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China's "New Remembering" of the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, 1937-1945Author(s): Parks M. CobleSource: The China Quarterly, No. 190 (Jun., 2007), pp. 394-410Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20192776 .

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394

China's

"New

Remembering"

of

the

Anti-Japanese War of Resistance,

1937-1945*

Parks

M.

Coble

ABSTRACT

In

today's

China,

memory

of

the

Sino-Japanese

War

of

1937-45

is often

a

front

page

issue,

a

source

of

diplomatic

friction between

Beijing

and

Tokyo.

Yet in

Mao's

era,

public

memory

of

this conflict

virtually

disappeared.

Only

the

role

of

communist forces under Chairman

Mao

was

commemorated;

other

memories

were

consigned

to

historical

oblivion. This article

examines the

process

by

which

memory

of the

war re

appeared

in the

reform

era.

Because

the

government

has

emphasized

nationalism,

the

new

memory

of

the

war

has stressed

a

patriotic

nationalist

narrative of heroic resistance. At the

same

time,

a

second

major

theme

has

been the

emphasis

on

Japanese

atrocities,

virtually

a

"numbers

game"

in

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 combatant

nations

the

public

memory

of the

war

is confined

to

ceremonies

on

special

holidays

when the

few

remaining

veterans

are

honoured.

In

China,

however,

the

legacy

of the

war

has

become

a

volatile,

public

issue

-

the

subject

of

diplomatic friction between China and Japan. A defeat by Japan in a soccer

match

in

Beijing

in

August

2004 led

a

Chinese mob

to

riot;

the crowd

yelled

slogans

filled with

references

to

Japanese

atrocities

in

the Second World War.

A

fewmonths

later

in

April

2005,

anti-Japanese

demonstrations

erupted

in

several

major

cities,

protesting

at

the

treatment

of the

war

in

public

school

textbooks

in

Japan.

The

"history question"

remains

an

obstacle

to

better

relations

between

the

two

nations.1

?

The China

Quarterly,

007 doi:10.1017/S0305741007001257

*

Earlier versions of this article

were

delivered

at

Pomona

College

in

November

2002,

at

a

workshop

entitled

"Reading

and

interpreting

World War II diaries from

Europe

and

Asia";

at theAmerican

Historical

Association

meeting

in

January

2003,

and

at

the 18th

International

Association of

Historians

of Asia

conference

in

Taipei,

Taiwan,

December

2004. The author thanks Professor Samuel

Yamashita,

the Pacific Basin

Institute of Pomona

College

for

its

support,

and

the

participants

in the

workshop

and

conference

sessions for

suggestions.

The author also

thanks

Chang

Jui-te,

Charles

Hayford, Stephen

MacKinnon,

Michael

Szonyi

and

Guohe

Zheng.

1 Peter

Hays

Gries,

"China's 'new

thinking'

on

Japan,"

The China

Quarterly,

No.

184

(2005),

pp.

831-50;

Peng

Er

Lam,

"Japan's

deteriorating

ties with

China: the Koizumi

factor,"

China:

An International

Journal,

Vol.

3,

No.

2

(2005),

pp.

275-91.







China's

"New

Remembering"

f the

Anti-Japanese

ar

395

Views

of the Second World

War

during

the

Mao Era

For much of the history of thePeople's Republic of China

-

theMaoist years

-

mention of the

anti-Japanese

war

of

resistance almost

disappeared

from

public

view. As Peter

Hays

Gries has noted

in

his

recent

work,

Chinas

New

Nationalism,

"under

Mao

there

was

little

research

on

the

history

of

Japanese

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."2

Major

battles of the

war

were

seemingly forgotten.

Perhaps

the

greatest

achievement of

Chinese

forces

in

the

war

had been the

victory

at

Taierzhuang {nJUS:)

in

April

1938.

"At the

time,"

notes

Rana

Mitter, "it was the source of tremendous propaganda value for Chiang Kai

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

100

million

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 toChina 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 of

the Second World War

brought

not

peace

to

China

but

of

course

civil

war

between the

Kuomintang

(BK^?)

and

the Communists.

Following

the communist

victory

in

1949,

the

Party

mandated

a

historical

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:

Pride,

Politics,

and

Diplomacy (Berkeley: University

of

California

Press,

2004),

p.

73.

3

Rana

Mitter,

"'Old

ghosts,

new

memories': 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 it

was

simply

not

tactful

to

recall

the horrors of

war

in

detail."

Mitter,

"Old

ghosts,

new

memories,"

p.

118.







396

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

pp.

394-410

Shanghai

under

compulsion,

but concludes

that "even then

right

up

to

1944,

Chiang Kai-shek

never

ceased his clandestine attempts to make peace with

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

the

war on

8

August

1945,

two

days

after

the

United

States

dropped

the atomic

bomb

on

Hiroshima.

