Xinhua

 

This year is the 100th anniversary of World War I and the 75th anni­versary of World War II, two events that left incomparable scars on the world. On July 26, the international academic symposium titled "World War I and World War II in Retro­spect: Lessons and Inspirations" was convened in Beijing, co-hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and the Academy of Military Sciences of the Chinese People's Lib­eration Army (PLA). The symposium drew more than 200 scholars from China, Russia, France, the United States, Japan, Sierra Leone and other countries.

 

Deputy Director of the State Council Information Office of China Cui Yuying, Vice-President of CASS Li Peilin and Vice-President of the Academy of Military Sciences of PLA He Lei attended and addressed the symposium.

 

Wu Yin, the former vice-president of CASS, Qu Aiguo, director of the Department of Military History and Encyclopedic Information Re­search at the Academy of Military Sciences of PLA, and Professor Lyubodrage·Dimić from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts deliv­ered the keynote speech.

 

Contention for hegemony, root cause of wars

"The lessons taught by the two World Wars are harsh but profound," Vice President of CASS Li Peilin re­marked. Li said all nations must real­ize that the root cause of the conflicts was the extended rule of an unfair and unreasonable international sys­tem that was born of the imperialist countries' desire for colonial expan­sion and contention for hegemony.

 

Professor Nakayama from the Toshio Clausewitz society of Japan, echoed Li's sentiments, saying that the imbalance of capitalist develop­ment gave rise to rivalries and alli­ances between imperialist powers, prompting the outbreak of the two World Wars.

 

Nicholas Spencer, from Sierra Leone University, said that interna­tional relations should not rely on wars as a means of conflict resolu­tion because the expense is huge for the defeated country as well as the victors.

 

Right-wing in Japan continues denying history

Kurosawa Fumitaka from the Tokyo Women's Christian University compared today's Japan with the nation as it was in the era between the two World Wars. As to what the social order should be like, there is a lack of consensus among Japanese politicians, intellectuals and citizens. This incoherent view enables the distortion of history by right-wing forces. Right-wing forces not only continue to deny Japan's history of belligerence, but also sound an alarm about the so-called China threat. Since the start of 2014, Shinzou Abe has made multiple statements that history is repeating itself, alluding China like Germany which defied the Vienna System prior to World War I.

 

It is a "perversion of the truth", said Lü Jie, a professor from the Army Academy of the PLA. Throughout the modern world history, Japan had always been the place where Asian wars have originated. With Abe’s return to power, its ambitions are growing once again, Lü said.

 

"What Abe is doing is propelling Japan onto the track of damaging national peace, which clearly goes against the social tides of justice," Nakayama added.

 

China as a mainstay of anti-fascist forces

"We gather here to study and re­flect on the World Wars for the pur­pose of preventing the recurrence of wars and safeguarding world peace," said Zhang Shunhong, director of the Institute of World History at CASS.

 

China was one of the major anti-fascist forces during World War II. Chi­nese battlefields, as one of the major fronts of the anti-fascist war, helped con­tained two-thirds of the Japanese army. The anti-Japanese war started in as early as the year 1937 and lasted eight years. During this period, 35 million people lost their lives in ad­dition to the countless wounded. Given such a complex international context, Li Peilin recommended each country should seek to establish a fair and justified international order and actively participate in global governance in conformity with the principle of equal sovereignty, com­mon security and mutual inclusive­ness.

 

Nakayama expressed his confi­dence in China, who persues world peace by following the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. He said it is impossible for China to trigger world wars like what Germany or Japan did in the past.

 

An associate research fellow from the Academy of Military Sciences of PLA said China’s proposal of the new security concept and a new type of relations between great powers shows the foresight of Chinese lead­ers, who have reexamined the two World Wars with great profundity. "If such concepts, which are in line with the evolutionary law of human civi­lization and the world trends, could gain more recognition from other countries, we will live in a world that is definitely more peaceful and secure," he said.

 

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 626, July 28, 2014  

The Chinese link is:

http://www.cssn.cn/sjs/sjs_xsdt/201407/t20140728_1269391.shtml                                             

Translated by Bai Le