The Chinese people’s victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression is widely believed to have been a turning point in the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. This has manifested in many ways. One is that the war awakened the self-awareness of the Chinese nation. And the idea that the Chinese nation is a united community of all Chinese ethnic groups was finally established and recognized during the war.

This perspective on the self-awareness of the Chinese nation is rarely spoken of. In my opinion, however, this self-awareness represents the very foundation of this crucial turning point.

The Chinese nation was formed very early but had weak self-awareness. As Chinese ethnologist Fei Xiaotong said, the Chinese nation in ancient times was a self-being rather than a self-conscious entity. The expression “Chinese nation” was first put forward in Liang Qichao’s article “The General Development of Chinese Academic Thought” in 1902. However, it was after the September 18 Incident in 1931 and the Incident on July 7, 1937 in particular that this expression was recognized and shared by all ethnic groups.
 

The War of Resistance against Japan forged a melting pot, through which people of all ethnic groups were unprecedentedly united. The sense of national identity and belonging—all ethnic groups share weal and woe, life and death, and a common fate—had never been so strong.
 

The fundamental cause of the victory in the war lies in the unparalleled solidarity among China’s various groups. At that time, the Kuomintang (KMT), the Communist Party of China (CPC) and other middle parties, all made contributions. Victory would have been impossible without the cooperation and coordination between the frontline battlefield operations led by the KMT and the battlefield behind enemy lines led by the CPC.          

   
One important lesson we should learn from this while striving for the Chinese dream is that the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation requires the mobilization of all positive factors and nationwide union and solidarity.
 

Throughout China’s modern history, and the history of fighting against Japanese invasions in particular, whenever there was disunity and even internal turmoil or civil war, imperialism would attempt to invade and split China, leaving the Chinese nation on the decline. On the contrary, when there was unity among all ethnic groups, classes and parties, the Chinese people would overcome all difficulties and defeat the invaders, getting the nation back on the track of rejuvenation.
 

The victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression has also been attributed to the establishment of the united front in the war. Though conflicts between the KMT and CPC existed within the united front, the two parties did not completely break with one another, and the united front remained until the victory of the war.
 

However, due to the fracturing of the second CPC-KMT cooperative agreement and the breakout of the civil war, the Chinese people failed to reconstruct China after the end of the war and transform the pre-modern traditional state into a modern national state. It was after the founding of the People’s Republic of China that the nation really started to revive. But even today, this lesson is still worth heeding.

 

Zheng Dahua is director of the Department of Intellectual History of the Institute of Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.