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

(#Jr?),

soon

to

be

a

key

architect

of the

Cultural

Revolution,

wrote:

In

the

early stages

of the

War

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

the

war

of resistance

but

soon

afterwards it

adopted

the

policy

of

passive

resistance

to

Japan

and active

opposition

to

theCommunist

Party.

The

heavy responsibility

of

combating Japanese

imperialism

thus

fell

on

the

shoulders of the

Eighth

Route

Army,

New

Fourth

Army

and the

people

of the

Liberated

Areas,

all led

by

the Communist

Party

...

The

basic

reasons

[for

victory]

were

that the

War of

Resistance

against

Japan

was a

genuine people's

war

led

by

the

Communist

Party

of

China

and

Comrade

Mao

Tse-tung.7

The

orthodox Communist

Party

approach

to

the

memory

of the

war

was

not

the

"dominant narrative" inChina, itwas the only narrative. Beijing maintained a

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

crackdown

in

which hundreds of thousands

were

arrested and

subject

to

5 Mao

Tse-tung

(Zedong),

The

Policies, Measures,

and

Perspectives

of Combating Japanese

Invasion

(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

the

People'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

kangRi zhanzheng shengli

50

zhounian xueshu taolun hui

wenji {Collected

Essays of

an

Academic

Conference

to

Commemorate

the

50th

Anniversary

of

the War

of

Resistance

against

Japan),

3 vols.

(Beijing: Zhonggong

dangshi

chubanshe,

1996),

Vol.

1,

p.

3.







China's New

Remembering"

f the

Anti-Japanese

ar

397

"thought

reform." Careers

were

shattered,

marriages destroyed,

countless

people consigned to labour camps. As people's lives and histories were

scrutinized,

those

who had served

with the

Kuomintang

military during

the

war

or

had worked for

the

Western allies

-

activities which

might

well

have

been

considered

patriotic

-

were now

considered "enemies of the

people."

As

Timothy

Brook has written:

"The

post-liberation

purges

in

the

early

1950s,

when the Communist

Party

rounded

up anyone

who had collaborated

in

any

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

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

the

war

and

operated

behind

Japanese

lines

or

in

Kuomintang-controlled

areas were

accused of

having

been

secret

spies.

Red

Guards

invaded

homes,

destroying

and

seizing

property.

Personal

material such

as

letters

or

diaries from the

war era

could be found and used

as

evidence 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

become

the

subject

of

a

"struggle

session." "Historical

memory"

was a

"contested

space"

not

in

an

academic

sense

but

in

a

real

way.

One's

actions

during

the

war era

could

lead

to

imprisonment

or worse.

In

1966

the

Cultural

Revolution

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

historical

journal,

Lishi

yanjiu

(U^^M%,

Historical

Research),

for

instance,

ceased publication with its second issue in 1966 and did not

resume

until

December 1974.

By

the

death

of Chairman Mao

in

1976 the

memory

of the Sino

Japanese

War

had

virtually disappeared

from

public

space

in

China.

The

Post-Mao

Era

Yet

not

long

after

the death of

Mao,

China

moved

in

a new

direction

with

the

era

of

reform

and

opening

to

the

outside world.

Among

the

many

changes

was a

gradual

restoration

of

public

memory

of China's

war

against

Japan.

Discussion

of the

war

began

to

surface

gradually

in

scholarly writing

in

the

mid-1980s,

and

then,

as

if

floodgate

broke,

the

war

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 inWartime China

(Cambridge,

MA:

Harvard

University

Press,

2005),

p.

14.







398

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

pp.

394-410

dramas,

films and

cartoon

books.

By

the

mid-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

the

war

for

over a

decade.

Then

in

1985

Qi

Shirong

(^ftB:^),

a

historian

at

Beijing

Normal

College,

published

a

major

article,

"Zhongguo kangRi

zhanzheng

zai dierci

shijie

dazhan

zhong

de

diwei

he

zuoyong" *

H?ftBiK^?E^-AlttlfîK^

WAf?^ffl,

"The

position

nd

effect

of

China's

anti-Japanese

war

of resistance

in

the

Second

World

War").

Noting

the 40th

anniversary

of

the

global

victory against

fascism,

Qi

asserted

that China

had

played

a

major

role

in

that

success.

Japan

had

been

second

only

to Germany 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

the

eruption

of

the

European

war,

none

of

the

Allied

powers

entered the

fight

against Japan

until

December

1941.

Qi

shored

up

his

view

by

quoting

a

September

1951

telegram

from

Stalin

to

Mao

thanking

China for its

help

in

defeating

Japanese

imperialism.10

Qi's

article

was

a

major

breakthrough

in

opening

up

the

war as a

topic

of

historical

writing.

He

praised

not

simply

Chairman

Mao,

or

the

leadership

of the

Red

Army,

but

the total

effort

of

China

in thewar, which included the forces led by Chiang Kai-shek.

