Old Ghosts, New Memories: China's Changing War History in the Era of Post-Mao Politics

Northeast Asia's New ‘History Spiral’

“…The Communist regime was eager to focus its attention on new enemies-Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China and the United States-and had little desire to acknowledge the 'united front' that had defeated Japan in 1945. Given the variety of new security challenges that emerged in this Cold War context, there was little appetite for elites in China, Japan and South Korea to engage in debating the war legacy, settling accounts or pursuing deep reconciliation (Mitter 2003;Goh 2013, p. 166-169).…”

“…In China, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the increasing economic polarization that followed in the wake of Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening caused a crisis of legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The result, in the early 1990s, was a patriotic education campaign that sought to bolster popular nationalism and support for the CCP by invoking memories of the CCP's defeat of Japanese imperialism and fascism in 1945 (Mitter 2003;Yahuda 2014). In Japan, similarly important transitions, including the end of the Cold War, fears of US drawdown in Asia, reforms to Japan's electoral system in the mid-1990s and economic stagnation led to the eruption of major-and still unresolveddebates about Japanese national identity, Japan's wartime responsibilities and the country's future security posture in Asia (Yahuda 2014).…”

An Alternative Explanation for Anti-Japanese Sentiment in China: Shifting State-Society Interaction in China's Japan Policy

“…There has been genuine resentment against Japan within the Chinese society. It is true that China's patriotic education and diplomatic instrumentality since the 1980s may have reinforced this resentment (He 2007;Mitter 2000Mitter , 2003Wang 2008;Weiss 2008;Zhao 2004). 1 Nevertheless, we should also note that this resentment has survived and likely been exacerbated by long-term neglect and suppression by the Chinese state well before patriotic education started in the 1980s.…”

“…ernment's manipulation of historical issues for instrumental purposes (Barme 1993;Brittingham 2007;Callahan 2006;Coble 2007;Cohen 2002;Downs and Saunders 1998;Gries 2004;He 2007;Mitter 2000Mitter , 2003Reilly 2012;Shirk 2007;Wang 2008;Weiss 2008;Zhao 2004). Among the studies that examine the Chinese side, two major instrumental purposes are found in the Chinese government's manipulation of the anti-Japanese sentiment-domestic legitimacy and diplomatic strategy.…”

Japan as China's 'other': China's identity and policy towards Diaoyu/Senkaku islands

“…While the atrocities committed by the Japanese army were not entirely forgotten, they were simply laid aside as they did not fit into the national identity discourse, which championed the building of the 'new man' and the development of communism in China (Reilly 2006). 27 There was no meaningful discussion on the roles the Nationalists and Communists had played in the War, or the nature of Chinese collaboration/resistance against Japan in the occupied areas (Mitter 2003).Anti-Japanese sentiment persisted primarily at the personal level, but was supressed and marginalized in the state dominant discourse, which emphasized socialism/communism at the expense of nationalism.…”