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In the West, many will see the military hardware and the troops that will, no doubt, be at the center of the event.
But relatively few will remember a historical fact that underpins the ceremony: China was the first country to enter what would become the Second World War, and it was the ally of the United States and the British empire from just after Pearl Harbor in 1941, to the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Yet today, China's memory of the war is becoming more, not less, important, as we move further away from it.
And many in China are becoming resentful that the West fails to remember that China was itself a significant player in the eventual Allied victory.
Rana Mitter is professor of modern Chinese politics and history at the University of Oxford. His most recent book Forgotten Ally: China's World War II was named as a 2013 Book of the Year in the Financial Times and the Economist. The views expressed here are solely his. |