Qi's

article

was

followed

in

early

1986

by

"Lun

kangRi

zhanzheng" (?&?tl

B

$t

#-,

"On the

anti-Japanese

war

of

resistance")

by

Li

Xin

(^0f),

then

vice

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

taboo

during

the

previous

years.

Yu

Zidao

(^Ti?),

a

professor

of

history

at

Fudan

(?J=L)

University,

contributed

an

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

the

war

and

especially

the

contributions

of the

Kuomintang

forces.

As

one

of the

authors,

Wang

Pei

(:??$),

wrote:

The

anti-Japanese

war

of resistance

was

the

Chinese

people's

revolutionary

war

of

countering

the invasion of

Japanese

imperialism.

In

the

war

of resistance

there

were

two

battle

fronts.One

was

the

Kuomintang 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

the

war

against

Japan"),

Lishi

yanjiu,

No. 1

(1986),

pp.

166?

79;

Yu

Zidao,

"Zhongguo

zhengmian

zhanchang

duiRi

zhanlue de

yanbian" ("The

evolution of

strategy

in the

main

battle front in

China

during

the

war

against

Japan"),

Lishi

yanjiu,

No. 5

(1988),

pp.138-52.







China's

"New

Remembering"

f the

Anti-Japanese

ar

399

military

units in the liberated

zone

behind

enemy

lines. These

two

battle fronts

were

mutually dependent,

co-ordinated

in

making

war,

and embodied the

spirit

of

the

KMT

and CCP

co-operating

to resist

Japan.

Of course,KMT controlledunits adhered tomany

incorrect

lines.12

Thus 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 in the

journal

Jindai

shi

yanjiu

(i&iX^M%,

Research

on

Modern Chinese

History). Inaugurated by

the

Chinese

Academy

of Social Sciences

in

1979,

it had

become

the

leading

publication

in

its

field.

In

the

early

years,

articles

appearing

on

the

war

of

resistance clearly followed the old, Maoist-era formula. In 1979, Zhang Bofeng

(?Ef?I?i)

published

an

article Guan

yu

kangRi zhanzheng

hiqi Jiang

Jieshi

fandong

ituan

de

jici

tuoxie

ouxiang

uodong"

(^^?rt

B

^^HMWlfr'S

B?$?

Affla^/L?^St?>?9:[#VrS??I,

The

many

compromising

and

capitulationist

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,

and

opposed

the CCP,

opposed

the

people,

and "was inactive in

resisting

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

report

on

the situation

in

the

Kuomintang

control

areas

during

the

war.

It

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

jianli

dihou

genju

di de

zhanlue

bushu"

(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

the

military

controlled

by

the

CCP,

not

the

much

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.

Most

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.

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

huodong,"

("The

many

compromising

and

capitulationsist

activities

of

the

Chiang

Kai-shek

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

Kuomintang-controlled

areas

during

the

anti-Japanese

war

of

resistance"),

Jindai shi

yanjiu

{Research

on

Modern

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.







400

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

pp.

394-410

struggles

from

Marco

Polo

Bridge

to

the

fall of

Wuhan.

Although

they

note

the

many

failures

of

the

Chiang-led

forces,

they

conclude

that

these sacrifices

prepared

the

way

for

long-term

resistance.16

This

new

atmosphere

opened

the door

to

publication

of histories

of

the

major

battles

of the

war

of resistance. One

of the earliest

was

published

by

the Sichuan

People's

Press

in

Chengdu

in

1985 entitled

KangRi

zhanzheng

shiqi

Guomindang

zhengmian

hanchang

huyao

hanyi

ieshao

(?f[Bfi?#*0?^HK;^lEffi??îS

?fe?&^S,

An

Introduction

to

the

Major

Battles

of

the

War

of

Resistance Period

on

the

Kuomintang

Main

Battle

Fronts),

a

somewhat

cursory

account.17

A

more

detailed

military history

appeared

two

years

later,

edited

by

Zhang

Xianwen

(?rfc

%~X) and published by Henan People's Press. Then archival sources began

appearing

in

print.

In

preparation

for

the

50th

anniversary

of

theMarco Polo

Bridge

Incident

in

1987,

the Number Two

Historical

Archives

in

Nanjing

published

a

collection

of

documents

on

the

war

which

included extensive

coverage

of

all the

major

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

xunguo

iangling

SK^trC??^tlffl^M,

Kuomintang

enerals

who

Died

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

series

Minguo

gaoji

jiangling

liezhuan

(KH?^^^^ j#, Biographies of High-Ranking Military

Leaders

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

"one

country,

two

systems,"

which

was

designed

to

open

doors

to

Taiwan.

Important

military

figures

of

the

war were

thus

returned

from

oblivion.19

Another

series

appeared

under the

general

title

"Yuan

Guomindang

jiangling

kangRi

zhanzheng

qin

liji" (MaK^^SB^f^ffii?,

"The

personal

historical

accounts

of

former

Kuomintang military

commanders").

