July 15, 2005

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My enemy's enemy

While the Magic Dragon continues to huff and puff over Japanese textbooks and their historical revisionism, the CCP is playing the same game. In the newest version of China's official (as compared to real) history of World War 2, the CCP have revised their claim the Nationalists did not fight the Japanese.

The Communist Party, whose legitimacy rests in a large part on its assertion that it fought and won the 1937-45 war against Japan, has stopped accusing the Nationalists, or Kuomintang (KMT), of being "passive" and reluctant to take on the Japanese imperial army...

The Communists issued a circular in May, acknowledging that the "entire nation" defeated Japan, departing from past propaganda...

But the Communists are not about to give full credit to the KMT, who lost the Chinese civil war in 1949 and fled to Taiwan where they ruled for more than five decades until losing the presidential elections in 2000. The Communists still insist they were "the firm rock in midstream which united the people in resistance", the official Xinhua news agency quoted the circular as saying.

Why the historic shift (in all senses of the word)? It's part of the CCP's ongoing rapprochement with the KMT. After all, at least the KMT aren't the DPP and pro-independece. The new version of history is being actively pushed in China, with books, documentaries and even a museum discussing the KMT role.

Unfortunately for the CCP, many historians contend the KMT did most of the fighting against the Japanese, and Mao's CCP took advantage of a weakened KMT to oust them once the fight of the Japanese was completed.

Don't expect to see that in your Chinese bookshops anytime soon.

posted by Simon on 07.15.05 at 10:00 AM in the




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Comments:

Putting up statues for Chiang Kai Shek? That's the funniest thing i've seen all week. While the KMT are busy trying to forget about Chiang (while deifying his son), the CCP are honouring him. I'd love to see the reaction in Taiwan if the KMT proposed putting up a(nother) statue to CKS ...

posted by: David on 07.15.05 at 10:51 AM [permalink]

These are strange times, David.

posted by: Simon on 07.15.05 at 03:17 PM [permalink]

He who controls the past controls the future. The big brother knows it too well.

posted by: dc on 07.15.05 at 06:10 PM [permalink]




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