Zhang Sheng: Establishing the Historical Narrative of the Eastern Main Battlefield is a Matter of Great Urgency [1]
"To destroy a nation, one must first annihilate its history." [1] The importance of historical narrative has long been emphasized by politicians and historians alike, and the Western world is particularly adept at this endeavor. Herodotus, hailed as the Western "Father of History," used The Histories to shape a victory of democratic, humanistic, and self-respecting Greeks over autocratic, ignorant, and brutal Persians. This became the archetypal text for the "Orientalist" historical narrative, revered by generations of Western historians. The prevailing influence of this tradition reached the modern era, even affecting the narrative methods regarding the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
On December 7, 1941, Japan—deeply mired in its war of aggression against China—decided to take a desperate risk. Attempting to resolve the so-called "China Incident" by expanding the war, it launched a sneak attack on the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor and advanced into various parts of Southeast Asia. The Japanese military successively occupied Malaya, the Philippines, and Singapore; British and American forces fled at the mere sight of the enemy [2] or surrendered in succession. Faced with the raging flames of Japanese aggression, China—which had already resisted the Japanese invaders single-handedly for ten years—disregarded its own difficulties to support its allies in distress. Not only did Chinese forces crush the 11th Army under Yasuji Okamura (Anami Korechika) at the gates of Changsha, but they also organized the Chinese Expeditionary Force to venture deep into Burma (Myanmar) to rescue the retreating British army.
In March 1942, Joseph Stilwell issued the "Operational Orders for the Chinese Expeditionary Force." The Chinese 5th, 6th, and 66th Armies "slept on their spears awaiting the dawn" [3], eager to rush to the battlefield and save the situation. However, Britain, having colonized Burma for many years, was deeply suspicious of the Chinese military, causing tens of thousands of elite troops to be stranded at the western gateway of Yunnan. It was not "until the enemy occupied Rangoon and approached Toungoo, and the situation became precarious" that the Chinese army was permitted to enter. The Chinese military rescued thousands of besieged British soldiers and civilians in places like Yenangyaung, but the Japanese forces "awaited the exhausted enemy at their leisure" [4], causing heavy casualties to the Chinese side. Meanwhile, the British forces "used the opportunity of the bloody battles fought by the 5th and 6th Armies to cover their own secret retreat." Though caught in a dilemma, the Chinese military still dealt great defeats to the Japanese at Toungoo, Yenangyaung, and Taunggyi before being forced to divert through the Hukawng Valley (Wild Man Mountain). On May 23, Dai Anlan, commander of the 200th Division, was seriously wounded in the battle on the Ximo Road and sacrificed his life shortly thereafter. The Communist Party of China highly commended the patriotic officers and soldiers who laid down their lives. In March 1943, Mao Zedong composed the poem "To General Dai Anlan (General Seagull) for Eternity":
“Foreign insults require men to resist; the General recited the 'Cai Wei' [5] as he went to war. His division was called mechanized; its bravery seized the might of tigers and bears. A bloody defense at Toungoo; driving the Japanese back from Taunggyi. To end one’s life on the battlefield is no betrayal of one’s noble aspirations.”
In 1943, China once again organized an expeditionary force. Together with the Chinese Army in India, which had retreated to India for reorganization and training, they launched a counter-offensive. In the Battle of Imphal, they shattered the Japanese plan to occupy India, subsequently liberating Burma and western Yunnan alongside British and American allies.
The operations in India, Burma, and western Yunnan constituted the largest internationalized warfare conducted by China during the War of Resistance, serving as a model of Allied coordination in World War II. However, in the writings of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a completely different scene emerges.