These

works

covered

virtually

all the

key

battles

of the

war.

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 the

war

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 the

Major

Battles

of

theWar

of

Resistance Period on the

Kuomintang

Main

Battle

Fronts)

(Chengdu:

Sichuan

renmin

chubanshe,

1985).

18

Zhang

Xianwen

et

al

(eds.),

KangRi

zhanzheng

de

zhengmian

zhanchang

{The

Main

Battle

Fronts

of

the

Anti-Japanese

War

of

Resistance)

(Zhengzhou:

Henan renmin

chubanshe,

1987);

The Number Two

Historical

Archives

of

China

(ed.),

KangRi

zhanzheng

zhengmian

zhanchang

{The

Second

Sino-Japanese

War,

Regular

Warfare

at

the

Front),

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 of

High

Ranking Military

Leaders

of

the

Republic),

1

vols.

(Beijing: Jiefang

jun

chubanshe,

1988),

Vol.

1,

p.

1.







China's

New

Remembering"

f

the

Anti-Japanese

ar

401

of

Shanghai-Wusong

0kM)9

the defence of

Nanjing,

the battle

of

Wuhan and

the

campaign

in

Burma. More

recent

volumes

in

the

series include Hunan

sida

huizhan

iSi^H^C^?fe,

The

Four

Major

Battles

ofHunan)

andMinZheGan

kangzhan

(â?^?rCr^,

The War

of

Resistance

in

Fujian,

Zhejiang

and

Jiangxi).

These

volumes often

presented

the

writings

of

Kuomintang

commanders

who

had been

non-persons

in

Maoist

China.

The

volume

on

Hunan,

published

in

1995,

gave

extensive

coverage

to

the

second

battle for

Changsha,

fought

from

September

to

October

1941.

The

selections included

a

three-page

account

by

General Xue Yue

(SP-Sj),

commander

of

the

Ninth Area

Army

and

generally

regarded

as one

of

China's better commanders. Since

Xue Yue

had

left for

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

the details

of

major

battles

of

the

war

such

as

the

fight

at

Shanghai-Wusong

or

the defence

ofWuhan

-

something

not

easily

done

in

China in

1980.20

Although

sometimes

praising

KMT

efforts,

these

volumes,

and indeed

virtually

all of

this

new

scholarship,

still advocated the

basic

primacy

of

CCP

leadership

in

the

war.

The

preface

to

the

volume

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

the

war

had

led

to

the decline of

Chiang

Kai-shek and

the

expansion

of the

Chinese

Communist

Party;

one

key

achievement

of

the

war was

hastening

of

the

victory

of Chinese

socialism.22

Kuomintang

contributions

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

the

National

People's

Consultative

Congress

(ed.),

Hunan

sida

huizhan

{The

Four

Major

Battles

of Hunan)

(Beijing:

Zhongguo

wenshi

chubanshe,

1995),

pp.

108-10. See also

The

Compiling

and Editorial

Group,

for the

"Battle of

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)

(Beijing: Zhongguo

wenshi

chubanshe,

1985);

and in the

same

series

Ba

yisan

SongHu

kangzhan

{The

13

August

Battle

of

Resistance

of Shanghai

and

Wusong)

(Beijing: Zhongguo

wenshi

chubanshe,

1987);

Qiqi

shibian

{The

Marco 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 ofWuhan) (Bejing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1989); Yuanzheng

YinMian

kangzhan

{The

Burma-India

Expeditionary

Force in theWar

of

Resistance)

(Beijing: Zhongguo

wenshi

chubanshe,

1990);

and MinZheGan

kangzhan

{The

War

of

Resistance in

Fujian,

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

Memoirs

of

Former

Kuomintang

Commanders

during

theWar

of

Resistance

Period),

edited

by

Wen Wen

and

published by

Zhongguo

wenshi chubanshe.

21

Zhongguo

renmin

zhengzhi

xieshang huiyi,

The Battle

of

Xuzhou,

p.

1.

22

Liu

Danian,

"KangRi

zhanzheng

yu

Zhongguo

lishi"

("The

anti-Japanese

war

of resistance and

China's

history"),

Jindai shi

yanjiu,

No.

5

(1987),

pp.

1-28.







402

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

pp.

394-410

In

1991

a

new,

specialized journal,

KangRi

zhanzheng yanjiu

(Jtl

?fi#*5ff

,

The

Journal

of

Studies

of

China's

Resistance War

Against Japan),

appeared

in

Beijing

affiliated with the modern

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

Yuesheng

(tt^^?)

in

the

National Salvation

Movement

in

Shanghai.

