no articles on thewar for over a decade. Then
(^ftB:^),
a historian
"Zhongguo
kangRi
in 1985 Qi Shirong
at Beijing Normal College, published a major article,
zhanzheng zai dierci shijie dazhan zhong de diwei he
zuoyong" (* H?ftBiK^?E^-AlttlfîK^
WAf?^ffl,
"The positionand
anti-Japanese war of resistance in the Second World War").

the
40th
Noting
anniversary of the global victory against fascism, Qi asserted
that China had played a major role in that success. Japan had been second only
effect of China's
as a power in the fascist bloc, wrote Qi, and China's eight-year

struggle against Japan had been crucial. The author emphasized that China had
fought fascism alone between July 1937 and September 1939 and that even after
to Germany
the eruption of the European war, none of the Allied powers entered the fight
1941. Qi shored up his view by quoting a
against Japan until December
1951
September
telegram from Stalin to Mao
thanking China for its help in
in
Japanese imperialism.10 Qi's article was a major breakthrough
war
as
a
the
of
not
historical
He
opening up
topic
writing.
praised
simply
Chairman Mao, or the leadership of theRed Army, but the total effort of China
defeating
in the war, which
included the forces led by Chiang Kai-shek.

was
in early 1986 by "Lun kangRi zhanzheng" (?&?tl B $t
article
followed
Qi's
then vice
#-, "On the anti-Japanese war of resistance") by Li Xin (^0f),
director of the history research office of the Chinese Communist Party, whose
imprint was authoritative. Li reiterated the idea that the anti-Japanese war was
crucial to the global victory against fascism. This view, of course, opened the
door to discussing the role of Chiang Kai-shek's
forces during the war, a topic
a professor of history at
taboo during the previous years. Yu Zidao
(^Ti?),
an
Fudan (?J=L) University, contributed
article to Lishi yanjiu in 1988 on the
overall strategy of the Kuomintang main command, including the policy of
"trading space for time" after the initial defeats.11

The Central Party History Commission
issued a collection of such articles in
1988, opening with the article by Li Xin, which revealed the official new line in
remembering thewar and especially the contributions of theKuomintang

As one of the authors, Wang Pei (:??$), wrote:
The
anti-Japanese
countering
war
the invasion
of
resistance
of Japanese
was
forces.
war
of
people's
revolutionary
In the war of resistance
two
there were
the Chinese
imperialism.
battle fronts.One was theKuomintang government'smilitary taking on frontal battles;

one was the CCP led Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army and other people's
9 Waldron,
"China's new remembering ofWorld War II."
10 Qi Shirong, "KangRi
zhanzheng zai dierci shijie dazhan zhong de diwei he zuoyong," Lishi yanjiu
{Historical Research), No. 4 (1985), pp. 118-33.
11 Li Xin, "Lun kangRi zhanzheng" ("About thewar against Japan"), Lishi yanjiu, No. 1 (1986), pp. 166?
79; Yu Zidao,
"Zhongguo
zhengmian zhanchang duiRi zhanlue de yanbian"
("The evolution of
strategy in themain battle front in China during the war against Japan"), Lishi yanjiu, No. 5 (1988),
pp.138-52.

War
of theAnti-Japanese
military units in the liberated zone behind enemy lines. These two battle frontswere
mutually dependent, co-ordinated inmaking war, and embodied the spiritof theKMT
and CCP co-operating to resistJapan. Of course,KMT controlled units adhered tomany
incorrect
Thus
lines.12
the contributions
for both the CCP
forces and those of the Kuomintang
could now be officially "remembered."

The emergence of the new line was even more dramatic
shi yanjiu (i&iX^M%,
the Chinese Academy
Research
onModern
of Social
Sciences
in the journal Jindai

Chinese History). Inaugurated by
in 1979, it had become the leading
in its field. In the early years, articles appearing on the war of

publication
resistance clearly followed the old, Maoist-era
formula. In 1979, Zhang Bofeng
(?Ef?I?i) publishedan article"Guan yu kangRi zhanzhengshiqi JiangJieshi

fandongjituande jici tuoxietouxianghuodong" (^^?rt B^^HMWlfr'S B?$?
"The many compromisingand capitulationist
Affla^/L?^St?>?9:[#VrS??I,
activities of the Chiang Kai-shek
reactionary clique during the anti-Japanese
war of resistance"). Zhang repeated the standard line that "the great victory in
the anti-Japanese war was the result of eight years of heroic struggle by the
Chinese people under the leadership of the CCP and Comrade Mao Zedong."
As for Chiang Kai-shek, his group represented the big landlords and capitalists,
the people, and "was inactive in resisting
and opposed
the CCP, opposed
Japan."13 In 1980, the journal published posthumously an article by Dong Biwu
(?i&?),
longtime Politburo member, which was an edited version of a 1945
control areas during the war. It

