An art installation honoring the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War at the Fengtai District Archive in Beijing Photo: IC PHOTO

“If we wish to understand the role of China in today’s global society, we would do well to remind ourselves of the tragic, titanic struggle which that country waged in the 1930s and 1940s not just for its own national dignity and survival, but for the victory of all the Allies, west and east, against some of the darkest forces history has ever produced.” So wrote Rana Mitter, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School, in his 2013 book Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937-1945, a work that helped reintroduce China’s wartime experience to global readers.

July 7 marks the 88th anniversary of the outbreak of China’s full-scale resistance against Japanese aggression. At this moment of reflection, scholars concur that it is particularly meaningful to revisit the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and its place as the principal Eastern front in the global fight against fascism.

Critical role of China in WWII 

On September 18, 1931, Japan engineered the September 18 Incident, initiating its long-planned war of aggression against China. This marked the beginning of China’s resistance, and also the opening salvo of what would become the World Anti-Fascist War. On July 7, 1937, Japan provoked the Lugou Bridge Incident, which signaled the start of its full-scale invasion, igniting China’s whole-nation resistance and establishing the world’s first major battlefield in the anti-fascist struggle: the Eastern theater.

“Modern China was poor and underdeveloped, lacking modern weaponry, and thus unable to conduct large-scale warfare like world powers,” noted Hu Dekun, a senior professor of the humanities at Wuhan University. “The Communist Party of China (CPC) led the battlefield behind enemy lines, mobilizing the entire nation for a protracted resistance through guerrilla warfare, effectively countering the Japanese forces.”

“During the resistance, China consistently fought against the main forces of Japan’s army and part of its navy, making the region the undisputed Eastern front of the World Anti-Fascist War. The Chinese battlefield was the first to emerge, the one that endured the longest, and ultimately, the one that secured victory in the Eastern theater,” Hu emphasized.

This contribution was not lost on contemporaries. Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked that without China, or if China had been defeated, many more Japanese divisions would have been deployed to other areas and they would have been able to occupy Australia and India.

Significant contributions to postwar order 

Behind the Eastern front stood the collective sacrifice of the Chinese nation—an unyielding human Great Wall. China’s concrete contributions and immense sacrifice earned widespread international recognition, affirming its status as a major country.

In 1942, China was one of the 26 nations to sign the Declaration by United Nations, receiving the respect and acknowledgment it deserved. In 1945, it sent a delegation—including CPC representative Dong Biwu—to attend the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco and jointly draft the UN Charter. On Oct. 24 that year, the United Nations was formally established, with China assuming its role as a permanent member of the Security Council.

“China’s role as the main Eastern front in the anti-fascist war and one of the four major Allied powers propelled the nation to the center of the world political stage, where it made significant contributions to rebuilding the postwar order. The establishment of the UN-centered international order marked a historic advancement in world history, providing enduring safeguards for global peace and development while profoundly shaping the course of modern and contemporary world history,” Hu remarked.

Shift in Western understanding

In recent years, as China’s global influence has grown, international recognition of the Eastern front and its historical significance has expanded. Richard Overy, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and renowned British historian of WWII, observed that the past quarter-century has seen a profound shift in Western perceptions of China’s role in the global war.

Zhang Shiwei, a professor of history at Wuhan University, has spent decades researching wartime narratives. Drawing on his long-term studies, he noted that historical accounts in the United States and the United Kingdom are evolving—from narrow national perspectives to more global frameworks. In this transition, portrayals of China’s resistance are also changing. The international community is increasingly viewing China’s contribution with greater objectivity and is more willing to acknowledge the centrality of the Chinese theater as the main Eastern front in WWII.

For example, British military historian Andrew Roberts underscored in 2009 that since September 1931, Japan had been waging a brutal war of aggression against China. Throughout the war, China tied down approximately half of Japan’s combat forces. As a major front, China kept Japan mired in a prolonged war—a highly significant contribution to the Allied victory.

In 2022, American scholar Kristin Mulready-Stone affirmed that if not for the Chinese army’s fierce resistance to Japan’s frenzied offensives, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union would not have been able to sustain their strategic focus on the European theater long enough to secure victory.

These perspectives collectively reflect a profound shift in Western academia’s understanding of China’s role and WWII historiography. According to Zhang, this shift can be summarized in three dimensions: first, a recognition of China’s resistance as the starting point of WWII; second, a growing consensus that the Chinese theater held greater strategic importance than the Pacific front; and third, a clearer acknowledgment of China’s vital contribution to the global victory against fascism.

“The transformation in Western academia has been driven by multiple factors,” Zhang explained. As China’s influence on the global stage has grown, Western scholars have increasingly revisited its role in WWII to better understand its place and behavior within the international order—prompting more expansive studies of China’s wartime experience. At the same time, academic communities in both China and the West have embraced a more open and inclusive approach to researching the war, enabling deeper and more nuanced international scholarship on China’s resistance efforts.

Edited by CHEN MIRONG