In

Mao's

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

and 1937 battles in Shanghai can now be "remembered."23

Reasons

for

the "New

Remembering"

From

the

mid-1980s until

the

mid-1990s,

the

anti-Japanese

war

of

resistance,

particularly

the role

of

the

Kuomintang

forces,

went

from

being virtually

invisible

to

the

subject

of extensive

publication,

first

in

academic circles and

then

in

popular

culture,

rendering

the

legacy

of

the

war an

active

memory

in

today's

China.

But

why

did

the

war

emerge

as a

topic

in

this

way?

Why

did

the

Maoist

line,which emphasized only the leadership of the CCP, not continue to hold

sway?

What

were

the

major

factors which

permitted

the "new

remembering?"

One

obvious

reason was

the

general

revival of academic life

and

publishing

activity following

the end

of

the Cultural Revolution and

beginning

of

the

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

into

an

agreement

of unification. The

figure

of

Chiang

Kai-shek,

who

had been

so reviled

during

theMaoist

years,

suddenly emerged

as a

patriotic

leader,

and

military figures

on

Taiwan

found their wartime actions

being praised.

(Ironically,

this

appeal

to

the

Kuomintang

occurred

just

as

the

party

began

to

loose

its

grip

on

the

island.) Beijing

stressed

the second united front

as

key

to

China's

strong

stand

against

Japan.

The tie

to current

policy

was

explicitly

made in

one

of

the earliest

articles

following

a

new

line

on

the

war.

In

a

1983

issue of

Jindai

shi

yanjiu,

He

Li

(?RfiS)

published

"KangRi

zhanzheng

shiqi

de

GuoGong

liangdang

guanxi"

(JrC

??#*

RiffiWH?WjE^^,

"The

relationship

between the

Kuomintang

and Chinese

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

403

1983,

to

Chiang Ching-kuo

(#lnlS),

son

of

Chiang

Kai-shek and then leader of

Taiwan. Liao

was a

member

of the Central

Committee

of the Chinese

Communist

Party

and head

of the Overseas

Chinese

Office.24

The link

between

the academic article and Taiwan

policy

could

not

have been

clearer.

Similarly,

the 1985 volume

published

by

Sichuan

People's

Press

(referred

to

above),

carried

a

brief

preface

by

Marshal

Nie

Rongzhen (?^ ?),

then

a

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

fatherland. "This would be the best commemoration of the anti-Japanese war of

resistance,"

Nie

concluded.25

The

most

important

factor

in the "new

remembering"

of the

war,

however,

has

been the

increasing emphasis

on

nationalism

in

China. With

the

waning

appeal

of

communist

ideology

in the

reform

movement,

Beijing

has

sought

new

ways

of

creating

support

for

its

rule

over

China.

Appeals

to

patriotism

have

become

increasingly

significant.

As Paul

Cohen

has

written,

"in

the aftermath of

1989

there

was a

felt,

if

unstated,

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

Cohen,

"was

nationalism,

to

be inculcated via

a

multifaceted

program

of

patriotic

education."26

The

new

remembering

of

the

war

has

been

a

centrepiece

in

contemporary

nationalism.

Policy

considerations

-

the

emphasis

on

nationalism and the

opening

to

Taiwan

-

have hence been

very

important.

In

the

production

of

knowledge

about the

war

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 to the

global

defeat of fascism is dominant inmany

publications.

Issues

running

counter to

this

are

often

ignored.

Emphasis

on

China's

Victimization

Ironically,

a

parallel

theme

in

the

new

writing

on

the

war

is

China's

victimization,

particularly

coverage

of

Japanese

atrocities

in

China.

This

emphasis

in

part

derives from

the

nature

of

the

nationalist discourse

in

contemporary

China. As

Suisheng

Zhao has observed in

A

Nation-State

by

Construction:

Dynamics

of

Modern Chinese

Nationalism,

a

sense

of

victimhood

is

24 He

Li,

"KangRi zhanzheng shiqi

de

GuoGong liangdang guanxi"

("The

relationship

between the

Kuomintang

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

the

Major

Battles

of

the

War,

pp.

1-2.

26 Paul A.

Cohen,

China

Unbound:

Evolving

Perspectives

on

the

Chinese

Past

(London: RoutledgeCurzon,

2003),

p.

167;

see

also, Gries,

China's

New

Nationalism,

pp.

69-85; Mitter,

"Old

ghosts,

new

memories,"

p.

121.







404

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

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

a

victim

of

Japanese aggression

and

today's

Chinese

must not

forget

That

theme

runs

through

much of the

new

remembering.

Even works

that

might

seem

to

be

purely

academic

are

often

packaged

within this

framework.

For

instance,

in 1999 Fudan

University published

a

multi-volume

setKangzhan shilu (?rCafe^^:, A True Record of theWar ofResistance). Part one,

in

three

volumes,

was

entitled

Weiguo

xueshi

(ZESlfiLjtl,

The

Bloody

History

of

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

coverage

and other

accounts

of the

war

which

appeared

in

contemporary

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

it

was

discussed

at

the

time.