report on the situation in the Kuomintang
contained
the standard critiques of Chiang's
dictatorship as fascist and
feudalistic.14 Even as late as 1984, the journal carried an article by Chen Lian
(WM) entitled"Wojun jianlidihou genjudi de zhanluebushu" (A?1|?lS$C??
?Sf?itb?^JA?ffl&oP^, "The strategic plan of our army in setting base areas behind
enemy lines").15 The phrase wojun (our army) is used to refer only themilitary
controlled by the CCP, not themuch larger force under Chiang Kai-shek.
The following year, however, the journal had two special issues devoted to the
40th anniversary of victory in which the new remembering becomes evident.
articles dealt with the traditional topics, but one, by Yuan Xu (MM) and
Li Xingren ($7\t),
summarized the military history of the early battles.
Most
Detailing the change of the Chiang government from a policy of non-resistance

to a stand against the Japanese at Shanghai (_t$?), the authors describe the
12 Wang
Pei, "KangRi zhanzheng chuqi de liangge zhanchang" ("The two battlefields in the early part of
the anti-Japanese war of resistance"), in Quanguo
Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu hui (ed.), Zhongguo
kangRi zhanzheng yu shijie fan faxisi zhanzheng {The Chinese Anti-Japanese War of Resistance and the
Global Anti-Fascist War) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1988), p. 101.
13 Zhang Bofeng, "Guan yu kangRi zhanzheng shiqi Jiang Jieshi fandong jituan de jici tuoxie touxiang
and capitulationsist
activities of the Chiang Kai-shek
("The many compromising
reactionary clique during the anti-Japanese war of resistance"), Jindai shi yanjiu, No. 2 (1979), p. 215.
14 Dong Biwu, "KangRi zhanzheng shiqi Guomindang
tongzhi qu de qingkuang" ("The situation in the
areas during the anti-Japanese war of resistance"), Jindai shi yanjiu {Research
Kuomintang-controlled
onModern History), No. 3 (1980), pp. 1-32.
15 Chen Lian, "Wojun jianli dihou genju di de zhanlue bushu," Jindai shi yanjiu, No. 1 (1984), pp. 29-55.
huodong,"

399
400
TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
struggles fromMarco Polo Bridge to the fall ofWuhan. Although they note the
forces, they conclude that these sacrifices
many failures of the Chiang-led
the
for
resistance.16
way
long-term
prepared
This new atmosphere opened the door to publication of histories of themajor
battles of thewar of resistance. One of the earliest was published by the Sichuan
People's Press inChengdu in 1985 entitled KangRi zhanzheng shiqi Guomindang
zhengmian
zhanchangzhuyaozhanyijieshao (?f[Bfi?#*0?^HK;^lEffi??îS
An Introduction to theMajor Battles of theWar of Resistance Period

?fe?&^S,
on theKuomintang Main Battle Fronts), a somewhat cursory account.17 A more
detailed military history appeared two years later, edited by Zhang Xianwen (?rfc
and published by Henan People's Press. Then archival sources began
%~X)
appearing in print. In preparation for the 50th anniversary of theMarco Polo
in Nanjing
Bridge Incident in 1987, the Number Two Historical Archives
published
a collection
of documents
on
the war which
included
extensive
coverage of all themajor battles and included many telegrams from nationalist
figures such as Chiang Kai-shek related to the fighting.18
Biographies of key Kuomintang military personnel began appearing during
the late 1980s. In 1987 Henan
People's
Press published Guomindang kangzhan
xunguojiangling(SK^trC??^tlffl^M, KuomintangGeneralswhoDied for their
Country in the War of Resistance), with brief biographies and pictures of 84

Nationalist
generals who died in combat. The following year, the People's
Liberation Army published a seven-volume seriesMinguo gaoji jiangling liezhuan
Leaders
(KH?^^^^!j#,
Biographies
of High-Ranking Military
of the
Republic), which gave short but often positive views of many non-communist
military figures from 1925 to 1949.Work on the volume had begun in July 1985.
The preface to this work specifically cited Deng Xiaoping's
pronouncement of
country, two systems," which was designed to open doors to Taiwan.
Important military figures of the war were thus returned from oblivion.19
"one
Another
series appeared under the general title "Yuan Guomindang
kangRi zhanzheng qin liji" (MaK^^SB^f^ffii?,

historical accounts of formerKuomintang
jiangling
"The personal
military commanders"). These works

covered virtually all the key battles of thewar. In 1985 a volume appeared on the
Battle of Xuzhou
(?&ffl), followed by theMarco Polo Bridge Incident, the Battle
16 Yuan Xu, Li Xingren, "Lun kangzhan chuqi de zhengmian zhanchang" ("The main battlefields in the
early part of thewar of resistance"), Jindai shi yanjiu, No. 4 (1985), pp. 88-118. Issues No. 3 and No. 4
had articles commemorating the 40th anniversary.
17 Guo Xiong et al (eds.), KangRi zhanzheng shiqi Guomindang zhengmian zhanchang zhuyao zhanyi
jieshao {An Introduction to theMajor Battles of theWar of Resistance Period on theKuomintang Main
Battle Fronts) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1985).

