“Distortion of history”

China has solemnly marked an anniversary of the end of the War of Resistance against Japan and World War Two (the latter being of less than secondary importance). The events in the Asian-Pacific theater of operations, particularly in China and North Korea, have long been viewed through the prism of their main contribution to the victory over militaristic Japan.

For China, the war began in September 1931, when, taking advantage of the so-called Mukden incident, Japan committed aggression against Manchuria and established a puppet state of Manchukuo on the seized territory. This was followed by local clashes between Japanese and Chinese Kuomintang troops. July 1937 saw a battle between Japanese China Garrison Army soldiers and a Chinese company, which defended the Lugouqiao Bridge (also known as Marco Polo Bridge, for the traveler mentioned it in his book). The Japanese used this incident as a formal pretext for starting a war against China. When the Japanese seized this bridge in a southern suburb of Beijing, the city was completely cut off from the rest of the country and was quickly occupied. Incidentally, Japanese historiography traditionally calls this war “Chinese incident” because the Japanese originally planned no large-scale military operations in China.

Off and on for eight years, the Japanese army conducted offensive operations against the Kuomintang and Communist troops. The latter regularly fought with each other for the control of the remaining territory.

In the first period of the war (1937-42) the USSR actively helped Chiang Kai-shek by supplying weapons. More than 2,000 pilots took part in fighting the Japanese and about 200 were killed in action. On the whole, more than 5,000 Soviet citizens worked there. Among them were teachers, instructors, aircraft- and tank-assembly workers, aviation specialists, road and bridge builders, transport workers, doctors, and more than 300 military advisors.

Later on, China began to receive most of aid from its Western allies. The best-known example was the Flying Tigers air corps commanded by US General Claire Lee Chennault.

The Chinese theater of operations played a secondary role throughout the war. Its main importance was that it paralyzed almost two million Japanese soldiers and officers. Neither the Kuomintang nor the Communist army had any chances to launch a wide-scale offensive against, let alone defeat, the Japanese. And they were not striving for this. They were mostly mustering their forces for future battles to establish control over the country.

In Russia, Putin and pro-Kremlin historians literally foam at the mouth whenever they notice a slightest deviation from the canonical history of World War Two. This is especially true when they suspect somebody of even trying to play down the USSR’s decisive role in the defeat of Germany and Japan. Add to this condemnation of the US for nuclear bombardment of Japanese cities. But they deliberately ignore the fact that, after the Americans had seized the island of Okinawa in June 1945, Tokyo was well aware of a likely disembarkation of the Allies onto Japanese islands. For this reason, there was the plan of a “second Japan” in China, taking into account that a huge territory with considerable resources had been seized and a more than 2-million-strong occupational army was stationed there. The entry of the USSR into the war with Japan worsened the latter’s condition, but nobody was going to surrender before August 11-12, 1945. Moreover, there was an attempted coup in Tokyo aimed at forcing Emperor Hirohito to renounce the drawn-up agreement to an unconditional surrender. To prevent the emperor from making a speech, the mutineers seized the radio station in the capital.

If Soviet and the current Russian historiography is anything to go by, the defeat of Japan is an exclusive merit of the Red Army. And any digressions from this line trigger a fit of fury in Moscow. But there is an exception – Chinese historians and statesmen are allowed to digress.

Meeting with Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, the Russian president very clearly outlined the goal of his visit to Beijing: “We are demonstrating convincingly to our peoples and to the whole world that we have the same interpretation of the results of World War Two and that we oppose any attempts to reject and distort history.” Putin has fully accepted the official Chinese version of who beat Japan.

If you look closely at the chronology and the results of hostilities on the territory of China, you will see that there was no such thing as victory of the Chinese people over the Japanese invaders. There were fierce and bloody battles, the Chinese soldiers and officers showed exemplary courage and heroism, but there were also retreats and frequent defeats with rare successful counterattacks and counteroffensives.

There was no victory of the Chinese army over the Japanese one. There was the liberation of a great nation, which had really suffered unthinkable losses – more than 35 million people. However, it is other states – the US, the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands – that brought freedom to China. The defeat of the Kwantung Army, a considerable military grouping, was an undeniable merit of the Soviet troops. In China, this is usually mentioned in passing, but, for some reason, it does not make Putin shudder at all (let us save the word “outrage”). This convincingly illustrates the policy of double standards, which Moscow criticizes so scathingly when it comes to Western states but which the Russian leadership pursues in the same way.

How often the Kremlin and its environs utter indignant sounds if other countries try to clarify the historical truth and separate the real events of the war from those invented by Soviet propaganda! They resort to maxims about insulting the memory of those killed. But is Putin’s acceptance of the Chinese interpretation of history not an insult to the memory of the killed Soviet soldiers (in the war against Japan, the Red Army lost more than 100,000 men)? Moreover, his speeches in Beijing show that he in fact shares this interpretation. Russia’s boss does not feel the humiliation of what is going on. An interesting question.

Russia is in a diplomatic isolation, but its president has to pretend not to feel it in this situation.