Yet

the

entire

editing

process

is formatted

to

portray

the

contemporary

nationalist perspective. The volumes include the heading "Buying wangque de

lishi"

^jSSiPOtJ?jifc,

"The

history

hat

must not

be

forgotten")

nd

chapters

are

organized

around

themes

that

emphasize patriotic

resistance and

Japanese

aggression.

Coverage

of

Japanese

atrocities,

particularly

the

Rape

of

Nanjing,

now

often

resembles

a

"numbers

game,"

in which

the

goal

seems

to

be

to

maximize the

number of

victims,

in

contrast to

theMaoist

years

when Chinese

suffering

was

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

Indeed Chinese

leader

Jiang

Zemin

raised

all

the

figures

in

the "numbers

game."

In

a

speech

on

3

September

1995,

celebrating

the 50th

anniversary

of

victory,

Jiang

noted:

According

to

incomplete

estimates,

under the butcher's

knife

of the

Japanese

invasion,

the

number

of

Chinese killed

or

injured

was

35

million.

In

the

Nanjing

massacre

itself

more

than

300,000

died. From south

of

theGreat

Wall,

more

than

two

million

were

lured

27

Suisheng

Zhao,

A

Nation-State

by

Construction:

Dynamics of

Modern

Chinese

Nationalism

(Stanford:

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

the

War

of

Resistance,

Part

2)

(Shanghai:

Fudan daxue

chubanshe,

1999).

29

Gries,

China's

New

Nationalism,

p.

80.







China's "New

Remembering"

of the

Anti-Japanese

War

405

into

exploitative

labour in thenorth-east and died.

Beyond

this there

re

still

people

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,

most

cruel

pages.30

Jiang

himself

sets

the "numbers"

at

very

high

levels,

leaving

it

to

Chinese

scholars

to

produce

the

evidence.

Jiang

Zemin

made

the

legacy

of

the

war

part

of

his

political agenda.

Most

famously

in

his

November

1998

visit

to

Tokyo,

he

made

a

Japanese

apology

for

wartime

actions

a

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

war

resurfaced

as an

issue

in the

mid-1980s.

While

the sheer

volume

of

the

material

prohibits

a

detailed

discussion,

examples

of

this

type

of

work include

Ribendiguozhuyi inHuadangan ziliaoxuanbian I3^^l5?iJîJI^05fel5$4

J?p?,

A

Selection

of

Archival

Materials

on

the

Invasion

of

China

by Japanese

Imperialism),

a

17-volume

collection

compiled

by

the

Central

Archives,

the

Number

Two

Historical

Archives in

Nanjing,

and the

Academy

of Social

Sciences

for

Jilin

province.

The

archives of

Liaoning

province produced

a

15

volume

set

of documents

in

facsimile form entitled Riben

qinHua

zuixing

dang

an

xinji

(B^fi^??TO^S?^,

A

New

Archival

Collection

of

Japan

s

Crimes

in

Invading China).

The Number

Two

Historical

Archives and the

Nanjing City

Archives combined

to

produce QinHua Rijun Nanjing

da tusha

dang

an

(ig4?

g

W-J^M^f?M, Archives on the Japans Military's Nanjing Massacre in its

Invasion

of

China)?2

The

effort

is aimed

at

producing

a

large

quantity

of archival

material

to

counter

claims

by

those

Japanese

who seek

to

minimize

wartime

atrocities.

These

academic

publications

have been

joined

by

a

vast

quantity

of

popular

treatments,

often

including

lurid

photographs

and

sometimes

even

cartoons.

While the

Rape

of

Nanjing

has

produced

the

greatest

volume of this

material,

archives

throughout

China

have been

active,

particularly

in

Sichuan,

Beijing,

Nanjing

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,

the

Number 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,

1999);

The

Number

Two Historical Archives of

China,

the

Archives of

Nanjing City (ed.),

QinHua

Rijun

Nanjing

da

tusha

dang

an

(Nanjing: Jiangsu

gujie

chubanshe,

1987).







406

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

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?

S,

The

True

Record

of

Japan

s

Crimes

in

Invading

China

-

A

Selection

from

the

Archives

of

Crimes

by

the

Enemy

in

the

Hebei,

Beiping, Tianjin

Area).

Most

are

very

brief

legal

documents

which

are

meant

to

convey

by

sheer

force

of number

the

magnitude

of

Japanese

war

crimes.

Case

141,

for

instance,

is

the

killing

of

Wang

San

(??).

The

victim is listed

as

male, age 60, ofDongguan (s?^) village; occupation, farmer. The date of the

killing

was

17

September

1937.

Japanese

troops

came

to

the

village, grabbed

Wang

San and

bayoneted

him

to

death. Verification

came

from

Zhang

Shuting

(?rl?W"'?),

male,

age

38,

of

Dongguan village.

The

investigator

was

a

policeman

from the

Dongguan village police.