18 Zhang Xianwen et al (eds.), KangRi zhanzheng de zhengmian zhanchang {TheMain Battle Fronts of the
renmin chubanshe, 1987); The Number Two
Anti-Japanese War of Resistance)
(Zhengzhou: Henan
Historical Archives of China (ed.), KangRi zhanzheng zhengmian zhanchang {The Second Sino-Japanese
War, Regular Warfare at theFront), 2 vols. (Nanjing: Jiangsu guiji chubanshe, 1987).
19 Mao
Haijian
(ed.), Guomindang kangzhan xunguo jiangling {Kuomintang generals who died for their
country in the war of resistance) (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1986); Wang Chengbin et al
(eds.), Minguo gaoji jianglin liezhuan {Biographies ofHigh Ranking Military Leaders of theRepublic), 1
vols. (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1988), Vol. 1, p. 1.

of theAnti-Japanese
War
of Shanghai-Wusong 0kM)9
the defence of Nanjing, the battle ofWuhan
the campaign in Burma. More recent volumes in the series include Hunan
and
sida
huizhan (iSi^H^C^?fe, The Four Major Battles ofHunan) andMinZheGan
The War of Resistance inFujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi).

kangzhan (â?^?rCr^,
These volumes often presented the writings of Kuomintang
commanders who
had been non-persons inMaoist China. The volume on Hunan, published in
1995, gave extensive coverage to the second battle for Changsha, fought from
1941. The selections included a three-page account by
September to October
General
Xue Yue
(SP-Sj), commander of the Ninth Area Army and generally

as
one
of China's better commanders. Since Xue Yue had left for
regarded
Taiwan in 1949, his success against the Japanese had rarely been mentioned. As
a result of these new publications, Chinese readers in the 1990s could find out
or
the details of major battles of the war such as the fight at Shanghai-Wusong
the defence ofWuhan - something not easily done in China in 1980.20
sometimes praising KMT
efforts, these volumes, and indeed
Although
virtually all of this new scholarship,

leadership in the war. The preface
still advocated
to the volume
the basic primacy of CCP

on the battle of Xuzhou
published in 1985 noted, "the victory in the war of resistance was under the
banner of the anti-Japanese United Front led by the Chinese Communist Party.
With theKMT-CCP
co-operation as the foundation, the entire people, various
democratic party groups were all united to resist Japan."21 Liu Danian
(Mj<l^r),
a member of the standing committee of the National
People's Congress and
honorary chair of the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences, also forcefully made this point in a 1987 article in Jindai shi
yanjiu. Liu noted that thewar had led to the decline of Chiang Kai-shek and the
expansion of the Chinese Communist Party; one key achievement of thewar was
contributions
socialism.22 Kuomintang
hastening of the victory of Chinese
might now be remembered but they could not be said to eclipse the contributions
of the CCP.
20 The Compiling Group of "the Four Major Battles of Hunan"

of theNational People's Consultative
Congress (ed.), Hunan sida huizhan {The Four Major Battles of Hunan)
(Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi
for the "Battle of
chubanshe,
1995), pp. 108-10. See also The Compiling and Editorial Group,
Xuzhou"
of the National
Commission
of the Research Commission
for Literary and Historical
Materials of theNational Chinese People's Consultative Congress (ed.), Xuzhou huizhan {The Battle of
Xuzhou)
1985); and in the same series Ba yisan SongHu
(Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe,
kangzhan {The 13 August Battle of Resistance of Shanghai and Wusong) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi
chubanshe, 1987); Qiqi shibian {TheMarco Polo Bridge Incident) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe,
1986); Nanjing baowei zhan {The Battle to Protect Nanjing)
(Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe,
1987); Wuhan huizhan {The Battle of Wuhan) (Bejing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1989); Yuanzheng
YinMian kangzhan {The Burma-India Expeditionary Force in theWar of Resistance) (Beijing: Zhongguo
chubanshe, 1990); and MinZheGan
kangzhan {The War of Resistance inFujian, Zhejiang and
Jiangxi) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1995). These volumes were reissued in 2005 with only
minor changes in a series Yuan Guomindang jiangling koushu kangzhan huiyi lu {A Record of Oral
wenshi
Memoirs of Former Kuomintang Commanders during theWar of Resistance Period),

and published by Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe.
21 Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi, The Battle of Xuzhou, p. 1.

22 Liu Danian,
lishi" ("The anti-Japanese
"KangRi
zhanzheng yu Zhongguo
China's history"), Jindai shi yanjiu, No. 5 (1987), pp. 1-28.
war

edited byWen Wen
of resistance and
401
402
TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
In 1991 a new, specialized journal, KangRi zhanzheng yanjiu (JtlB ?fi#*5ff

%,
The Journal of Studies of China's Resistance War Against Japan), appeared in
Beijing affiliated with themodern history institute of the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences. Published quarterly, this journal has provided an outlet for a
wide range of topics relating to the war, including many subjects previously off
limits. In May 2000, for instance, the journal carried an article by Professor
Shao Yong
{ffiM) of Shanghai Normal University about the role of Du
in Shanghai. In Mao's
in theNational
Salvation Movement
Yuesheng
(tt^^?)
day Du was routinely condemned as the leader of the criminal Green Gang and
as a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek. From 2000, Du's role as a patriot in the 1932
1937 battles in Shanghai
and
can now be "remembered."23
Reasons for the "New Remembering"
From
the mid-1980s
until the mid-1990s,