In 1948, Churchill began publishing his six-volume The Second World War. While the Chinese military was making enormous sacrifices, Churchill remarked in his memoirs: "The loss of two elite Chinese divisions would not cause as much serious inconvenience as the loss of an air transport squadron." In his writing, the Chinese theater is insignificant, and many historical events with profound impact were deliberately ignored. For instance, from the Lugou Bridge Incident [6] to the Battle of Lake Khasan (Zhanggufeng Incident) and the Battle of Khalkhin Gol (Nomonhan Incident) instigated by the Japanese—all of which were key turning points in East Asian international relations—Churchill only briefly mentioned: "In August 1939... Japan was not only engaged in the war against China which had begun in July 1937, but was also involved in local and Russian hostilities over the boundary between the newly-formed state of Manchukuo and Outer Mongolia." Since Roosevelt, a major political figure of the wartime Allies, had passed away and Stalin left no memoirs, Churchill seized the "discourse power." Winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953, he influenced the Western narrative of WWII history for many years, causing China’s role as the Eastern Main Battlefield of World War II to be artificially "invisible."
Does Churchill’s narrative accord with historical facts? One need only look at how the "involved party" on the India-Burma-Yunnan front—the Japanese military—viewed the Chinese forces. After the war, the War History Office of the Japan Defense Agency compiled The Imperial General Headquarters: Army Division. It covers the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the dispatch of troops to Shandong during WWI, the "Twenty-One Demands," the Washington Conference, and the "Nine-Power Treaty," leading up to the September 18th Incident [7], the North China Incident, the Lugou Bridge Incident, the Pearl Harbor attack, the Pacific War, and the Burma Campaign, until the final surrender. It clearly shows that the Japanese military viewed the Pacific War and the Burma Campaign as a continuation and expansion of the war of aggression against China. As for the Chinese troops in the India-Burma-Yunnan operations, they appear exactly as we know them: fighting bloody battles to defend their home, the nation, world peace, and human civilization. The Imperial General Headquarters: Army Division states: "On the Hukawng front in Northern Burma, the main force of our 18th Division was under powerful pressure from the Chinese New 1st Army commanded by Lieutenant General Stilwell, forcd to retreat to the southern end of the Hukawng Valley; the division's combat capability had reached its minimum limit." Subsequently, the Chinese army launched a surprise attack on Myitkyina, air-dropped troops, and "the Yunnan front could not avoid beginning to collapse." Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi (Satō Kōtoku), commander of the 31st Division, retreated in a panic to avoid total annihilation—an act judged as "insane behavior on a fierce battlefield"—and was relegated to the reserves. Regarding the proposed Imphal operation intended to link India with Central Asia, the Japanese high command was plagued by internal disputes from the start due to the counter-attacks of Chinese and Allied forces; by May 1944, all hope was completely extinguished. It can be said that, just as in other parts of the Chinese theater, the Chinese military’s life-risking and courageous fighting on the India-Burma-Yunnan front left an unforgettable impression on their opponents.
What Churchill spoke of was indeed a "fiction"—aimed at belittling the role and status of the Chinese People's War of Resistance and the Eastern Main Battlefield. Professor Hans van de Ven of the University of Cambridge criticized this blatant "Western-centrism." He noted that the alliance between Britain, the US, and China ensured victory in the war against Japan; yet the cream of the Chinese forces involved in the Burma operations "were used by the British to recover Burma," while China paid the price as the Japanese military opened the "Continental Communication Line" [8] through Chinese territory.
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The July 7th Incident marked the beginning of China's whole-of-nation resistance, thereby opening the Eastern Main Battlefield of the World Anti-Fascist War." This main battlefield "possessed from the very beginning the great significance of saving human civilization and defending world peace." "The Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression started the earliest and lasted the longest; the Chinese theater long pinned down and resisted the main forces of Japanese militarism, playing a decisive role in the total annihilation of the Japanese invaders." On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, establishing our own independent historical narrative of the Eastern Main Battlefield is "an arrow already on the string" [9].
(The author is a professor at the Center for the Study of the History of the Republic of China and the Institute of New Fourth Army History at Nanjing University)
Source: Chinese Social Sciences Net - Chinese Social Sciences Today, July 7, 2025
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