The

report

was

filed

on

11

March 1946. Case

142

lists the

victim

as

Ma Wen

(^3t),

age

27,

occupation,

rice

merchant.

The

crime

occurred

on

20

September

1937;

the victim

was

selling

rice when seized

by

Japanese

troops.

Seeing

that

he

was

young

(of

military

age) they

had him

shot.

Witness,

his

father,

Ma

Kefang (^ jS;^),

age

72,

farmer.

The

investigator

was a

policeman

from

Beiguan (jb^).

The

report

was filed in 1946 but no date is

33

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

human element

is

given.

One

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. Perhaps

the

biggest gap

is the

sparsity

of memoir

literature.

Although

not

totally

absent,

personal

memoirs make

up

only

a

tiny

fraction

of the

new

writing

on

the

war.

This is

particularly

true

if

we

look

beyond

those

who

were

both heroic

and

communist,

such

as

veterans

of

the

New

Fourth

Army

or

Eighth

Route

Army,

individuals whose

remembering

has been

less

problematic.

Memoir

Literature

In nearly all combatant nations in thewar, 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

the

memory

of the

war

in

his

work,

33

The Archives of

Beijing

City

(ed.),

Riben

qinHua

zuixing

shizheng-Hebei,

PingJin

diqu

diren

zuixing

diaochao

dang

an

xuanji

(Beijing:

Renmin

chubanshe,

1995),

Vol.

1,

pp.

281-83.







China's "New

Remembering"

of the

Anti-Japanese

War

407

The

Vichy

Syndrome:

History

and

Memory

inFrance

since

1944.

The bitterness

and division

of

the

war's

legacy

has

lasted for

decades.34

Yet

coping

with

personal

memories

of

the

war

has been

particularly

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

so

many

experienced, personal

documents

were

often

destroyed.

When

a

more

open

environment

developed

in

the

1980s, many

veterans

of

the

war

who

might

have written their

memoirs 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

the

war

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

through

the

prism

of

struggle

sessions,

life histories

and

worries of

the

consequences

of "historical

remembering"?

Much

of

what

appears

to

be

memoir

writing

in

China

was

actually

self

criticism

written

under duress

during

various

anti-rightist

campaigns.

Perhaps

the

major

source

of

personal

accounts

has

been

a

series of

publications

called

Wenshi

ziliao

(X$L*M$\;

Literary

and

Historical

Material)

issued

in

national,

provincial and local series. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, a nationwide

project

had

begun

to

compile

detailed

personal

histories from

pre-1949

China.

Major

figures

in

the

Republican

era

wrote accounts

of their

life

before

Liberation,

while

ordinary

individuals,

such

as

workers,

were

interviewed.

Publication of this material

had

begun

on a

limited

basis

before the Cultural

Revolution when the

process

was

suspended.

Many

of

these

interviews,

particularly

of

those who

worked with

the

Kuomintang

government,

were

undertaken

in

the

context

of

anti-rightist

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

it

was

suspended by

the Cultural Revolution.

In

1981 the series

resumed,

reprinting

earlier issues and then

continuing.

Many

of

the

new

articles

were

actually

based

on

the

interviews

or

personal

histories done

earlier.

Huang

Duowu

(Jt#3?)

wrote

"KangRi zhanzheng zhong

Huanghe

juekou qinli ji"

(?fCB^^^^M^P^JKiB,

"A

personal

account

of the

breaking

of the dikes

on

the

Yellow

River

during

the

war

of

resistance"),

which

dealt

with

the

decision

by

Chiang

Kai-shek

in

1938

to

break the

dikes

in

the

hope

of

slowing

the

Japanese

advance.

As

the

water

poured

over

the

countryside,

one

to two

million

Chinese

died

and

many

more

lost

property.

34

Henry

Rousso,

The

Vichy

Syndrome: History

and

Memory

in

France

since

1944

(Cambridge,

MA:

Harvard

University

Press,

1991).







408

The

China

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

pp.

394-410

The

author,

who

was

chief of staff for the

Kuomintang'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

under martial law. The

People's

Republic

and Taiwan

had

virtually

come

to

blows

over

Quemoy

(?^?l)

and

Matsu

(^ffi).

Therefore

Huang

cannot

"remember" any possible patriotic motives by Chiang. In more recent years,

however,

mainland

scholars

have

been

more

nuanced

in

examining Chiang's

motives,

suggesting

it

was a

valid

strategy

to

slow down

the

Japanese

forces,

even

though

it

resulted

in

serious

losses.36

In the

same

issue of the

Jiangsu journal

Chen

Qibo

((^Hf?)

discussed

the

history

of

the

Liang

Hongzhi

(^??|Je)

"reform

regime,"

a

puppet-type

of

government

established

early

in the

war.

The

author admits

to

being

an

associate

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 regimewhich the Japanese created inNanjing under

Wang

Jingwei

(ffiH?t?).