the role of the Kuomintang
the anti-Japanese war of resistance,

forces, went from being virtually
particularly
invisible to the subject of extensive publication, first in academic circles and then
in popular culture, rendering the legacy of thewar an active memory in today's
But why did the war emerge as a topic in thisway? Why did theMaoist
line, which emphasized only the leadership of the CCP, not continue to hold
China.
sway? What were themajor factors which permitted the "new remembering?"
One obvious reason was the general revival of academic life and publishing
and beginning of the
activity following the end of the Cultural Revolution
reform era. As Party controls loosened not only did the sheer number of books
and periodicals on historical subjects increase, but the range of topics considered
acceptable widened.
A second and very concrete reason was
the attempt by Beijing to lure Taiwan

an
into
agreement of unification. The figure of Chiang Kai-shek, who had been
so reviled during theMaoist years, suddenly emerged as a patriotic leader, and
found their wartime actions being praised.
military figures on Taiwan
occurred just as the party began to

(Ironically, this appeal to the Kuomintang
loose its grip on the island.) Beijing stressed the second united front as key to
China's strong stand against Japan.
in one of the earliest articles
tie to current policy was explicitly made
a
new
war.
a
on
In
line
the
1983
Jindai
issue
of
shi yanjiu, He Li (?RfiS)
following
de
0 ??#*
GuoGong
published "KangRi zhanzheng shiqi
liangdang guanxi" (JrC
The
"The relationship between theKuomintang

and Chinese
RiffiWH?WjE^^,
Communist Party during the period of the anti-Japanese war of resistance")
which stressed the important role of the united front in defeating Japan. He Li
makes specific reference to a letter sent by Liao Chengzhi (0^CJ?) on 24 July
23
Shao Yong, "Du Yuesheng yu Shanghai kangRi jiuwang yundong" ("Du Yuesheng and the campaign
of resisting Japan and saving the nation in Shanghai"), KangRi zhanzheng yanjiu {The Journal of Studies
of China's War of Resistance against Japan), No. 2 (2000), pp. 118-34.

China's "New Remembering" of the Anti-Japanese War
1983, to Chiang Ching-kuo (#lnlS),

Taiwan.
Liao was a member of
son of Chiang Kai-shek and then leader of

the Central Committee
of the Chinese
Party and head of the Overseas Chinese Office.24 The link between
the academic article and Taiwan policy could not have been clearer.
Communist
Similarly, the 1985 volume published by Sichuan People's Press (referred to

then a
above), carried a brief preface by Marshal Nie Rongzhen
(?^!!?),
member of the Politburo and a major military figure during the war. Nie noted
that compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait were all celebrating the 40th
anniversary of China's victory. So much had been achieved by the united front,
he stated, and now the time had come for a third united front to unite the
of the anti-Japanese war of

Nie
concluded.25
resistance,"
The most important factor in the "new remembering" of the war, however,
has been the increasing emphasis on nationalism in China. With the waning
fatherland. "This would be the best commemoration
appeal of communist ideology in the reformmovement, Beijing has sought new

to patriotism have
ways of creating support for its rule over China. Appeals
become increasingly significant. As Paul Cohen has written, "in the aftermath of
1989 therewas a felt, ifunstated, need on the part of the Chinese government to
come up with a new legitimating ideology to burnish the rapidly dimming luster
of the original Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
vision. The logical candidate," notes
to
"was
be
inculcated
via a multifaceted program of
Cohen,
nationalism,
patriotic education."26 The new remembering of thewar has been a centrepiece
in contemporary nationalism.
the emphasis on nationalism and the opening to
Policy considerations
Taiwan
have hence been very important. In the production of knowledge
about thewar both within academic circles and in popular culture, certain lines
of inquiry had been privileged, others lie dormant. A

strong "patriotic
nationalist narrative" which stresses the heroic achievements of China in the
war and its contribution

publications.
to the global defeat of fascism is dominant

Issues running counter to this are often ignored.
inmany
Emphasis on China's Victimization

Ironically,
a parallel
in the new writing on the war

is China's
coverage of Japanese atrocities in China. This
theme
victimization, particularly
in
emphasis in part derives from the nature of the nationalist discourse
A
China.
As
Zhao
has
observed
in
Nation-State
contemporary
Suisheng
by
Construction: Dynamics ofModern Chinese Nationalism, a sense of victimhood is
24 He
Li, "KangRi
zhanzheng shiqi de GuoGong
liangdang guanxi" ("The relationship between the
and the Chinese Communist Party during the period of the anti-Japanese war of
resistance"), Jindai shi yanjiu, No. 3 (1983), p. 27.
25 Guo Xiong, An Introduction to theMajor Battles of theWar, pp. 1-2.
26 Paul A. Cohen, China Unbound: Evolving Perspectives on theChinese Past (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
2003), p. 167; see also, Gries, China's New Nationalism, pp. 69-85; Mitter, "Old ghosts, new memories,"
Kuomintang
p. 121.

403
404
TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
key to Beijing's current construction of nationalist rhetoric. "The communist

state created a sense of being besieged in order to exalt the voice of patriotism,"
Zhao writes. The Chinese people "were asked to bear inmind that weakness,
disunity, and disorder at home would invite foreign aggression and result in loss
of Chinese identity, as China's century-long humiliation and suffering before
1949 demonstrated."27
China
was
forget! That
that might
a victim of Japanese aggression and today's Chinese must not

theme runs through much of the new remembering. Even works
seem to be purely academic
are often packaged within this
instance, in 1999 Fudan University published a multi-volume

setKangzhan shilu (?rCafe^^:, A True Record of theWar of Resistance). Part one,
in three volumes, was entitled Weiguo xueshi (ZESlfiLjtl, The Bloody History of
framework. For
Protecting the Country)', part two, in two volumes, Lunxian tongshi O&f?iAJ?l,
The Painful History of the Occupation).
This collection consisted of press
war
accounts
which appeared
in contemporary
and
other
of
the
coverage
publications in unoccupied China. The first part consisted primarily of coverage
of the battles; the second of reports of events behind Japanese lines, including
Japanese atrocities. The reader is given a view of the war as itwas discussed at
the entire editing process is formatted to portray the contemporary
perspective. The volumes include the heading "Buying wangque de
the time.Yet
nationalist
lishi"(^jSSiPOtJ?jifc, "The historythatmust not be forgotten")and chapters
are organized
around
themes that emphasize
patriotic resistance and Japanese
aggression.
Coverage of Japanese atrocities, particularly the Rape of Nanjing, now often

the
resembles a "numbers game," in which the goal seems to be to maximize
number of victims, in contrast to theMaoist years when Chinese sufferingwas
de-emphasized. As Peter Gries observed in his study Chinas New Nationalism:
"After it came to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party declared that
9.32 million Chinese had been killed [in the war]. That figure stood for many
years, reflecting the Maoist

suppression of victim-speak in favor of heroic
narrative. In 1995, however, Jiang Zemin raised the casualty estimate to 35
million, the current official Chinese figure."29
leader Jiang Zemin raised all the figures in the "numbers
a
In
speech on 3 September 1995, celebrating the 50th anniversary of
game."
victory, Jiang noted:
Indeed Chinese
According
to incomplete
estimates,
under
the butcher's
knife
of the Japanese
invasion,
the number of Chinese killed or injuredwas 35 million. In theNanjing massacre itself

more than 300,000 died. From south of theGreat Wall, more than twomillion were lured
(Stanford:
Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics ofModern Chinese Nationalism
Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 232-33.
28 He Shengsui and Chen Maijing
(eds.), Kangzhan shilu zhi yi, weiguo xueshi {The Bloody History of
Protecting the Country: A Record of the War of Resistance, Part 1), Kangzhan shilu zhi er: lunxian
tongshi {The Painful History of Occupation: A Record of theWar of Resistance, Part 2) (Shanghai:
Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1999).
29 Gries, China's New Nationalism, p. 80.
27

into exploitative labour in thenorth-eastand died. Beyond this thereare stillpeople today
finding evidence of chemical and biological warfare. According to estimates Japan's
invasion caused a direct economic loss to theChinese people ofUS$100 billion. Indirect
economic losses were US$500 billion. The crime of the Japanese attack on theChinese
people
is one
of history's
most
savage,
Jiang himself sets the "numbers"

scholars to produce the evidence.
most
cruel
pages.30
at very high
levels, leaving it to Chinese
Jiang Zemin made the legacy of the war part of his political agenda. Most
1998 visit to Tokyo, he made a Japanese apology for
famously in his November
a
wartime actions
centrepiece of his trip, suggesting that Japan's distortion of
the historical record on the war had impeded progress on Sino-Japanese
relations. Jiang urged Japan, according to Xinhua news agency, "to squarely
face history and acknowledge it." His failure to gain a written statement was
considered a major defeat and damaged Sino-Japanese relations.31

Jiang Zemin's focus on war atrocities stimulated a torrent of publications,
often multi-volume, attempting to document the magnitude of the Japanese
actions. Indeed, this type of publication began appearing almost as soon as the
resurfaced as an issue in the mid-1980s. While
the sheer volume of the
war
material
prohibits a detailed discussion,
examples of this type of work
include
Riben diguo zhuyiqinHua dangan ziliao xuanbian (I3^^l5?iJîJI^05fel5$4
on the Invasion of China by Japanese

J?p?, A Selection of Archival Materials
Imperialism), a 17-volume collection compiled by the Central Archives, the
Number Two Historical Archives
in Nanjing,
and the Academy
of Social
for Jilin province. The archives of Liaoning province produced a 15
volume set of documents in facsimile form entitled Riben qinHua zuixing dang an
Sciences
A New ArchivalCollectionof Japans Crimes in
xinji (B^fi^??TO^S?^,
Invading China). The Number Two Historical Archives and the Nanjing City
Archives combined to produce QinHua Rijun Nanjing da tusha dang an (ig4? g
Archives on the Japans Military's Nanjing Massacre
in its
W-J^M^f?M,
Invasion of China)?2 The effort is aimed at producing a large quantity of archival
to counter claims by those Japanese who seek to minimize wartime
material
atrocities. These
popular
academic
publications
treatments, often including
have been joined by a vast quantity of

lurid photographs and sometimes even
cartoons.
While
archives
Nanjing
theRape
ofNanjing
has produced the greatest volume of thismaterial,