Tian admits

to

being

Chu's

secretary

and

to

talking

daily

to

him.

Chu

had been executed

in

August

1946.38

These

articles

appear

to

be

memoirs

but

are

in

fact confessions

by

individuals who

were

clearly

considered

"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 time

was

running

out

if

they

wish

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

the

memoirs

shortly

before

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

35

Huang

Duowu,

"KangRi

zhanzheng

zhong

Huanghe

juekou

qin liji"

("A

personal

account of the

breaking of the dikes on theYellow River during thewar of resistance"), Jiangsu wenshi ziliao xuanji

{Selections of

historical

and

literary

material

of

Jiangsu province),

No.

2

(1963),

reprinted

1981,

pp.

75

83.

36 The author

thanks

Stephen

MacKinnon

for this

information.

See

also Diana

Lary,

"Drowned earth:

the

strategic

breaching

of

theYellow River

Dyke,

1938,"

War

in

History,

Vol.

8,

No.

2

(April

2001),

pp.

191-207.

37 Chen

Qibo,

"Liang

Hongzhi

yu

wei weixin

zhengfu" ("Liang

Hongzhi

and the

puppet

reform

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

the

Wang

puppet

regime"),

Jiangsu

wenshi ziliao

xuanji,

No.

3

(1981),

pp.

83-93.







China's

"New

Remembering"

of the

Anti-Japanese

War

409

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

the

work

reflects the

accepted

view

of

the

war

as

of

the

early

1980s.39

Since the

mid-1980s,

the various anniversaries

surrounding

the

war

have

provided

occasion for

publications

of

collected memoirs.

On

the

40th

anniversary

of

victory

over

Japan,

for

instance,

a

wide

range

of

Communist

Party

officials

wrote two to

three

page

vignettes

about

their

war

experiences,

a

type

of

writing

common

in

the

West

and

Japan

but

unusual

in

China

at

that

point.40

The

same

anniversary

inspired

memoirs

by

nine

authors who

had served

in theFifth Division of theNew Fourth Army, one of the twomajor communist

forces

during

the

war.41

Another

outpouring

of this

type

of

publication

occurred

with

the

50th

anniversary

of

victory

when

the

scope

of

permitted

topics

had

widened. One

interesting

volume Jizhe bixia de

kangRi

zhangzheng (i?#^T

W

?jtBr4E#-,

Reporters'

Writing

in

the

War

of

Resistance)

was

published

in

Beijing

in

1995

following

a

reunion

of

a

number

of

reporters

who had

covered

the

war.42

Despite

these

and other

publications,

memoir

writing

in China

remains

a

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 thenew

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

of

War:

The

Impact

ofWarfare

on

Modern

China,

Diana

Lary

and

Stephen

MacKinnon

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

advance

in

the

study

of

history

in

modern

China. Yet it has

been

a

selected

memory.

It is the

story

of

resistance,

"the

patriotic

nationalist

narrative,"

and

of

atrocity,

"the

numbers

game."

Writing

on

the

war

remains constrained

by

political

policy

and

by

popular

nationalist

sentiment.

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

the

New 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

on

Modern China

(Vancouver:

University

of

British Columbia

Press,

2001),

p.

14.







410

TheChina

Quarterly,

90,

June

007,

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 for

covering

the

war:

The

Chinese

war

of

resistance

was

an

important

part

of

the

world anti-fascist

war.

China's

long

war

of

resistance,

especially

theCCP's

leading

of resistance behind

enemy

lines,

striking

and

pinning

down

two out

of three

Japanese

army

troops

was

key

...

Comrades,

friends: the

anti-Japanese

war

of resistance

was

a

war

of

national

liberation;

thefirst

time in

China's

modern

history

when China resisted

enemy

invasion and

won a

complete

victory

...

It washed

away

100

years

of humiliation. The

obtaining

of

victory

hasmany deep historical factorsbut themost fundamentalone was that theCCP climbed

on

the historical

stage.44

The

range

has broadened

but

the

formula remains.

By

contrast,

Hans

Van de

Ven,

one

of

the

leading

Western

scholars

on

the

war,

has

argued:

It

seems

to

me

that

it

is

as

right

to

say

that the

War

ofResistance unmade China

as

that it

made China.

As

an

agricultural

but commerialised

society,

the Chinese

economy

depended

on

the maintenance

of domestic and international trade

links,

regional

specialisation,

local and

regional

marketing

networks,

flourishing

urban

centres,

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

in

China.

The

gap

between these

two

viewpoints

suggests

that for

all of

the

rediscovery

of

war

in

China,

much remains

to

be done

before

we

have

a

full

understanding

of this

crucial

era.

44

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

Live the

Victory

of

the

People's

War,

p.

1.

45

Hans

J.

van

de

Ven,

War

and Nationalism

in

China,

1925-1945

(London:

RoutledgeCurzon,

2003),

p.

296.

Documents

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