China
have
been active, particularly in Sichuan, Beijing,
throughout
and the north-east. An example of this type of publication
is a
30 Jiang Zemin in Zhonggong

zhongyang dangshi yanjiu shi keyan bu (ed.), Collected Essays of an
Academic Conference, Vol. 1, p. 2.
31 The China Quarterly, No. 57 (1999), pp. 269-70; Lam, "Japan's deteriorating ties," p. 278.
32 The Archives of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, theNumber Two Historical
Archives of China, The Academy of Social Sciences of Jilin province (eds.), Riben diguo zhuyi qinHua
dang an guan ziliao xuanbian (Beijing: ZhongHua
shuju chubanshe, 1988-95); The Archives of Liaoning
Province (ed.), Riben qinHua zuixing dang an xinji (Guilin: Guangxi
shifan daxue chubanshe,
The Number Two Historical Archives of China, the Archives of Nanjing City (ed.), QinHua
Nanjing da tusha dang an (Nanjing: Jiangsu gujie chubanshe, 1987).

1999);
Rijun
405
406
TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
two-volume work issued in 1995 by the Beijing City Archives which reproduces
their holdings of court records of war crimes registered with the High Court of
Hebei province and other courts in the Beijing area from early 1945 to early
1946, entitled Riben qinHua
zuixing shizheng-Hebei,
Ping Jin diqu dir en zuixing
diaocha dang an xuanji (B?ft^li?T^SMJb^??itfe^ftAll?f
ifSf?î?
- A Selection
S, The True Record of Japan s Crimes in Invading China
from the
Archives of Crimes by theEnemy in theHebei, Beiping, Tianjin Area). Most are
very brief legal documents which are meant to convey by sheer force of number
themagnitude of Japanese war crimes.
Case 141, for instance, is the killing ofWang San (??).
The victim is listed as
age 60, of Dongguan
village; occupation, farmer. The date of the
(s?^)
killing was 17 September 1937. Japanese troops came to the village, grabbed
Wang San and bayoneted him to death. Verification came from Zhang Shuting
male,
village. The investigator was a policeman

(?rl?W"'?),male, age 38, of Dongguan
1946. Case
from theDongguan
village police. The report was filed on 11March
142 lists the victim as Ma Wen (^3t),
rice
The
merchant.
age 27, occupation,
crime occurred on 20 September 1937; the victim was selling rice when seized by
Japanese troops. Seeing that he was young (ofmilitary age) they had him shot.
Witness, his father,Ma Kefang (^ jS;^), age 72, farmer. The investigator was a
policeman
33
from Beiguan
(jb^).
The
report was filed in 1946 but no date
is
given.
These cases are only two of hundreds in this publication. Yet they also reveal
one feature of the new remembering, the rather impersonal nature of much of
the "numbers game." While vast numbers of victims are detailed, little of the
can guess at the personal tragedies, yet there is no

diary of Anne Frank in these collections. China's new remembering of the war
has privileged such issues as war atrocities and battle histories, yet left other
areas underdeveloped.
the biggest gap is the sparsity of memoir
Perhaps
human element is given. One
literature. Although not totally absent, personal memoirs make up only a tiny
fraction of the new writing on the war. This is particularly true ifwe look
beyond those who were both heroic and communist, such as veterans of theNew
Fourth Army or Eighth Route Army,
less problematic.
individuals whose
remembering has been
Memoir Literature
In nearly all combatant nations in the war, the production of memoir literature
has been fraught with difficulty. Particularly in those countries such as China, in
which many lived under enemy occupation, the issue of collaboration has been
particularly sensitive. Henry Rousso, for instance, discusses the great difficulties
which the French have faced in dealing with thememory of thewar in his work,
33 The Archives
diaochao
of Beijing City (ed.), Riben qinHua zuixing shizheng-Hebei, PingJin diqu diren zuixing
dang an xuanji (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), Vol. 1, pp. 281-83.

inFrance since 1944. The bitterness

The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory
and division of the war's legacy has lasted for decades.34
of the war has been particularly
coping with personal memories
problematic for Chinese. At the very time when reflections on the war began
to appear in other nations - the mid-1960s - China entered the Cultural
Revolution. Apart from the personal trauma that somany experienced, personal
Yet
documents were often destroyed. When a more open environment developed in

the 1980s, many veterans of thewar who might have written theirmemoirs had
died. And perhaps much of the story is lost forever too many diaries destroyed,
too many traumas overlaying the war experience - to ever fully recapture the
human dimension. Anyone in China old enough to have been active in thewar
and literate enough to have kept letters or diaries has been through the events of
theMao
years. Could such a person go back and "remember" without going
the prism of struggle sessions,
consequences of "historical remembering"?
through
life histories
and worries
of the
of what appears to be memoir writing in China was actually self

Much
criticism written under duress during various anti-rightist campaigns. Perhaps
themajor source of personal accounts has been a series of publications called
ziliao (X$L*M$\; Literary and Historical Material)
issued in national,
a nationwide
to
Prior
the
and
local
series.
Cultural
Revolution,
provincial
Wenshi
project had begun to compile detailed personal histories from pre-1949 China.
era wrote accounts of their life before
figures in the Republican
Major
Liberation,
Publication
Revolution
Many
ordinary individuals, such as workers, were interviewed.

of thismaterial had begun on a limited basis before the Cultural
when the process was suspended.
of
Kuomintang
while
interviews, particularly of those who worked with the

in the context of anti-rightist
government, were undertaken
these
campaigns. The basic facts of these lifehistories are undoubtedly accurate, for if
someone misrepresented information which could be checked, thiswas a serious
matter. Yet people writing life histories under intense threat were perhaps not
able to recount accurately their personal feelings during the war.
Jiangsu province's Wenshi ziliao, for instance, had published only a couple of
issues in the early 1960s when itwas suspended by the Cultural Revolution.
1981 the series resumed, reprinting earlier issues and then continuing. Many
In
of
the new articles were actually based on the interviews or personal histories done
earlier. Huang Duowu
zhanzheng zhong Huanghe
(Jt#3?) wrote "KangRi
juekou qinli ji" (?fCB^^^^M^P^JKiB,
"A personal account of the
breaking of the dikes on theYellow River during thewar of resistance"), which

in 1938 to break the dikes in the
dealt with the decision by Chiang Kai-shek
the water poured over the
slowing the Japanese advance. As
one
to
two
Chinese
and
million
died
many more lost property.
countryside,
hope
of
34 Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History

Harvard University Press, 1991).
and Memory
in France
since 1944 (Cambridge, MA:

407
408
TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
The author, who was chief of staff for theKuomintang's
39th Army, confessed
that "I personally participated in the crime of breaking the dikes." Moreover
the
author suggests Chiang Kai-shek's
real motive was not to stop the Japanese but
to block the communists. The guerrilla fighters led by the CCP in north China
had begun to attack the Japanese forces and tie them down, he notes, and
Chiang was most eager to limit their actions.35
Huang's account reflects the "formula" for understanding the war current in
the early 1960s. At that time Chiang Kai-shek was alive and ruling Taiwan
law. The People's Republic and Taiwan had virtually come to
over Quemoy
and Matsu
cannot
(?^?l)
(^ffi). Therefore Huang
more
In
recent
"remember" any possible patriotic motives by Chiang.
years,
scholars have been more nuanced in examining Chiang's
however, mainland
under martial
blows
motives, suggesting itwas a valid strategy to slow down

even though it resulted in serious losses.36
the Japanese
forces,
In the same issue of the Jiangsu journal Chen Qibo ((^Hf?)

discussed the
a
the
"reform
of
history
Liang Hongzhi
regime,"
(^??|Je)
puppet-type of
war.
The author admits to being an associate
government established early in the
of Liang and is able to detail his actions. Liang was executed for treason in
November
1946.37 Tian Shoucheng (EH^fi?) writes of the role which Chu Minyi
(f?Ki?)
played in the client regime which the Japanese created inNanjing under
Jingwei (ffiH?t?). Tian admits to being Chu's secretary and to talking
to
him. Chu had been executed inAugust 1946.38 These articles appear to
daily
be memoirs but are in fact confessions by individuals who were clearly
Wang
"enemies of the people" in theMaoist era, and must be evaluated in

that light.
The climate finally changed in the reform era and more open discussion
became possible just as many war veterans realized that timewas running out if
considered
theywish to write memoirs, a phenomenon in other countries as well. One of the

firstmemoir publications was by an Eighth Route Army veteran, Yang Guofu
(?^B^),
published in Shandong in 1985. Yang had penned thememoirs shortly
his death
in 1982, which was before acknowledgment
of KMT
contributions had been approved. They bear the imprint of the earlier political
line Chiang Kai-shek's weak policy led to the rapid fall of north China so the
CCP had to lead the resistance. In Yang's
view, the Kuomintang
stopped
fighting the Japanese and started fighting the Communists. Yang's description
before
Duowu,
"KangRi
zhanzheng zhong Huanghe
juekou qin liji" ("A personal account of the
breaking of the dikes on theYellow River during the war of resistance"), Jiangsu wenshi ziliao xuanji
{Selections of historical and literarymaterial of Jiangsu province), No. 2 (1963), reprinted 1981, pp. 75
83.
for this information. See also Diana Lary, "Drowned earth:
36 The author thanks Stephen MacKinnon
the strategic breaching of theYellow River Dyke, 1938," War inHistory, Vol. 8,No. 2 (April 2001), pp.
35 Huang
191-207.
37 Chen Qibo,
and the puppet reform
yu wei weixin zhengfu" ("Liang Hongzhi
"Liang Hongzhi
government"), Jiangsu wenshi ziliao xuanji, No. 2 (1963), pp. 84-88.
38 Tian Shoucheng, "Chu Mingyi he Wang wei zuzhi" ("Chu Minyi and the organization of theWang
puppet regime"), Jiangsu wenshi ziliao xuanji, No. 3 (1981), pp. 83-93.

of the end of the war begins with the Soviet entry on 8 August 1945, and then
cryptically mentions that "also at the same time theAmericans increased attacks
on Japanese in the Pacific War."
In other words
view of the war as of the early 1980s.39
thework reflects the accepted
the various anniversaries surrounding the war have

of collected memoirs. On
for
the 40th
publications
provided
a
over
wide range of Communist
anniversary of victory
Japan, for instance,
Party officials wrote two to three page vignettes about theirwar experiences, a
Since
the mid-1980s,
occasion
type of writing common in theWest and Japan but unusual in China at that
point.40 The same anniversary inspired memoirs by nine authors who had served
in the Fifth Division of theNew Fourth Army, one of the twomajor communist
forces during thewar.41 Another outpouring of this type of publication occurred
with the 50th anniversary of victory when the scope of permitted topics had
widened. One
W
interesting volume Jizhe bixia de kangRi zhangzheng (i?#^T
was
in
War
the
in
?jtBr4E#-, Reporters' Writing
of Resistance)
published
Beijing
in 1995 following a reunion of a number of reporters who had covered thewar.42
these and other publications, memoir writing in China remains a

Despite
much smaller part of the "new remembering" than other more privileged lines of
inquiry.With the passage of time, the window on memoir writing is probably
closing very rapidly. Instead the new publications remain strikingly impersonal
the story of the nation not of the individual.
Conclusion
The eight years of the war of resistance were a crucial period in the history of
modern China. The memory of 1937?45, so often ignored inMao's
era, has now
resurfaced in the popular consciousness of China. In their introduction to The
Scars ofWar: The Impact ofWarfare onModern China, Diana Lary and Stephen
write: "Failing to recognize the past does not destroy it. It was this
past that made the present ... The scars of war sometimes have a life of their
own."43 In that sense, the new remembering of the war represents a major
MacKinnon
advance
memory.
in the study of history inmodern China. Yet it has been a selected

It is the story of resistance, "the patriotic nationalist narrative," and of
atrocity, "the numbers game." Writing on the war

political policy and by popular nationalist sentiment.
remains constrained
by
39 Yang
Guofu, Zhandou zai qinghe pingyuan {The Struggle of War in Qinghe and Pingyuan) (Jinan:
Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1985), pp. 1, 28, 157.
40 The People's Consultative Congress Report (ed.), Huaxia
zhuangge {Heroic Songs of China) (Beijing:
Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1986).
41 The Bureau for Compiling Revolutionary History of theHubei-Henan
Border Region (ed.), Xin Sijun
diwu shi kangzhan licheng {The Fifth Division of theNew Fourth Army during theWar of Resistance)
(Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1985).
42 Song Shiji, Yan Jingzheng (eds.), Li Zhuang, advisor, Jizhe bixia de kangRi zhanzheng {Reporters'
Writing in theWar of Resistance (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995).
43 Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon
(eds.), Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare onModern China
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001), p. 14.

409
410
TheChinaQuarterly,
190, June2007, pp. 394-410
For all of the new openness, virtually all the major works fall within the
current political "formula" which has changed over the last two decades but still
forms something of a box into which the narrative is contained. On the 50th
anniversary of victory, Jiang Zemin outlined the current boundaries
the war:
The
war
Chinese
of
resistance
was
an
important
China's longwar of resistance, especially theCCP's
part
of
the world
for covering
anti-fascist
war.
leading of resistance behind enemy
...
two out of three Japanese
down
army
troops was
key
pinning
a
war of resistance
was
war of national
the anti-Japanese
liberation;
striking and
friends:
Comrades,
lines,
thefirst time inChina's modern historywhen China resisted enemy invasion and won a
complete victory ... It washed away 100 years of humiliation. The obtaining of victory
has many deep historical factorsbut themost fundamental one was that theCCP climbed
on the historical stage.44
range has broadened but the formula remains.

By contrast, Hans Van de Ven, one of the leading Western
war, has argued:
The
scholars on the
It seems tome that it is as right to say that theWar ofResistance unmade China as that it
made China. As an agricultural but commerialised society, the Chinese economy
depended
specialisation,
on
the maintenance
local
and
regional
of
domestic
marketing
and
networks,
international
flourishing
trade
urban
links,
centres,
regional
and the
availability ofmoney and credit.These did not survive thewar.45

This blunt, negative assessment of the war is strikingly at odds with the new
remembering inChina. The gap between these two viewpoints suggests that for
all of the rediscovery of war inChina, much remains to be done before we have a
full understanding
44
of this crucial era.
Jiang Zemin in Zhonggong

zhongyang dangshi yanjiu shi keyan bu (ed.), Collected Essays of an
Academic Conference, Vol. 1, p. 3. Actually certain features of the "formula" have remained constant.
Compare Jiang's statement with that of Lin Biao on the 20th anniversary of the end of the war: "The
Chinese People's war of resistance was an important part of the world war against German, Japanese,
and Italian fascism ... Of the innumerable anti-imperialist wars waged by theChinese people in the past
100 years, the war of resistance against Japan was the first to end in complete victory." See Lin, Long
the Victory of thePeople's War, p. 1.
in China, 1925-1945 (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
45 Hans J. van de Ven, War and Nationalism
2003),
p. 296.
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Chinas New Remembering of The Anti-Japanese War of Resistance 1937-1945-Coble-2007

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China's "New Remembering" of the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, 1937-1945

Author(s): Parks M. Coble

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